The War on the Bill of Rights#and the Gathering Resistance

The War on the Bill of Rights#and the Gathering Resistance

Author: Nat Hentoff

Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Published: 2004-10-05

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9781583226582

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"The Constitution," said Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ominously in March 2003, "just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires." In The War on the Bill of Rights-and the Gathering Resistance, nationally syndicated columnist and Village Voice mainstay Nat Hentoff draws on untapped sources-from reporters, resisters, and civil liberties law professors across the country to administration insiders-to piece together the true dimensions of the ongoing assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.


The Lesser Evil

The Lesser Evil

Author: Michael Ignatieff

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-12-03

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1400850681

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Must we fight terrorism with terror, match assassination with assassination, and torture with torture? Must we sacrifice civil liberty to protect public safety? In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. But we are pulled in the other direction too by the anxiety that a violent response to violence makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity, and political judgment that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today. Ignatieff argues that we must not shrink from the use of violence--that far from undermining liberal democracy, force can be necessary for its survival. But its use must be measured, not a program of torture and revenge. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil. In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda, with its suicidal agents bent on mass destruction. He shows how the most potent response to terror has been force, decisive and direct, but--just as important--restrained. The public scrutiny and political ethics that motivate restraint also give democracy its strongest weapon: the moral power to endure when the furies of vengeance and hatred are spent. The book is based on the Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 2003.


Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties

Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties

Author: Paul Finkelman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-07

Total Pages: 2194

ISBN-13: 1135947058

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This Encyclopedia on American history and law is the first devoted to examining the issues of civil liberties and their relevance to major current events while providing a historical context and a philosophical discussion of the evolution of civil liberties. Coverage includes the traditional civil liberties: freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition. In addition, it also covers concerns such as privacy, the rights of the accused, and national security. Alphabetically organized for ease of access, the articles range in length from 250 words for a brief biography to 5,000 words for in-depth analyses. Entries are organized around the following themes: organizations and government bodies legislation and legislative action, statutes, and acts historical overviews biographies cases themes, issues, concepts, and events. The Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties is an essential reference for students and researchers as well as for the general reader to help better understand the world we live in today.


Routledge Revivals: Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties (2006)

Routledge Revivals: Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties (2006)

Author: Paul Finkelman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-02-05

Total Pages: 928

ISBN-13: 1351269917

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Originally published in 2006, the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties, is a comprehensive 3 volume set covering a broad range of topics in the subject of American Civil Liberties. The book covers the topic from numerous different areas including freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition. The Encyclopedia also addresses areas such as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, slavery, censorship, crime and war. The book’s multidisciplinary approach will make it an ideal library reference resource for lawyers, scholars and students.


Privacy in Peril

Privacy in Peril

Author: James B. Rule

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-10-25

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0199885745

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This probing account of the erosion of privacy in America shows that we are often unwitting, if willing, accomplices, providing personal data in exchange for security or convenience. The author shows that the personal data that we make available to virtually any organization for virtually any purpose is apt to surface elsewhere, applied to utterly different purposes. As long as we willingly accept the pursuit of profit or cutting government costs as sufficient reason for intensified scrutiny over our lives, then privacy will remain endangered.


California Politics

California Politics

Author: Edgar Kaskla

Publisher: CQ Press

Published: 2007-07-02

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1483371069

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California is full of myths and legends, but its political system shouldn’t be. In this refreshingly critical take, Edgar Kaskla brings an analysis of power—how it is distributed, how it is used, and to what end—to bear on California’s political system and the many troubling issues it currently faces. Starting from the premise that California is in deep crisis politically, economically, culturally, and environmentally, Kaskla traces the state’s economic and political development as a process controlled by and for the elite, be they land barons, the Hollywood glitterati, or Silicon Valley execs. Kaskla focuses on what he calls growth machine politics—elites and their land use as promoters of development and redevelopment—to show students how the gap between the rich and poor in California continues to widen. As minority communities increase in size, as the cost of campaigning in the state balloons, and as the state’s debt crisis mounts, the socio-economic and cultural issues at play in California add up to a real threat to democratic governance. Kaskla clearly outlines how each of the state’s institutions are organized, but also shows how they are affected—indeed distorted—by a host of serious economic and social inequalities. Not one to mince words, Kaskla is in places irreverent, but his text is thoroughly researched and well argued, never crossing the line into the polemical. Tables, figures, maps, and lists for further reading help reinforce the book’s substantive points and critical approach, and a host of student and instructor ancillaries help with study, review, and preparation.


