Guantanamo
Posted by admin on Jan 5, 2007
Two new books in the library this month have very different views on the powers of the president and the war on terror. First a book by civil rights attorney Joseph Margulies.
Joseph Margulies. Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2006. KF5060 .M373 2006
From the publisher: After september 11, the Bush administration developed a detention policy unique in our nation’s history. Prisoners have been taken from every corner of the globe, some of them arrested thousands of miles from any battlefield, and shipped to offshore prisons run by the CIA or Department of Defense. Nearly five hundred prisoners are currently held at the Guant·namo Bay Naval Station, in Cuba, some of whom have been in prison for more than four years. Another five hundred are held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
Perhaps as many as two hundred others have been sent to countries with richly deserved reputations for torture, a process known as “extraordinary rendition.” Still more are held at so-called black sites-CIA-run facilities so secret the Administration does not even acknowledge their existence. At these “prisons beyond the law,” the Administration claims the right to hold people indefinitely, incommunicado and in solitary confinement, without charges or access to counsel, and without the benefit of the Geneva Conventions. Worse, the Administration has subjected them to interrogation techniques that Margulies argues are abusive, illegal, and immoral. Weaving together firsthand accounts of military personnel who witnessed the interrogations with the words of the prisoners themselves, Margulies exposes the chilling reality of Guant·namo Bay. He examines the genesis of the detention policy and exposes its consequences, not only for the prisoners who endure the torment of their captors but for the larger “war on terror” that is the centerpiece of the nation’s foreign policy.
Joseph Margulies is a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer and law professor in Chicago.He was the lead attorney in Rasul v. Bush, one of two cases in the Supreme Court that exposed the plight of the Guant·namo prisoners and led to judicial oversight of the prison at Guant·namo Bay. He argues that in creating this detention policy, the president has claimed all the power of a wartime executive but rejected all restraints on the use of that power, including those imposed by other branches of government. The result is an unprecedented, and dangerous, expansion of presidential authority. Guant·namo and the Abuse of Presidential Power examines the arguments on both sides of the issue, but it makes clear that the present policy is a legal and ethical disaster that offers only a false promise of security against terrorism, even as it inflames sentiments against us in the rest of the world, inspiring far more terror than it could ever prevent.
War by Other Means
Posted by admin on Jan 5, 2007
And this book by John Yoo, former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice and law professor at Berkeley.
John Yoo. War by Other Means: An Insider’s Account of the War on Terror. New York, Atlantic Monthly, 2006. HV6432 .Y66 2006
From the publisher: On September 11, 2001, while America reeled from the day’s cataclysmic events, and the majority of Official Washington, D.C. – including most of the Justice Department – evacuated, John Yoo and a skeletal staff of the Office of Legal Counsel stayed behind. They quickly found themselves on the phone with the White House. The attacks called for a response, but the president’s legal authority to act was unclear. Were we at war?
In answering that question and others in the following months, Yoo had an almost unmatched impact on the fight against al Qaeda. His analysis led to many of the Bush administration’s most controversial policies: detention at Guantanamo Bay, coercive interrogation, military trials, the NSA’s wiretapping program, the Patriot Act, and the decision that the Geneva Conventions are irrelevant for “illegal enemy combatants.”
In War by Other Means, you offers an insider accounts of the personalities, on-the-ground facts, and legal basis behind these decisions Through specific cases, from John Walker Lindh and Zacarias Moussaoui, to an American al Qaeda leader killed by a CIA pilotless drone in the deserts of Yemen, Yoo sweeps aside partisan bickering, answers his and the Bush administration’s critics, and clarifies how and why we fight. War by Other Means is a captivating, brilliant, and accessible book, a must read for anyone concerned about the War on Terror.
Linguistics in the Courtroom
Posted by admin on Jan 5, 2007
Roger W. Shuy. Linguistics in the Courtroom: A Practical Guide. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. KF8968.54 .S483 2006
From the publisher: This is a practical guide for both beginning and established linguists who have been asked by lawyers to address the language issues in their civil and criminal cases. Author Roger W. Shuy deals with issues of how to become an expert, how to start and manage a practice of consulting on law cases, how to address the issue of professional ethics, how to work with lawyers, write reports, affidavits, and participate successfully in depositions, direct examination, and cross examination at trial. The book also suggests ways that linguists can use their forensic linguistic experiences in their publications and classroom teaching, along with suggestions of recent books that forensic linguists may need for their personal libraries.
Not a Suicide Pact
Posted by admin on Jan 5, 2007
Richard A. Posner. Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. KF4749 .P67 2006
From the publisher: Eavesdropping on the phone calls of U.S. citizens; demands by the FBI for records of library borrowings; establishment of military tribunals to try suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens – many of the measures taken by the Bush administration since 9/11 have sparked heated protests. In Not a Suicide Pact, Judge Richard A. Posner offers a cogent response to these protests, arguing that personal liberty must be balanced with public safety in the face of grave national danger.