Search

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty documents a forgotten truth: the word “democracy” is nowhere to be found in either the Constitution or the Declaration. But it is the overemphasis of democracy by the legal community–rather than the primacy of liberty, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence–that has led to the growth of government power at the expense of individual rights. Now, more than ever, Sandefur explains, the Declaration of Independence should set the framework for interpreting our fundamental law. In the very first sentence of the Constitution, the founding fathers stated unambiguously that “liberty” is a blessing. Today, more and more Americans are realizing that their individual freedoms are being threatened by the ever-expanding scope of the government. Americans have always differed over important political issues, but some things should not be settled by majority vote. In The Conscience of the Constitution, Timothy Sandefur presents a dramatic new challenge to the status quo of constitutional law.

The Founding Fathers wouldn't recognize America today. The God-given freedoms they championed in the Bill of Rights have been chipped away over the years by an ever-intrusive government bent on controlling all aspects of our lives in the name of safety and security. NSA wire-tapping and data collection is Orwellian in its scope. The TSA, BLM, and IRS are all jockeying for control of our lives. Warrantless searches are on the rise and even encouraged in some communities. Free speech, the right to bear arms, private property, and freedom of religion all are under attack. The Constitution has been tossed on the same trash pile as the Bible.From traffic light cameras to phone tapping, from militarized police forces to targeting specific groups of people, the government is unfettered in its desire to control the American people. Police State USA chronicles how America got to the point of being a de facto police state and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the constitution and exploits 9/11 security fears to justify spying on its citizens. Stunning new surveillance technology makes it easier to keep tabs on the people. The acquisition by police departments of major battlefield equipment emboldens officials to strong-arm those they should be protecting. The failure of the news media to uphold the rights of citizens sets the stage for this slippery slope. Police State USA tells how we might overcome and recapture our freedoms, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

The European architecture for the protection of fundamental rights combines the legal regimes of the states, the European Union, and the European Convention on Human Rights. The purpose of this book is to analyse the constitutional implications of this multilevel architecture and to examine the dynamics that spring from the interaction between different human rights standards in Europe. The book adopts a comparative approach, and through a comparison with the federal system of the United States, it advances an analytical model that systematically explains the dynamics at play in the European multilevel human rights architecture. It identifies two recurrent challenges in the interplay between different state and transnational human rights standards-a challenge of ineffectiveness, when transnational law operates as a ceiling of protection for a specific human right, and a challenge of inconsistency when transnational law operates as a floor-and considers the most recent transformations taking place in the European human rights regime. The book tests the model of challenges and transformations by examining in depth four case studies: the right to due process for suspected terrorists, the right to vote for non-citizens, the right to strike and the right to abortion. In light of these examples, the book then concludes by reassessing the main theories on the protection of fundamental rights in Europe and making the case for a new vision-a'neo-federal'theory-which is able to frame the dilemmas of identity, equality and supremacy behind the European multilevel architecture for the protection of human rights.

This exhaustively researched book presents the history behind a revolution in American liberty: the 1868 addition of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It follows the evolution in public understanding of'the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States', from the early years of the Constitution to the election of 1866. For 92 years nothing in the American Constitution prevented states from abridging freedom of speech, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or denying the right of peaceful assembly. The suppression of freedom in the southern states convinced the Reconstruction Congress and supporters of the Union to add an amendment forcing the states to respect the rights announced in the first eight amendments. But rather than eradicate state autonomy, the people embraced the Fourteenth Amendment that expanded the protections of the Bill of Rights and preserved the Constitution's original commitment to federalism and the principle of limited national power.

A history of the origins of the 14th Amendment and the the man who helped craft itJohn Bingham was the architect of the rebirth of the United States following the Civil War. A leading antislavery lawyer and congressman from Ohio, Bingham wrote the most important part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees fundamental rights and equality to all Americans. He was also at the center of two of the greatest trials in history, giving the closing argument in the military prosecution of John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. And more than any other man, Bingham played the key role in shaping the Union's policy towards the occupied ex-Confederate States, with consequences that still haunt our politics.American Founding Son provides the most complete portrait yet of this remarkable statesman. Drawing on his personal letters and speeches, the book traces Bingham's life from his humble roots in Pennsylvania through his career as a leader of the Republican Party. Gerard N. Magliocca argues that Bingham and his congressional colleagues transformed the Constitution that the Founding Fathers created, and did so with the same ingenuity that their forbears used to create a more perfect union in the 1780s. In this book, Magliocca restores Bingham to his rightful place as one of our great leaders.

Imprisonment became a badge of honor for many protestors during the civil rights movement. With the popularization of expressions such as'jail-no-bail'and'jail-in,'civil rights activists sought to transform arrest and imprisonment from something to be feared to a platform for the cause.Beyond Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s'Letters from the Birmingham Jail,'there has been little discussion on the incarceration experiences of civil rights activists. In her debut book, Zoe Colley does what no historian has done before by following civil rights activists inside the southern jails and prisons to explore their treatment and the different responses that civil rights organizations had to mass arrest and imprisonment.Colley focuses on the shift in philosophical and strategic responses of civil rights protestors from seeing jail as something to be avoided to seeing it as a way to further the cause. Imprisonment became a way to expose the evils of segregation, and highlighted to the rest of American society the injustice of southern racism.By drawing together the narratives of many individuals and organizations, Colley paints a clearer picture how the incarceration of civil rights activists helped shape the course of the movement. She places imprisonment at the forefront of civil rights history and shows how these new attitudes toward arrest continue to impact contemporary society and shape strategies for civil disobedience.

Having overcome the high costs and poor accuracy that once stunted its growth, one form of biometric technology - facial recognition - is quickly moving out of the realm of science fiction and into the commercial marketplace. Today, companies are deploying facial recognition technologies in a wide array of contexts, reflecting a spectrum of increasing technological sophistication. This book discusses recent and possible future advances in the use of facial recognition technologies; ways consumers can benefit from these uses; and the privacy and security concerns raised while promoting innovation.

