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  Presidential Secrecy and the Law

  Robert M. Pallitto, William G....

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  A look at how U.S. presidents from Truman to George W. Bush employed secrecy and how it has affected the presidency and the American government. 
   
  State secrets, warrantless investigations and wiretaps, signing statements, executive privilege?the executive branch wields many tools for secrecy. Since the middle of the twentieth century, presidents have used myriad tactics to expand and maintain a level of executive branch power unprecedented in this nation’s history. 
   
  Most people believe that some degree of governmental secrecy is necessary. But how much is too much? At what point does withholding information from Congress, the courts, and citizens abuse the public trust? How does the nation reclaim rights that have been controlled by one branch of government? 
   
  With Presidential Secrecy and the Law, Robert M. Pallitto and William G. Weaver attempt to answer these questions by examining the history of executive branch efforts to consolidate power through information control. They find the nation’s democracy damaged and its Constitution corrupted by staunch information suppression, a process accelerated when “black sites,” “enemy combatants,” and “ghost detainees” were added to the vernacular following the September 11, 2001, terror strikes. 
   
  Tracing the current constitutional dilemma from the days of the imperial presidency to the unitary executive embraced by the administration of George W. Bush, Pallitto and Weaver reveal an alarming erosion of the balance of power. Presidential Secrecy and the Law will be the standard in presidential powers studies for years to come. 
   
  “The well-organized and clearly written book illustrates the way the president’s use of document classification and state-secrets privilege to solidify presidential control are reinforced by legal decisions sympathetic to presidential power.” —Chronicle of Higher Education

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  After Independence - The State...

  Gerry Hassan

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  At the height of the Scottish Independence debate, After Independence offers an in-depth and varied exploration of the possibilities for Scotland, from both pro and anti-independence standpoints. Drawing together over two dozen leading minds on the subject, After Independence offers a comprehensive and balanced analysis of Scotland's current and prospective political, economic, social and cultural situation. Brought together in an inclusive, accessible and informative way, After Independence asks and answers a range of questions crucial to the Independence debate and invites its readers to become involved at this crucial moment of Scottish history in the making.

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  Charlie Wilson's War

  George Crile

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  The bestselling true story of a Texas congressman’s secret role in the Afghan defeat of Russian invaders is “a tour de force of reporting and writing” (Dan Rather).   A New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times bestseller.   Charlie Wilson’s penchant for cocktails and beauty-contest winners was well known, but in the early 1980s, the dilettante congressman quietly conducted one of the most successful covert operations in US history. Using his seat on the House Appropriations Committee, Wilson channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to support a ragged band of Afghan “freedom fighters” in their resistance against Soviet invaders.   Weapons were secretly procured and distributed with the help of an outcast CIA operative named Gust Avrakotos, who stretched the agency’s rules to the breaking point. Moving from the back rooms of Washington to secret chambers at Langley, and from arms-dealers’ conventions to the Khyber Pass, Wilson and Avrakotos helped the mujahideen win an unlikely victory against the Russians.   Adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War chronicles an overlooked chapter in the collapse of the Soviet Union—and the emergence of a brand-new foe in the form of radical Islam.   “Put the Tom Clancy clones back on the shelf; this covert-ops chronicle is practically impossible to put down. No thriller writer would dare invent Wilson.” —Publishers Weekly   “An engaging, well-written, newsworthy study of practical politics and its sometimes unlikely players, and one with plenty of implications.” —Kirkus Reviews

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  Democracy Under Fire - Donald...

  Lawrence R. Jacobs

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  Before Trump even ran for President, his disdain for the rules, procedures, and norms of American democracy and the US Constitution was well-known and led prominent Republicans to repudiate him as "unfit" for the GOP nomination. Given the clear-eyed assessment of candidate Trump, why did the Republican Party nominate him as its presidential candidate in 2016 and then stand by him during the next four years?Much of the attention paid to Trump's rise to power has focused on his corrosive personality and divisive style of governing. But he alone is not the problem. The vulnerability is much broader and deeper. The ascendance of Trump is the culmination of nearly 250 years of political reforms that gradually ceded party nominations to small cliques of ideologically-motivated party activists, interest groups, and donors.In Democracy under Fire, Lawrence Jacobs provides a highly engaging history of political reforms since the late-eighteenth century that over time dangerously weakened democracy, widened political inequality as well as racial disparities, and rewarded toxic political polarization. Jacobs's searing indictment of political reformers concludes with recommendations to restrain the unbridled ambition of politicians who thrive on division and instead generate broad citizen engagement with tangible policy making.

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  1900 or the Last President - The...

  Ingersoll Lockwood

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  This little booklet was penned at the end of the 19th century, and ostensibly involves events mere years later. A work of political satire, it chastises the rise of socialism and populism, inferring their fictional rise here as disastrous and leading to chaos. 
  It is of note here that this work, along with others by Lockwood, appear to prognosticate the current political climate of the United States and West at large—and for an apparent religious Catholic of his era, it is not altogether impossible that Lockwood—wittingly or unwittingly—tapped into some mystic forces. Regardless, it is an interesting little political story from its time and is reflective of some of the social ideologies and movements of the age.

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  Crush the Cell - How to Defeat...

  Michael A. Sheehan

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  Written by a man who is arguably the country's most authoritative voice on counterterrorism, Crush the Cell demolishes, with simple logic, the edifice of false "terror punditry" that has been laid, brick by brick, since 9/11. A veteran of special ops, international diplomacy, and bruising clashes with federal law enforcement agencies, Michael A. Sheehan delivers in this book a two-part message: First, that we've wasted-and are continuing to waste-billions of dollars on the wrong protective measures; and second, that knowing the bad guys' next move is paramount.Somewhere in America, Sheehan maintains, are a number of terrorist cells, their members' heads filled with schemes of mayhem and destruction. Motivated not, as some believe, by feelings of disenfranchisement, disdain for freedom, or economic envy but by a compelling ideological hatred, these individuals plot not just terror but paralyzing terror-the kind that can shut down a country.Unwittingly aiding and abetting them are many (but not all) "terror experts" and members of the media who, for reasons that are partly self-serving, rate the bad guys' capabilities far higher than they are, playing into terrorists' hands with their hype. Spurred by the pundits' inflated assessments, legislation follows that drains billions from taxpayers' pockets and pours money into a bloated Washington bureaucracy championing needless programs. Here, Sheehan shows why defensive fortresses don't work whereas offensive operational intelligence does. He also peels back the mystery surrounding terrorist cells, portraying them as typically a group of bumblers searching for a charismatic leader who has what it takes to conduct a complex symphony of violence. Sharing time in the narrative spotlight are not just agents of al Qaeda but also frighteningly destructive lone wolves, cults, and radical movements.In his career, Sheehan has operated in the mountain jungles of Central America, the back alleys of Mogadishu, and the teeming streets of New York City-but he has also participated at the highest levels of policy making at the White House, the State Department, and the United Nations. It is his time protecting America's most populous city as its counterterrorism czar, however, that yields this book's most fascinating insights. As Sheehan reveals thwarted threats to New York's bridges, subways, and landmarks, and recounts extraordinary simulations staged to gauge terrorists' true abilities, we gain perhaps the clearest picture yet of what modern terror fighting is all about.

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