Milestones on the Road to Dystopia

Milestones on the Road to Dystopia

Author: Firas Adnan Jabbar Al-Jubouri

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-03-17

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1443857793

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Author of the masterpieces Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, the nom de plume of Eric Arthur Blair, experienced, explored and explained some of the defining political, economic and social traumas of his time – predicaments that have, and will always be, part of Man’s infatuation with power and power politics. Orwell’s experiences of colonial exploitation in Burma, extreme poverty in Paris, London and the industrial North, and the horrors of ideological deceit and betrayal during the Spanish Civil War fashioned his literary persona, his political canon and influenced his vision of a future dystopia. This book explores Orwell’s journey to dystopia, using his major texts as milestones, and also examines the author as a divided self and as a chronicler of his age on a fateful journey to dystopia. Furthermore, it investigates his responses to the use of what he calls ‘force and/or fraud’ in the politics of his time, seeking a new understanding of the tensions and contradictions that characterise his writing. The analyses explain how authoritarian systems and totalitarian regimes manipulate power and employ pretence in order to divide the self and force individuals and society into obedience. The book argues that new insight into Orwell’s political views is gained by investigating Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, where Machiavelli uses the phrase ‘force or fraud’ to encourage totalitarian tactics in running a State. Milestones on the Road to Dystopia: Interpreting George Orwell’s Self-Division in an Era of ‘Force and Fraud’ presents new insights that interpret the close relationship between self-division, paradox and the use of a pseudonym, demonstrating how they help in understanding Orwell’s character, works and the nature of totalitarian politics. Analysing self-division, both as an Orwellian trait and as a totalitarian strategy, and finding a connection with Machiavelli, against the milieu of Orwell’s development as a writer, is an intricate and interrelated topic that has not previously received critical attention, either in its individual parts or as an integrated study. This book establishes an essential template with which to analyse Orwell’s self-division apropos his growing fears of totalitarian power politics, and offers distinct analytical acumens that allow for an updated understanding of Orwell and of his relevance to political thought and the question of ‘common decency’ in twenty-first century literature and politics.


Cato Handbook on Policy

Cato Handbook on Policy

Author: Cato Institute

Publisher: Cato Institute

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 716

ISBN-13: 9781930865686

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Details how legislators can return the federal goverment to the size and scope envisioned by the Founding Fathers.


Plato's Dreams Realized

Plato's Dreams Realized

Author: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Avakov

Publisher: Algora Publishing

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0875864945

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Arrested in the Soviet Union in 1975 for composing and distributing "subversive" pamphlets-compiled of quotes from official Soviet sources-Alexander V. Avakov was sentenced to hard labor in a KGB camp. After serving his sentence, he emigrated to the United States with his family in 1981. Avakov soon found himself subject to the shadowy invasion of FBI surveillance, for no apparent reason; was it for the letters he wrote to friends back home? In his book, Avakov examines the evolution of electronic surveillance as well as the extent of modern "total surveillance," with a consideration of the impact of electronic surveillance on citizen rights, and the philosophical basis for the connection between rights and privacy. "Without privacy, there is no autonomy of person; without autonomy of person, there is no freedom." Yet the United States government employs several legal mechanisms which hinge on innovative uses of electronic surveillance to evade the safeguards that are the pride of America. Such techniques include the use of friendly countries' intelligence services and the Echelon program to avoid the ticklish problem of obtaining warrants. With the "war on terror" and new legislation such as the USA Patriot Act, the US government has been expanding the use of searches without warrants (such as wiretaps and other forms of surveillance) to gather information that technically is supposed to be barred from presentation in criminal court as evidence. The resultant weakening of the exclusionary rule and due process in general violate the Constitution and make a mockery of the freedoms America advertises to the rest of the world. America, he shows, declares high-minded legal ideals but hasconsistently cheated in their implementation. There is logic, tradition, and a stable "modus operandi" in the way the US security apparatus violates the Constitution. The history of political spying in the US, as well as warnings by US legal authorities, point to the dangers of electronic surveillance to human rights. The author outlines various ways in which surveillance of citizens is increasing, then examines the bases of our expectations of liberty, from Plato to the US Constitution. In the tradition of the Russian intelligentsia, he brings a broad knowledge of literature, philosophy, history and legal studies to his analysis. Avakov concludes with a discussion of practical solutions to counter these dangers as suggested in a number of publications.


Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2017

Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2017

Author: Harris M. Lentz III

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1476633185

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The entertainment world lost many notable talents in 2017, including iconic character actor Harry Dean Stanton, comedians Jerry Lewis and Dick Gregory, country singer Glen Campbell, playwright Sam Shepard and actor-singer Jim Nabors. Obituaries of actors, filmmakers, musicians, producers, dancers, composers, writers, animals and others associated with the performing arts who died in 2017 are included. Date, place and cause of death are provided for each, along with a career recap and a photograph. Filmographies are given for film and television performers.