In A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, John W. Whitehead charts America's transition from a society governed by'we the people'to a police state governed by the strong arm of the law. In such an environment, the law becomes yet another tool to oppress the people. As a constitutional attorney of national prominence, and as president of The Rutherford Institute, an international civil liberties organization, Whitehead has been at the forefront of the fight for civil liberties in this country. The recurring theme at the heart of A Government of Wolves is that the American people are in grave danger of losing their basic freedoms. The simple fact is that the Constitution - and in particular the Bill of Rights - is being undermined on virtually every front. Indeed, everything America was founded upon is in some way being challenged. The openness and freedom that were once the hallmarks of our society are now in peril. We were once a society that valued individual liberty and privacy. But in recent years we have turned into a culture that has quietly accepted surveillance cameras, police and drug-sniffing dogs in our children's schools, national databases that track our finances and activities, sneak-and-peek searches of our homes without our knowledge or consent, and anti-terrorism laws that turn average Americans into suspects. In short, America has become a lockdown nation, and we are all in danger. A Government of Wolves not only explains these acute problems but is a call to action offering timely and practical initiatives for Americans to take charge of present course of history and stop the growing police state. But time is running out. We are at critical juncture and every citizen who values his or her personal freedom needs to pay close attention to the message in this book!

Denunziationen unterliegen auch in den USA einem moralischen Tabu. Sie gelten als geradezu unamerikanisch. Trotzdem war und ist die Denunziation allgegenwärtig, sie wurde verübt und bewertet, sie wurde verachtet oder als patriotische Pflicht gewürdigt. Olaf Stieglitz schildert, welche Rolle Überwachung und Spitzeltum seit dem Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts spielten und wie das jeweilige System der Denunziation organisiert wurde: ob beim Kampf gegen sexuelle Ausschweifungen oder organisierte Kriminalität, gegen politische Bewegungen oder den Terrorismus, ob für das FBI oder für Politiker wie den Senator Joseph McCarthy. Damit öffnet sich der Blick auf ein tief in der US-amerikanischen Kultur verankertes Charakteristikum: die Angst vor inneren und äußeren Feinden und die Verpflichtung, die Gesellschaft vor diesen Feinden zu schützen. Erst aus dieser Geschichte heraus wird nachvollziehbar, warum heute der'Krieg gegen den Terror'weder vor der Aushöhlung der Verfassung und der Menschenrechte noch vor der Einspannung des Einzelnen in die Sorge um die innere Sicherheit haltmacht.

Through the lens of a careful assessment of the political views of MIT's Noam Chomsky and Harvard's Alan Dershowitz—the two protagonists of a Cambridge-based feud over the past forty years—author Howard Friel chronicles an American intellectual history from the U.S. war in Vietnam in the 1960s to the contemporary debate about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Major findings reveal the consistency of Chomsky's principled support of international law, human rights, and civil liberties, and a reversal by Dershowitz from support in the 1960s to opposition of those legal standards today. Friel's volume argues that a Chomskyan adherence by the United States to international law and human rights would reduce the threat of terrorism and preserve civil liberties, that the Dershowitz-backed war on terrorism increases the threat of terrorism and undermines civil liberties, and that the incremental but steady transition toward a preventive state threatens the permanent suspension of civil liberties in the United States.

Elected six times to the House from the state of Georgia, Cynthia McKinney cut a trail through Congressional deceit like a hot ember through ash. She discovered legislators who passed laws without reading them. Party leaders who colluded across party lines against their constituents'interests. Black-skinned individuals shilling for the white status quo. She excoriated government lassitude over Hurricane Katrina, uncovering dark secrets. She held the only critical Congressional briefing on 9/11, introducing counter- testimony of scholars, investigators, former intelligence agents. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, she held Rumsfeld to account for malfeasance by military contractors and missing billions in the Pentagon's budget. Then she hammered him on the reasons for the failure of NORAD air defenses on 9/11. She read truth into the Congressional Record, held town halls and hearings, led protests, showed up while others played along to get along, took the side of the people against the will of the Party. And when she got too truth seeking and speaking, the Republicans rigged the Democratic primaries to boot her out, leaving behind a trail of achievements mostly won singlehandedly as a result of her service on the House International Relations, House Agriculture, House Armed Services, and Budget Committees and the Select Committee on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita But McKinney rose again like a Phoenix, answering the call to run as 2008 Green Party candidate for President, challenging the corrupt two-party stranglehold on American democracy. Then it was on to the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, to be seized on the high seas and imprisoned in Israel. On to Tripoli, to serve as witness to the NATO terror bombing of Libya. On to Malaysia to serve on the War Crimes Commission... Often introduced as the Sojourner Truth, the Harriet Tubman of our age, McKinney reflects here on the Biblical figures of Esther, Deborah and Naomi. This is the Cynthia McKinney saga as it stands to date-- what she saw, what she learned, and how she fought for change.

Many Americans reference the Bill of Rights, a document that represents many of the freedoms that define the United States. Who doesn't know about the First Amendment's freedom of religion or Second Amendment's right to bear arms? In this pocket-sized volume, Akhil Reed Amar and Les Adams offer a wealth of knowledge about the Bill of Rights that goes beyond a basic understanding.The Bill of Rights Primer is an authoritative guide to all American freedoms. Uncluttered and well-organized, this text is perfect for those who want to study up on the Bill of Rights without needing a law degree to do so.This elementary guidebook presents a short historical survey of the people, events, decrees, legislation, writings, and cultural milestones, in England and the American colonies, that influenced the Founding Fathers as they drafted the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. With helpful comments and fun facts in the margins, the book will provide a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, exhibiting that it is not a stagnant document but one with an evolving meaning shaped by historical events, such as the American Civil War and Reconstruction.

