The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America's Freedoms

By Louis Fisher

Book Overview

The announced purpose of U.S. antiterrorist policies after 9/11 was to bring democracy and the rule of law to the Middle East. At home, those values were regularly threatened by illegal, unconstitutional, secret, and unaccountable programs. The Bush administration claimed that terrorists hate America for its freedoms, yet its actions jeopardized those freedoms and brought the reputation of the United States lower in the eyes of the world.

Government surveillance. Suspension of habeas corpus. Secret tribunals. Most Americans would recognize these controversial topics from today's headlines. Unfortunately, as Louis Fisher reminds us, such violations of freedom have been with us throughout our history-and continue to threaten the Constitution and the rights that it protects.

Distilling more than two centuries of history into a panoramic and compelling narrative, Fisher chronicles the long-standing tension between protecting our constitutional rights and safeguarding national security, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the McCarthy hearings to George W. Bush's "War on Terror." Along the way, he raises crucial questions regarding our democracy's ongoing tug-of-war between secrecy and transparency, between expediency and morality, and between legal double-talk and the true rule of law.

Fisher focuses especially on how the Bush administration's responses to 9/11 have damaged our constitutional culture and values, threatened individual liberties, and challenged the essential nature of our government's system of checks and balances. His close analysis of five topics--the resurrection of military tribunals, the Guantnamo detainees, the state secrets privilege, NSA surveillance, and extraordinary rendition-places into sharp relief the gradual but relentless erosion of fundamental rights along with an enormous expansion and concentration of presidential power in the post-9/11 era.

For Fisher, the Constitution's strength as a guarantor of freedom and rights is only as sound and reliable as our own commitment to the values it describes. Each generation of Americans is asked in essence: do you want a republic or a monarchy? Benjamin Franklin, of course, famously responded: "A republic, if you can keep it." Fisher's book reminds us of the political principles we need to rediscover to keep our nation free.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700616012
• ISBN13: 9780700616015
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 410 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A great book about liberties lost and how the Constitution has been shredded. Fisher is the top in

A must read. Louis Fisher is mentioned by Ron Paul in his "Revolution: A Manifesto." Fisher is a true American patriot and I recommend all of his works.

Illumination of Facts...

This book sheds a startling but bright and objective light into a very serious look at the coming 'New America'. A time as more than ever as these that we live in. Tells us that the time has come for overwhelming consideration of what is the ordinary man's response, reaction, responsibility and recourse as a proper answer to a threat of a true 'Orwellian' and 'Huxleyian' world for more than just America. For those of us here and other individuals around the world whom remember what a true sense of freedom and privacy was, the answer is an easy one, but the solution will prove to be a very difficult task. Louis Fisher has written a very excellent and comprehensive book detailing America's extremely dire predicament of it's frightening burden to maintain 'Constitutional Integrity' in a time of enormous strain and the extreme fatal outcome of this current state of 'Constitutional Frailty'.