Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism

Description

This publication explains how a series of extreme anti-terrorist reforms, which gave the American government the power to deport aliens for their political associations, to detain them without a hearing on the Attorney General's say-so and to try them in military tribunals where they have no right to a public trial, no right to a jury, no right to confront the evidence used against them, and no right to appeal to a court, endanger the liberty of everyone in America. Cole argues that in times of crisis and fear Americans have often relied on double standards in the treatment of aliens that they would not tolerate if applied more broadly to them. Describing the treatment of immigrants as the precursor to the next American witch-hunt, Cole details how initiatives initially directed at immigrants have historically paved the way for broader restrictions on US citizen's civil liberties. Using broad historical examples of his own theme (the Japanese internment during World War II), as well as his own experience litigating constitutional rights cases on behalf of immigrants, Cole also addresses the ways in which such policies reflect the democratic character of the nation.

David Cole is the George Mitchell Professor of Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation. He is the author of No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System, the American Book Award-winning Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism, and The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable and is a co-author (with James Dempsey) of Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security and (with Jules Lobel) of Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror, both published by The New Press. He lives in Washington, D.C.

"David Cole is one of the country's greatest voices for civil liberties today." —Anthony Lewis "If there is a flaw in Cole's logic, it escapes me." —John W. Dean, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Remarkable and fascinating." -The New York Review of Books