America's leading expert on men and masculinity explains why America's white men are furious

An engaging conceptualizing chapter opens Civil Rights and Liberties: Cases and Readings in Constitutional Law and American Democracy, introducing civil liberties within their constitutional framework, illuminating their nature and sources through enlightening Supreme Court deliberations that show the underlying debates about constitutional interpretation. A distinctive approach to themes and principles encourages students to develop their own views on civil liberties in general and on the specific controversies such as abortion, gay rights, and hate speech. Extensive, intriguing excerpts from a highly focused set of cases and other readings from contemporary theory highlight conflicting opinions among the justices. They provide depth of understanding of the Constitution and of the disputes that have shaped its meaning, including the basis and nature of judicial authority. The text's thematic organization reveals the structural and normative features of the Constitution and constitutional law by linking them to contemporary issues and controversies. Key historical elements lend context and depth. A logical chapter structure offers probing overviews of the topics, constitutional arguments, and chapter readings followed by a broad range of theoretical and historical writings leading up to the cases. This multidimensional perspective draws on a wide array of resources such as case excerpts, concurring and dissenting opinions, law journal and articles, general publications, published letters, and other documents. Probing case comprehension, discussion, and synthesis questions punctuate and reinforce content. Features: an engaging conceptualizing opening chapter introduces civil liberties within constitutional framework illuminates their nature and sources through enlightening Supreme Court disputes shows underlying debates about constitutional interpretation a distinctive approach to themes and principles encourages students to develop their own views on civil liberties engages students in specific controversies--abortion, gay rights, and hate speech, etc. intriguing excerpts from a highly focused set of cases and other readings highlight disputes among the justices provide depth of understanding of the Constitution and interpretive disputes explore the basis and nature of judicial authority thematic organization shows structural and normative features of the Constitution and constitutional law links the Constitution to contemporary issues and controversies provides key historical elements for context logical chapter structure author's overviews of topics, constitutional arguments, and chapter readings a broad range of theoretical and historical writings key cases a multidimensional perspective draws on a wide array of resources case excerpts concurring and dissenting opinions law journal articles general publications published letters and other documents probing case comprehension, discussion, and synthesis questions reinforce content

Although one of the shortest written constitutions in the world, the U.S. Constitution, designed to embody the rights, laws, and guiding principles of a diverse and ever-changing populace, remains an enduring document. Since its ratification in 1787, the Constitution has been applied to a broad range of legal and political questions and, while often the subject of much debate, continues to serve as a stalwart reminder of the country's social and legal strides. This detailed volume breaks down each section of the Constitution and its amendments, also providing a concise overview of the field of constitutional law as it is applied around the world and in various forms of government.

'Civil disobedience is a form of protest with a special standing with regards to the law that sets it apart from political violence. Such principled law-breaking has been witnessed in recent years over climate change, economic strife, and the treatment of animals. Civil disobedience is examined here in the context of contemporary political activism, in the light of classic accounts by Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Gandhi to call for a broader attitude towards what civil disobedience involves. The question of violence is discussed, arguing that civil disobedience need only be aspirationally non-violent and that although some protests do not clearly constitute law-breaking they may render people liable to arrest. For example, while there may not be violence against persons, there may be property damage, as seen in raids upon animal laboratories. Such forms of militancy raise ethical and legal questions. Arguing for a less restrictive theory of civil disobedience, the book will be a valuable resource for anyone studying social movements and issues of political philosophy, social justice, and global ethics.'--Publisher's website.

The discrepancy between the fourteenth amendment's true meaning as originally understood, and the Supreme Court's interpretation of its meaning over time, has been dramatic and unfortunate. The amendment was intended to be a constitutional rule for the promotion and protection of people's rights, administered by the states as front-line regulators of life, liberty, and property, to be overseen by Congress and supported by federal legislation as necessary. In this book, William B. Glidden makes the case that instead, the amendment has operated as a judge-dominated, negative rights-against-government regime, supervised by the Supreme Court. Whenever Congress has enacted legislation to protect life, liberty, or property rights of people in the states, the laws were often overturned, narrowly construed, or forced to rely on the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, under the Supreme Court's constraining interpretations. Glidden proposes that Congress must recover for itself or be restored to its proper role as the designated federal enforcement agency for the fourteenth amendment.

Donald L. Hollowell was Georgia's chief civil rights attorney during the 1950s and 1960s. In this role he defended African American men accused or convicted of capital crimes in a racially hostile legal system, represented movement activists arrested for their civil rights work, and fought to undermine the laws that maintained state-sanctioned racial discrimination. In Saving the Soul of Georgia, Maurice C. Daniels tells the story of this behindthe- scenes yet highly influential civil rights lawyer who defended the rights of blacks and advanced the cause of social justice in the United States.Hollowell grew up in Kansas somewhat insulated from the harsh conditions imposed by Jim Crow laws throughout the South. As a young man he served as a Buffalo Soldier in the legendary Tenth Cavalry, but it wasn't until after he fought in World War II that he determined to become a civil rights attorney. The war was an eye-opener, as Hollowell experienced the cruel discrimination of racist segregationist policies. The irony of defending freedom abroad for the sake of preserving Jim Crow laws at home steeled his resolve to fight for civil rights upon returning from war.From his legal work in the case of Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter that desegregated the University of Georgia to his defense of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to his collaboration with Thurgood Marshall and his service as the NAACP's chief counsel in Georgia, Saving the Soul of Georgia explores the intersections of Hollowell's work with the larger civil rights movement.

Trotz der Sonderbedeutung der Meinungsfreiheit liegen zahlreiche Gesetze vor, deren Eingriffe in die Meinungsfreiheit weder ernst genommen noch richtig bewertet werden. Zur Bewältigung dieses Spannungsverhältnisses zwischen Theorie und Praxis geht Hui-chieh Su vertiefend auf die Konstellation der Meinungsfreiheit in der gesamten Verfassungsordnung ein. Die Autorin nimmt das Verbot fiktiver Darstellungen, welche sich als »opferlos« verstehen, zum Forschungsgegenstand. Sie führt die Rechtfertigung des betreffenden Verbots, insbesondere die Auslegung des Prinzips der Meinungsneutralität des Staates, auf den Begriff des »Harms« auf politisch-philosophischer, verfassungsrechtlicher, grundrechtlicher und meinungsfreiheitlicher Ebene zurück. Su gelangt zum Ergebnis, dass unterschiedliche Vorstellungen über Menschenbild und Menschenwürde unterschiedliche Konzeptionen von »Harm« und »Meinungsneutralität des Staates« zur Folge haben. Dem entspricht auch ihre ausführliche Analyse der Meinungsfreiheitsdogmatik in Deutschland und den USA.

