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Preserving Civil Liberties in An Age of Terrorism
Yale University Press
March 2006
320 pages ISBN: 0300112890 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of
repressive laws, setting in motion a vicious cycle that
threatens to devastate civil liberties over the twenty-first
century. In this clear-sighted book, Bruce Ackerman peers
into the future and presents an intuitive, practical
alternative. He proposes an �emergency constitution� that
enables government to take extraordinary actions to prevent
a second strike in the short run while prohibiting permanent
measures that destroy our freedom over the longer run. Ackerman�s �emergency constitution� exposes the dangers
lurking behind the popular notion that we are fighting a
�war� on terror. He criticizes court opinions that have
adopted the war framework, showing how they uncritically
accept extreme presidential claims to sweeping powers.
Instead of expanding the authority of the commander in
chief, the courts should encourage new forms of checks and
balances that allow for decisive, but carefully controlled,
presidential action during emergencies. In making his case,
Ackerman explores emergency provisions in constitutions of
nations ranging from France to South Africa, retaining
aspects that work and adapting others. He shows that no
country today is well equipped to both fend off terrorists
and preserve fundamental liberties, drawing particular
attention to recent British reactions to terrorist attacks.
Written for thoughtful citizens throughout the world, this
book is democracy's constitutional reply to political excess
in the sinister era of terrorism.
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