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The Johns Hopkins University Press
April 2007
On Sale: April 10, 2007
280 pages ISBN: 0801885825 EAN: 9780801885822 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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.
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