At the age of 6, I discovered a jar of brightly colored shells under my grandmother's kitchen sink. When I inquired where they had come from, she did not answer. Instead, she told me in broken English,'Ask your mother.'My mother's response to the same question was,'Oh, I made them in camp.''Was it fun?'I asked enthusiastically.'Not really,'she replied. Her answer puzzled me. The shells were beautiful, and camp, as far as I knew, was a fun place where children roasted marshmallows and sang songs around the fire. Yet my mother's reaction did not seem happy. I was perplexed by this brief exchange, but I also sensed I should not ask more questions. As time went by,'camp'remained a vague, cryptic reference to some time in the past, the past of my parents, their friends, my grand­ parents, and my relatives. We never directly discussed it. It was not until high school that I began to understand the significance of the word, that camp referred to a World War II American concentration camp, not a summer camp. Much later I learned that the silence surrounding discus­ sions about this traumatic period of my parents'lives was a phenomenon characteristic not only of my family but also of most other Japanese American families after the war.

The current legislative and oversight activity with respect to electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has drawn national attention to several overarching issues. This book outlines three such issues and touches upon some of the perspectives reflected in the ongoing debate. These issues include the inherent and often dynamic tension between national security and civil liberties, particularly rights of privacy and free speech; the need for the intelligence community to be able to efficiently and effectively collect foreign intelligence information from the communications of foreign persons located outside the United States in a changing, fast-paced, and technologically sophisticated international environment or from United States persons abroad, and the differing approaches suggested to meet this need; and limitations of liability for those electronic communication service providers who furnish aid to the federal government in its foreign intelligence collection. Two constitutional provisions are implicated in this debate - the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

Civil disobedience is a form of protest with a special standing with regards to the law that sets it apart from political violence. Such principled law-breaking has been witnessed in recent years over climate change, economic strife, and the treatment of animals. Civil disobedience is examined here in the context of contemporary political activism, in the light of classic accounts by Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Gandhi to call for a broader attitude towards what civil disobedience involves. The question of violence is discussed, arguing that civil disobedience need only be aspirationally non-violent and that although some protests do not clearly constitute law-breaking they may render people liable to arrest. For example, while there may not be violence against persons, there may be property damage, as seen in raids upon animal laboratories. Such forms of militancy raise ethical and legal questions.Arguing for a less restrictive theory of civil disobedience, the book will be a valuable resource for anyone studying social movements and issues of political philosophy, social justice, and global ethics.

Until the watershed leak of top-secret documents by Edward Snowden to the Guardian UK and the Washington Post, most Americans did not realize the extent to which our government is actively acquiring personal information from telecommunications companies and other corporations. As made startlingly clear, the National Security Agency (NSA) has collected information on every phone call Americans have made over the past seven years. In that same time, the NSA and the FBI have gained the ability to access emails, photos, audio and video chats, and additional content from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, YouTube, Skype, Apple and others, allegedly in order to track foreign targets.In Spying on Democracy, National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi Boghosian documents the disturbing increase in surveillance of ordinary citizens and the danger it poses to our privacy, our civil liberties and the future of democracy itself. Boghosian reveals how technology is being used to categorize and monitor people based on their associations, their movements, their purchases and their perceived political beliefs. She shows how corporations and government intelligence agencies mine data from sources as diverse as surveillance cameras and unmanned drones to iris scans and medical records, while combing websites, email, phone records and social media for resale to third parties, including U.S. intelligence agencies.The ACLU's Michael German says of the examples shown in Boghosian's book,'this unrestrained spying is inevitably used to suppress the most essential tools of democracy: the press, political activists, civil rights advocates and conscientious insiders who blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance and government abuse.'Boghosian adds,'If the trend is permitted to continue, we will soon live in a society where nothing is confidential, no information is really secure, and our civil liberties are under constant surveillance and control.'Spying on Democracy is a timely, invaluable and accessible primer for anyone concerned with protecting privacy, freedom and the U.S. Constitution.Heidi Boghosian is the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild. She co-hosts Law and Disorder, broadcast on WBAI-FM in New York and over forty stations nationwide. She is based in New York City.'Everyone of us is under the omniscient magnifying glass of the government and corporate spies.... How do we respond to this smog of surveillance? Start by reading Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance by Heidi Boghosian'—Bill Moyers'With ex-CIA staffer Edward Snowden's leaks about National Security Agency surveillance in the headlines, Heidi Boghosian's Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance feels especially timely. Boghosian reveals how the government acquires information from telecommunications companies and other organizations to create databases about'persons of interest.''—Publishers Weekly'Heidi Boghosian's Spying on Democracy is the answer to the question,'if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone's watching you?''—Michael German, Senior Policy Counsel, ACLU and former FBI agent

A comprehensive core textbook and casebook that emphasizes precedent setting cases and alternative constitutional positions for courses in constitutional law and civil liberties.

Many have argued in recent years that the U.S. constitutional system exalts individual rights over responsibilities, virtues, and the common good. Answering the charges against liberal theories of rights, James Fleming and Linda McClain develop and defend a civic liberalism that takes responsibilities and virtues—as well as rights—seriously. They provide an account of ordered liberty that protects basic liberties stringently, but not absolutely, and permits government to encourage responsibility and inculcate civic virtues without sacrificing personal autonomy to collective determination.The battle over same-sex marriage is one of many current controversies the authors use to defend their understanding of the relationship among rights, responsibilities, and virtues. Against accusations that same-sex marriage severs the rights of marriage from responsible sexuality, procreation, and parenthood, they argue that same-sex couples seek the same rights, responsibilities, and goods of civil marriage that opposite-sex couples pursue. Securing their right to marry respects individual autonomy while also promoting moral goods and virtues. Other issues to which they apply their idea of civic liberalism include reproductive freedom, the proper roles and regulation of civil society and the family, the education of children, and clashes between First Amendment freedoms (of association and religion) and antidiscrimination law. Articulating common ground between liberalism and its critics, Fleming and McClain develop an account of responsibilities and virtues that appreciates the value of diversity in our morally pluralistic constitutional democracy.

