Search

The article presents an interview with political theorist and constitutional historian, Aziz Rana. Topics include his book the "Two Faces of American Freedom" which features the interpretation of the U.S. history and settler colonialism, along with discussion on enslavement of African Americans and Native Americans and their elimination; conflict between race-and-class domination also known as ruling class and radical egalitarian democracy; and the revival of socialist left for democracy that requires economic freedom.

Aziz Rana's account of the takeover of American national security by experts, and of the public's acceptance of that state of affairs, offers an important and novel perspective on what ails us in national security today. In this Comment, I suggest that while Rana is correct to identify our deference to experts as a central aspect of the problem, the problem is more complicated. First, the phenomenon of elite control over foreign and security policy questions is not new, but likely dates back to the founding--when elites ruled not based on expertise but on the basis of status, class, and legal barriers to more popular input. Second, deference to expertise is not just an ideological assumption of the modern age, but is also a rational response to greater threats and increased complexity. Third, deference may rest as much on secrecy as it does on epistemological assumptions about national security information. Because of classification, the general public often lacks not just expertise, but the very facts necessary to make an informed assessment. That said, Rana's reminder of the importance of popular decision-making on national security policy is an important one. Unwarranted deference to experts (especially when they make judgments on secret information) not only undermines democratic legitimacy, but may induce poor decision-making, by facilitating groupthink and other biases. And most importantly, decisions about national security are never only about national security; they nearly always implicate other values, such as privacy, liberty, or human dignity. The national security experts have no expertise in assessing the normative questions that conflicts with these values raise. Those normative questions must be made by us all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aziz Rana's article presents clearly the overlooked but crucial question of "Who Decides on Security?" Namely, is determining who or what groups constitute a threat something that we are capable of making ourselves, or must we necessarily cede that authority to those in power--who supposedly have both the access to knowledge and the ability to understand it--to protect us from threats we cannot perceive? Using Rana's historical analysis as a framework, this Article builds on his thesis to show how the wide latitude granted to the conclusions of the Executive Branch's national security specialists in political matters has migrated into the criminal justice system. This Article focuses on the specific example of expert witnesses in federal criminal terrorism prosecutions and demonstrates that courts have been overly deferential in allowing such individuals to testify as experts. As a result, courts admit too much expert testimony of questionable methodology and reliability against defendants charged with terrorist crimes. This Article provides several examples of the phenomenon of deference to the government's experts, as well as a focused critique of the practice of using experts to win convictions in such cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professor Aziz Rana urges a broad and populist reconsideration of the idea that the administration and military are best positioned to make decisions about national security issues. This Article calls for a rethinking of national security secrecy as well. The centralization of security decision-making power in the early Cold War era fostered a culture of government secrecy, with Congress and the judiciary enabling the rise of national security secrecy out of fear that they were ill-equipped to make security-related decisions, and public fear of internal and international security threats trumping concerns about legitimacy or democratic accountability. This culture of secrecy has reinforced and legitimated governmental secrecy in current times. The ongoing harms include a longterm distortion to the rule of law, prevention of redress for individual litigants harmed by the national security state, a detriment to perceptions of governmental legitimacy, and a severe reduction in transparency and accountability. Other democratic nations facing severe security threats have found a more just and humane balance between the legitimate need for secrecy and the democratic demand for information concerning actions taken in the name of our national security, which demonstrates that the current U.S. information-sharing paradigm is not necessarily the default. Such evidence provides a strong basis for reconsidering the current security structures in the United States and re-engaging the public in gaining greater access to information that the government relies upon in making security policy. Professor Rana's call for a re-thinking of the security roles of government actors and of the public provides an important starting point for discourse around remediating imbalances in information and decision-making power to better balance and strengthen our democracy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Article, the authors note their agreement with Professor Rana's historical analysis of a major change in national security discourse and elaborate on their disagreement with his account of the theoretical underpinnings of this transition. They locate their difference on the line between liberal and republican theory, arguing that the historical shift is from democratic republicanism to aristocratic republicanism and not, as Rana suggests, between Lockean liberalism and Hobbesean authoritarianism. After establishing this theoretical framework, the authors draw out some of the implications of their account. They emphasize the role of practical reasoning, explore the differences in how aristocratic and democratic thinkers reason about national security decisions, and highlight the worrying tendency of the present Court to emphasize aristocratic reasoning without the traditional republican concerns about systemic corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on contributors in the June 2005 issue of the "International Journal of Human Rights." Virginia Mantouvalou; Micheline Ishay; Aziz Rana.