Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power
Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
In his address to the nation on September 20, 2001, President Bush declared war on terrorism and set in motion a detention policy unlike any we have ever seen. Since then, the United States has seized thousands of people from around the globe, setting off a firestorm of controversy. Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power explores that policy and the intense debates that have followed.
Written by an expert on the subject, one of the lawyers who fought -- and won -- the right for prisoners to have judicial review, this important book will be of immense interest to liberals and conservatives alike. With shocking facts and firsthand accounts, Margulies takes readers deep into the Guantánamo Bay prison, into the interrogation rooms and secret cells where hundreds of men and boys have been designated "enemy combatants." Held without legal process, they have been consigned to live out their days in isolation until the Bush administration sees fit to release them -- if itever does. Margulies warns Americans to be especially concerned by the administration's assertion that the Presidentcan have unlimited and unchecked legal authority.
Tracing the arguments on both sides of the debate, this vitally important book paints a portrait of a country divided, on the brink of ethical collapse, where the loss of personal freedoms is under greater threat than ever before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Margulies, a Minneapolis lawyer and civil rights activist, served as lead counsel in Rasul v. Bush, successfully petitioning the Supreme Court to extend the right of judicial review to all prisoners at Guant namo Bay. This book, Margulies's first, minutely chronicles the attempts of the present administration to extend the bounds of presidential authority while limiting official culpability. Breaking new ground by comprehensively analyzing the government's legal reasoning and deconstructing it in the light of historical precedent, Margulies states: "The Bush Administration has not provided a complete explanation for its detention policy. (Part of the motivation for this book is that no one else has either.)" Interspersed with accounts of his fascinating and frustrating attempts to obtain access to his British client, Shafiq Rasul, Margulies shines light on the theory and practice of indefinite military detention, peering into a self-contained, Kafkaesque universe of our own creation barely 90 miles from American shores. Accessible to nonlawyers, the book also offers full citations for those who wish to do further research. Margulies's clear explications of intricate legal points move his narrative effortlessly from the signing of the Geneva Conventions through the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, to the myriad cases of the detainees in Guant namo.