A concise and student-friendly study guide, Inside Investigative Criminal Procedure: What Matters and Why offers a big-picture view that looks at how all of the essential elements of a criminal investigation fit together as part of a coherent framework of legal theory and practice. A rich pedagogy features graphics, Sidebars, and Frequently Asked Questions, as well as other learning aids, to guide comprehension and reinforce learning.Features:basic coverage of the main themes of Investigative Criminal Procedure that focuses on what matters and whystraightforward, lucid, and informal writing styledynamic pedagogy that supports learning and facilitates use:Overviews that briefly introduce and position the topic of each chapter within the context of the course, to clearly convey to students what the topic is about and why it mattersFAQs, or frequently asked questions, that address common mistakes and misconceptionsSidebars that offer additional insight and background information, or highlight important or illustrative casesTables and Flowcharts that illustrate conceptsChapter summaries and bolded key termsConnections--brief sections at the end of each chapter that connect the material just covered to key points in other chapters'a well regarded feature that illuminates the underpinnings and framework of the subject Readable and concise, Inside Investigative Criminal Procedure: What Matters and Why helps students to become more engaged in the course by offering clear explanations that demystify the material without oversimplifying it. Author Julian Cook provides multiple platforms for testing and reinforcing students'understanding of key concepts and rules.

Government regulations are out of control. They dictate how much water goes into your commode, and how much water comes out of your showerhead. They determine how hot the water needs to be in your washing machine, and how many miles to the gallon your car must achieve. Since the Patriot Act, your banking records, your gun registration, and your phone bill are easily accessible by government snoops. Mothers are arrested for buying raw milk. Families are fined for selling bunny rabbits without a license. Home and property owners are strapped with obscene fines, entangled in costly legal messes, and sent to federal prison, all for moving dirt from one end of their land to another. Unelected bureaucrats, armed with arbitrary rules and no need to back them up, stonewall and attack American citizens at every turn. The damage can be overwhelmingly taxing -- -financially, emotionally and even physically. And who is being held accountable? Government regulation and red tape run amok in Washington, and honest, tax-paying citizens are the victims of an administration's misuse and abuse of power. Now, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, takes an in-depth look at the legislation that is trampling the rights of ordinary citizens, strangling their ability to conduct private, everyday activities without egregious government interference. He highlights outrageous searches, seizures and arrests, and points to thousands of regulations that have been added to the books since Obama took office. Most importantly, he charts a direction out of this mess, and toward renewed freedom for all Americans.These stories are of everyday Americans badgered and harassed by their own government -- -the very institution that is supposed to serve us all. This gross breach of our constitution is as frightening as it is real, and Goverment Bullies is a call to action against it.

This book presents current research in the study of basic human rights, with a particular focus on the crimes against human rights and the laws which protect human rights. Topics discussed include terrorism and Miranda rights; characteristics of women who withdraw from the protection order process and their reason for withdrawal; judicial activity concerning enemy combatant detainees; the law and military policy on same-sex behavior and the Violence against Women Act.

When an individual is accused of a crime he is provided, at least in theory, with numerous constitutional rights throughout the legal process. These constitutional rights, however, are soft and flexible, and are subject to a tremendous amount of manipulation by police, prosecutors, and judges. The result is that these government agents are easily able to bypass, and in fact destroy, our constitutional protections. This abuse of our fundamental rights is extremely dangerous. Far from being mere technicalities, constitutional rights benefit all citizens, not just the factually guilty, in ways that go unappreciated by most of us. In today's hyper-vigilant, tough-on-crime climate, many good people from all walks of life find themselves charged with serious crimes for behaving in ways that most of us would be shocked to learn are criminal. For these reasons, it is in all of our interests to ensure strong constitutional safeguards for everyone. Tried and Convicted explains several individual constitutional rights that are intended to protect us from the vagaries of the criminal justice system, and gives detailed examples of how government agents routinely circumvent those rights. It also exposes the underlying problems that enable government agents to circumvent the constitution, and concludes by offering potential solutions to these problems. Using real life examples throughout, Cicchini provides a wake-up call for all of us.

This book is a history of the civil liberties records of American presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama. It examines the full range of civil liberties issues: First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, press and assembly; due process; equal protection, including racial justice, women's rights, and lesbian and gay rights; privacy rights, including reproductive freedom; and national security issues. The book argues that presidents have not protected or advanced civil liberties, and that several have perpetrated some of the worst violations. Some Democratic presidents (Wilson and Roosevelt), moreover, have violated civil liberties as badly as some Republican presidents (Nixon and Bush). This is the first book to examine the full civil liberties records of each president (thus, placing a president's record on civil rights with his record on national security issues), and also to compare the performance on particular issues of all the presidents covered.

Positive Rights in a Republic of Talk will appeal to philosophers and social scientists interested in issues of rights and social justice, and to graduate students and journalists seeking a critical survey of the field. Innumerable recent books have addressed the issues of rights and social justice, but none combines the comprehensiveness, disinterestedness, and brevity found in this work. Positive Rights in a Republic of Talk: -is unique in its critical, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may approach; -is untainted with special pleading for specific philosophical schools or social policies; -is distinctive in its range, examining the views of classical as well as contemporary thinkers and trendy as well as more established approaches; -is relentless in its confrontation of the abstract with the concrete; -discusses positive rights in such contexts as health care, education, foreign aid, homelessness, welfare, and disaster relief policies; -is distinctive in its prose, which is vivid, engaging, clear, occasionally funny, and never pompous or engorged with jargon; -can be read and enjoyed by serious non-specialists as well as specialists.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, breathtaking changes in technology are posing stark challenges to our constitutional values. From free speech to privacy, from liberty and personal autonomy to the right against self-incrimination, basic constitutional principles are under stress from technological advances unimaginable even a few decades ago, let alone during the founding era. In this provocative collection, America's leading scholars of technology, law, and ethics imagine how to translate and preserve constitutional and legal values at a time of dizzying technological change.Constitution 3.0 explores some of the most urgent constitutional questions of the near future. Will privacy become obsolete, for example, in a world where ubiquitous surveillance is becoming the norm? Imagine that Facebook and Google post live feeds from public and private surveillance cameras, allowing 24/7 tracking of any citizen in the world. How can we protect free speech now that Facebook and Google have more power than any king, president, or Supreme Court justice to decide who can speak and who can be heard? How will advanced brain-scan technology affect the constitutional right against self-incrimination? And on a more elemental level, should people have the right to manipulate their genes and design their own babies? Should we be allowed to patent new forms of life that seem virtually human? The constitutional challenges posed by technological progress are wide-ranging, with potential impacts on nearly every aspect of life in America and around the world.The authors include Jamie Boyle, Duke Law School; Eric Cohen and Robert George, Princeton University; Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law School; Orin Kerr, George Washington University Law School; Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School; Stephen Morse, University of Pennsylvania Law School; John Robertson, University of Texas Law School; Christopher Slobogin, Vanderbilt Law School; O. Carter Snead, Notre

'David Kairys is one of the grand long-distance runners in the struggle for justice in America. His brilliant legal mind and superb lawyerly skills are legendary. This marvelous book is his gift to us!'---Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African American Studies, Princeton University, and award-winning author of Race Matters Philadelphia Freedom is the spellbinding tale of an idealistic young lawyer coming of age in the political cauldron of the 1960s and 1970s. From his immersion in the civil rights movement to his determined court battles to quell criminal violence by Philadelphia police, Kairys recounts how he helped make history in the city of brotherly love.'---William K. Marimow, Editor and Executive Vice President, Philadelphia Inquirer, and recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes'In the current climate of political deception and the trampling of our civil rights, Kairys's compelling book is a clenched fist, a prayer for social justice and a call to conscience.'---Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times columnist and former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist'With engaging, insider stories of innovative legal strategies of a truly creative lawyer, this book evokes the ebullient spirit of progressive social change launched in the 1960s and should be read by aspiring and practicing lawyers as well as anyone interested in American social history. Philadelphia Freedom reads like a suspense novel and reveals how novel legal and political thinking can and does make a real difference to individuals and to the quality of justice.'---Martha L. Minow, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard University'David Kairys's compelling book properly explains the vital role that civil rights attorneys play in our system of justice.'---Judge John E. Jones III, United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and presiding judge in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case A memoir that is also a compelling page-turner, Philadelphia Freedom is the poignant, informative, often inspiring account of renowned civil-rights lawyer David Kairys's personal quest for achieving social justice during the turbulent 1960s and 70s. Philadelphia Freedom brings us intimately and directly into Kairys's burgeoning law career and the struggles of the 60s as his professional and private life navigated the turmoil and promise of the civil rights and antiwar movements. Many of the cases Kairys took on involved discrimination and equal protection, freedom of speech, and government malfeasance. Kairys is perhaps most well known for his victory in the Camden 28 draft board case, in which the FBI set up a sting of the Catholic anti-war left at the behest of the highest levels of government. The stories and cases range from nationally important and recognizable---the family of the scientist the CIA unwittingly gave LSD in the 1950s; the leading race discrimination case against the FBI; Dr. Benjamin Spock's First Amendment case before the Supreme Court; the city handgun lawsuits Kairys conceived---to those he encountered in his early work as a public defender. The characters include public figures such as FBI Directors J. Edgar Hoover and Louis Freeh; CIA Director William Colby; Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter; New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer; U.S. Attorneys General Edward Levi and John Mitchell; Georgia Governor Lester Maddox; Pennsylvania Governor, former Philadelphia Mayor, and Democratic National Committee chair Ed Rendell; Philadelphia Mayor and Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo. But some of the most memorable are not well known, involving regular people caught up in the often heartless machinery of the courts and legal system. Though it reads like a novel, with all the elements of character, plot, and suspense, Philadelphia Freedom also has historical significance as a firsthand

In this volume of the Explaining Modern History Series, Nick Shepley explores the roots of American anti Communism and how a strong and independent left wing movement in the USA was broken during and immediately after World War One. Essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of America in the 1920s and beyond.

Immigrants from Pakistan, Egypt, India, and Palestine who were racially profiled and detained following the September 11 attacks tell their personal stories in a collection which explores themes of transnationalism, racialization, and the global war on terror, and explains the human cost of suspending civil liberties after a wartime emergency.

American college campuses, where ideas are freely exchanged, contested, and above all uncensored, are historical hotbeds of political and social turmoil. In the past decade alone, the media has carefully tracked the controversy surrounding the speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia, the massacres at Virginia Tech, the dismissal of Harvard's President Lawrence Summers, and the lacrosse team rape case at Duke, among others. No matter what the event, the conflicts that arise on our campuses can be viewed in terms of constitutional principles, which either control or influence outcomes of these events. In turn, constitutional principles are frequently shaped and forged by campus culture, creating a symbiotic relationship in which constitutional values influence the nature of universities, which themselves influence the nature of our constitutional values.In The Constitution Goes to College, Rodney A. Smolla—a former dean and current university president who is an expert on the First Amendment—deftly uses the American university as a lens through which to view the Constitution in action. Drawing on landmark cases and conflicts played out on college campuses, Smolla demonstrates how five key constitutional ideas—the living Constitution, the division between public and private spheres, the distinction between rights and privileges, ordered liberty, and equality—are not only fiercely contested on college campuses, but also dominate the shape and identity of American university life.Ultimately, Smolla compellingly demonstrates that the American college community, like the Constitution, is orderly and hierarchical yet intellectually free and open, a microcosm where these constitutional dichotomies play out with heightened intensity.

This book approaches a variety of social and political issues that have become highly polarized and resistant to compromise by examining them through a population-based public health perspective. The topics included are some of the most contentious: abortion and reproductive rights; end-of-life issues, including the right to die and the treatment of pain; the connection between racism and poor health outcomes for African-Americans; the right of same-sex couples to marry; the toll of gun violence and how to reduce it; domestic violence and how the criminal justice model fails to deal with it effectively; and how tort compensation and punitive damages can further public health goals. People at every point along the political spectrum will find the book enlightening and informative. Written by eight authors, all of whom have cross-disciplinary expertise, this book shifts the focus away from the point of view of rights, politics, or morality and examines the effect of laws and policies from the perspective of public health and welfare.

In this timely reevaluation of an infamous Supreme Court decision, David E. Bernstein provides a compelling survey of the history and background of Lochner v. New York. This 1905 decision invalidated state laws limiting work hours and became the leading case contending that novel economic regulations were unconstitutional. Sure to be controversial, Rehabilitating Lochner argues that the decision was well grounded in precedent—and that modern constitutional jurisprudence owes at least as much to the limited-government ideas of Lochner proponents as to the more expansive vision of its Progressive opponents. Tracing the influence of this decision through subsequent battles over segregation laws, sex discrimination, civil liberties, and more, Rehabilitating Lochner argues not only that the court acted reasonably in Lochner, but that Lochner and like-minded cases have been widely misunderstood and unfairly maligned ever since.

One day in 2002, three friends—a Somali immigrant, a Pakistan–born U.S. citizen, and a hometown African American—met in a Columbus, Ohio coffee shop and vented over civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. Their conversation triggered an investigation that would become one of the most unusual and far–reaching government probes into terrorism since the 9/11 attacks.Over several years, prosecutors charged each man with unrelated terrorist activities in cases that embodied the Bush administration's approach to fighting terrorism at home.Government lawyers spoke of catastrophes averted; defense attorneys countered that none of the three had done anything but talk. The stories of these homegrown terrorists illustrate the paradox the government faces after September 11: how to fairly wage a war against alleged enemies living in our midst.Hatred at Home is a true crime drama that will spark debate from all political corners about safety, civil liberties, free speech, and the government's war at home.

In a stinging dissent to a 1961 Supreme Court decision that allowed the Illinois state bar to deny admission to prospective lawyers if they refused to answer political questions, Justice Hugo Black closed with the memorable line,'We must not be afraid to be free.'Black saw the First Amendment as the foundation of American freedom--the guarantor of all other Constitutional rights. Yet since free speech is by nature unruly, people fear it. The impulse to curb or limit it has been a constant danger throughout American history. In We Must Not Be Afraid to Be Free, Ron Collins and Sam Chaltain, two noted free speech scholars and activists, provide authoritative and vivid portraits of free speech in modern America. The authors offer a series of engaging accounts of landmark First Amendment cases, including bitterly contested cases concerning loyalty oaths, hate speech, flag burning, student anti-war protests, and McCarthy-era prosecutions. The book also describes the colorful people involved in each case--the judges, attorneys, and defendants--and the issues at stake. Tracing the development of free speech rights from a more restrictive era--the early twentieth century--through the Warren Court revolution of the 1960s and beyond, Collins and Chaltain not only cover the history of a cherished ideal, but also explain in accessible language how the law surrounding this ideal has changed over time. Essential for anyone interested in this most fundamental of our rights, We Must Not Be Afraid to Be Free provides a definitive and lively account of our First Amendment and the price courageous Americans have paid to secure them.

For most of us, the Bill of Rights is sacred. It enshrines, defines, and protects the liberties we take for granted as Americans. But almost unnoticed, a dedicated minority of special interests is chipping away at the Bill of Rights to the point that, while the words might remain in the Constitution, the rights themselves will be lost. Frank Miniter, New York Times bestselling author of The Ultimate Man's Survival Guide, has seen firsthand—and exposed as a journalist—the relentless assaults that are stripping away our Second Amendment rights. Now he reports on the broad, radical offensive that targets not just our right to bear arms, but all our rights, including the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and religion.

From the best-selling author of The Working Poor, an impassioned, incisive look at the violations of civil liberties in the United States that have accelerated over the past decade—and their direct impact on our lives.How have our rights to privacy and justice been undermined? What exactly have we lost? Pulitzer Prize–winner David K. Shipler searches for the answers to these questions by examining the historical expansion and contraction of our fundamental rights and, most pointedly, the real-life stories of individual men and women who have suffered. This is the account of what has been taken—and of how much we stand to regain by protesting the departures from the Bill of Rights.With keen insight and telling detail, Shipler describes how the Supreme Court's constitutional rulings play out on the streets as Washington, D.C., police officers search for guns in poor African American neighborhoods, how a fruitless search warrant turns the house of a Homeland Security employee upside down, and how the secret surveillance and jailing of an innocent lawyer result from an FBI lab mistake. Each instance—often as shocking as it is compelling—is a clear illustration of the risks posed to individual liberties in our modern society. And, in Shipler's hands, each serves as a powerful incitement for a retrieval of these precious rights. A brilliant, immeasurably important book for our time.

Marlowe's work draws on institutional-based Supreme Court literature, American Political Development literature, and emerging jurisprudential regime literature to argue that Court doctrine in caselaw follows a life cycle pattern consisting of a pre-governance phase, where the Court has not settled on a doctrinal test to apply consistently, a governance phase, where the Court establishes and consistently applies one doctrinal test in a given area of caselaw, and a post-governance phase, where consensus regarding the existing doctrinal test breaks down. She examines the life cycle pattern and its applicability to jurisprudential regimes within the context of 14th Amendment equal protection challenges as it pertains to race. The life cycle pattern is successfully borne out, with three regimes demonstrated to date, all following the three-phase pattern.

There is hardly a struggle aimed at upholding and extending therights embedded in the U.S. Constitution in which the Centerfor Constitutional Rights (CCR) has not played a central role,and yet few people have ever heard of it. Whether defendingthe rights of black people in the South, opponents of the war inVietnam and victims of torture worldwide, or fighting illegalactions of the U.S. government, the CCR has stood ready totake on all comers, regardless of their power and wealth. Whenthe United States declared that the Constitution did not applyto detainees at Guantanamo, the CCR waded fearlessly intobattle, its Legal Director declaring, “My job is to defend theConstitution from its enemies. Its main enemies right now arethe Justice Department and the White House.”In this first-ever comprehensive history of one of the most important legal organizations in the United States, the Center forConstitutional Rights, Albert Ruben shows us exactly what itmeans to defend the Constitution. He examines the innovativetactics of the CCR, the ways in which a radical organization isbuilt and nurtured, and the impact that the CCR has had onour very conception of the law. This book is a must-read notonly for lawyers, but for all the rest of us who may one day findour rights in jeopardy.

DOES THE GOVERNMENT EXIST TO SERVE US OR TO MASTER US?If the government exists to serve us, and if freedom is part of our humanity, how can the government take freedom from us? Is human freedom in America a myth, or is it reality? The United States of America was born out of a bloody revolt against tyranny. Yet almost from its inception, the government here has suppressed liberty. Within the pages of It Is Dangerous To Be Right When The Government Is Wrong, New York Times best-selling author Judge Andrew P. Napolitano lays out the case that the U.S. government, whose first obligation is to protect and preserve individual freedoms, actually does neither.The judge offers eye-opening, sometimes frightening examples of how, time and again, the human liberties we are guaranteed in the Constitution are vanishing before our eyes. He asks: where does freedom come from? How can government in America exercise power that the people have not given to it? What forces have collaborated to destroy personal freedom? This back-to-basics on freedom addresses hard questions:What is a Constitution, and do we still have one?What are the limits to government power in a free society?Why does the government attack, rather than defend, our rights?If our rights are inalienable, how can the government take them away?Do we really own any private property?America is at a fundamental crossroads. There are stirrings in the land and a cry that'enough is enough.'The stories within these pages are told to help reawaken the natural human thirst for freedom-to point out government interference with natural order and the disastrous consequences that follow.

In this eye-opening work, the president of the ACLU takes a hard look at the human and social costs of the War on Terror. A decade after 9/11, it is far from clear that the government's hastily adopted antiterrorist tactics--such as the Patriot Act--are keeping us safe, but it is increasingly clear that these emergency measures in fact have the potential to ravage our lives--and have already done just that to countless Americans. From the Oregon lawyer falsely suspected of involvement with terrorism in Spain to the former University of Idaho football player arrested on the pretext that he was needed as a'material witness'(though he was never called to testify), this book is filled with unsettling stories of ordinary people caught in the government's dragnet. These are not just isolated mistakes in an otherwise sound program, but demonstrations of what can happen when our constitutional protections against government abuse are abandoned. Whether it's running a chat room, contributing to a charity, or even urging a terrorist group to forego its violent tactics, activities that should be protected by the First Amendment can now lead to prosecution. Blacklists and watchlists keep people grounded at airports and strand American citizens abroad, even though these lists are rife with errors--errors that cannot be challenged. National Security Letters allow the FBI to demand records about innocent people from libraries, financial institutions, and internet service providers without ever going to court. Government databanks now brim with information about every aspect of our private lives, while efforts to mount legal challenges to these measures have been stymied. Barack Obama, like George W. Bush, relies on secrecy and exaggerated claims of presidential prerogative to keep the courts and Congress from fully examining whether these laws and policies are constitutional, effective, or even counterproductive. Democracy itself is undermined. This book is a wake-up call for all Americans, who remain largely unaware of the post-9/11 surveillance regime's insidious and continuing growth.

A fascinating account of how the law determines or dismantles identity and personhoodAbused dogs, prisoners tortured in Guantánamo and supermax facilities, or slaves killed by the state—all are deprived of personhood through legal acts. Such deprivations have recurred throughout history, and the law sustains these terrors and banishments even as it upholds the civil order. Examining such troubling cases, The Law Is a White Dog tackles key societal questions: How does the law construct our identities? How do its rules and sanctions make or unmake persons? And how do the supposedly rational claims of the law define marginal entities, both natural and supernatural, including ghosts, dogs, slaves, terrorist suspects, and felons? Reading the language, allusions, and symbols of legal discourse, and bridging distinctions between the human and nonhuman, Colin Dayan looks at how the law disfigures individuals and animals, and how slavery, punishment, and torture create unforeseen effects in our daily lives.Moving seamlessly across genres and disciplines, Dayan considers legal practices and spiritual beliefs from medieval England, the North American colonies, and the Caribbean that have survived in our legal discourse, and she explores the civil deaths of felons and slaves through lawful repression. Tracing the legacy of slavery in the United States in the structures of the contemporary American prison system and in the administrative detention of ghostly supermax facilities, she also demonstrates how contemporary jurisprudence regarding cruel and unusual punishment prepared the way for abuses in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.Using conventional historical and legal sources to answer unconventional questions, The Law Is a White Dog illuminates stark truths about civil society's ability to marginalize, exclude, and dehumanize.

This important book translates seven landmark essays by one of Japan's most respected and influential legal thinkers. While Takao Tanase concedes that law might not matter as much in Japan as it does in the United States, in a provocative challenge to socio-legal researchers and comparative lawyers, he asks: why should it? The issue, he contends, is not whether law matters to society; it is how society matters to law.Developing a descriptive and normative theory of community and the law, the author directly challenges the view that legal liberalism represents the pinnacle of legal achievement. He criticises liberalism for destroying community in the United States and for offering false hope for a delayed modernity in Japan. By applying a distinctive interpretivist methodology, he constructs a communitarian model of law and society that serves as an alternative to legal liberalism. The book challenges conventional understandings of such legal sociological staples as torts, lawyers'ethics, family law, human rights, constitutionalism and litigiousness.This fascinating book will prove a stimulating, thought provoking read for researchers and scholars of law, Japanese and American studies, sociology and jurisprudence.

This book examines the realities of living in the United States after the events of September 11th, 2001, and evaluates the challenges in gathering internal intelligence without severely compromising personal liberties.In the United States, there are a staggering number of agents of the CIA, FBI, and state, local, and tribal police, all authorized and empowered to collect intelligence. But is there a way to use these vast resources to gather intelligence in a socially tolerable fashion and still maintain our cherished civil liberties?This book presents a thorough investigation of intelligence collection in the United States that examines the delicate balance of civil liberties with the effectiveness of intelligence collection. It contains a history of domestic intelligence in America, a description of the various threats against our nation, and a discussion of the complexities of deciding what kind of information needs to be collected— and against whom. The conclusion succinctly states the author's opinions on what needs to be done to best address the issue.