Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State

by Karen J. Greenberg

The definitive account of how America’s War on Terror sparked a decade-long assault on the rule of law, weakening our courts and our Constitution in the name of national security.

The day after September 11, President Bush tasked the attorney general with preventing another terrorist attack on the United States. From that day forward, the Bush administration turned to the Department of Justice to give its imprimatur to activities that had previously been unthinkable—from the NSA’s spying on US citizens to indefinite detention to torture. Many of these activities were secretly authorized, others done in the light of day.

When President Obama took office, many observers expected a reversal of these encroachments upon civil liberties and justice, but the new administration found the rogue policies to be deeply entrenched and, at times, worth preserving. Obama ramped up targeted killings, held fast to aggressive surveillance policies, and fell short on bringing reform to detention and interrogation.

How did America veer so far from its founding principles of justice? Rogue Justice connects the dots for the first time—from the Patriot Act to today’s military commissions, from terrorism prosecutions to intelligence priorities, from the ACLU’s activism to Edward Snowden’s revelations. And it poses a stark Will the American justice system ever recover from the compromises it made for the war on terror?

Riveting and deeply reported, Rogue Justice could only have been written by Karen Greenberg, one of this country’s top experts on Guantánamo, torture, and terrorism, with a deep knowledge of both the Bush and Obama administrations. Now she brings to life the full story of law and policy after 9/11, introducing us to the key players and events, showing that time and again, when liberty and security have clashed, justice has been the victim.

— Kirkus, Best Books of 2016

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Legal, Law, Government, Current Affairs

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 2016

Reviews

[Randal White · Rating 1 out of 5]

It isn't often that I dislike a book as much as this one. Greenberg's intent (I believe), was to show how government excesses in the war on terror have threatened the very fabric of American society. And I agree with her that their were excesses. But her insistence on claiming that government officials have conspired, for reasons of gaining power, to ruin our government, is just wrong. "For every Cheney mongering fear and nurturing paranoia, there are many officials quietly going about their business - drafting legislation, writing legal opinions, arguing in court -thinking they are doing the right thing but failing to grasp that in their wish to protect the country, they are in fact betraying it." In the words of Steve Martin, "Well, excuse me!!!" If only we had known how evil all of us government servants were, I'm sure we would have done things her way. In her opinion, Edward Snowden is the second coming of Christ, and she is not far behind him. At least Greenberg's contempt for us pales in comparison to that which she holds Satan (I mean Cheney) in. I was not aware that the decades of experience he has in government matters not at all when compared to the judgement of Saint Snowden, with his one or two years experience in a low level analyst job. And, less you think her wrath is only for the former Republican administration, her feelings (and feelings are much more important than facts) towards that evil man, Barack Obama, are not much better. His insistence on murdering people with drone strikes (even an American) are just as bad. Never mind the fact that the "American", had declared war on America, was advocating the murder of his fellow Americans, and was hiding amongst his new-found friends (those misunderstood boys who were busy innocently beheading, crucifying, burning, or raping innocent people). I am sure that, if we had just tried, we could have had someone serve Al-waki with a subpoena to appear in an American court, and he would have happily showed up in his Sunday best!
No, Greenberg seems content to live in her little make-believe world where there are no winners or losers, but everyone gets a trophy for participation. And yet, paradoxically, feels perfectly within her rights to judge everyone else. Because she knows best. I'm sure that's what her parents told her.
Again, there were excesses committed in the war on terror. And yes, they were wrong. But the men and women who were in charge were not the devil. They were trying to protect America. And, like many other times in our history, the result will likely be a swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction (for example, the Church hearings). And things will balance out in the end. That's what makes America great. Despite what the author thinks.

[Christine Zibas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Barack Obama might have come into office on promises to restore the balance between national security and civil liberties and to dial back claims made for executive power by the Bush administration. But by the time he started gearing up for his reelection campaign, he seemed to be reconsidering. He'd ordered Guantanamo closed, but had yet to engage in the political battle it would take to enforce the order. He'd ended torture, but allowed targeted killing...[decisions that] could not help but increase the power of the presidency to override civil liberties in favor of national security."


This book is not a blame game of who trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens or who secretly began expanding Executive powers, even while sacrificing the constitutional rights assigned via the rule of law and the Judiciary Branch.

Indeed, if blame is to be assigned, it belongs equally to both Republican and Democratic parties. Under President George W. Bush, there was a quick but sustained erosion of individual constitutional rights post 9/11. These conditions continued under President Obama, who despite having pledged to change course, in fact, expanded this usurpation with targeted drone strikes, killing even American citizens without due process.

Unfortunately, as with most erosion of liberties, it's nearly impossible to put the genie back in the bottle (a lesson Candidate Obama appeared to have learned as President). Now that the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence bodies have come to rely on the tools afforded them (even without measurable success), they are reluctant to forego them.

Where does that leave Americans? Resigned to the new status quo? Unfortunately, that seems about accurate. This book is about how the President, legislators on both sides of the aisle, government officials responsible for protecting US citizens, and even the Justice Department itself (particularly under President Bush) facilitated this erosion of fundamental legal rights. Few voices were shouting at equal decibels to protect those fundamental Constitutional principles as were shouting to prevent more terrorist attacks.

Yet, do we really want to pay this price for security? And, after all, isn't the purpose of all that security to protect US citizens who enjoy those fundamental rights? By eroding those rights, haven't we tarnished the very jewel we were seeking to protect -- liberty? As Author Karen Greenberg notes, "In no part of government has that betrayal by accretion, the death of liberty by a thousand cuts, been more momentous, or more disturbing, than in the institutions of justice -- the courts, the laws, and the Justice Department."


Thanks to Good Reads and Crown Publishers for allowing me to read this book.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

As 9/11 recedes into history (has it already been almost 15 years?), the terrifying events of that are beginning to recede into history. Many freshmen in high school were not yet born on that tragic day (now I feel really old). And yet we live in a country that in many ways is starkly different than it was on September 10, 2001 - and that includes a weakened Constitution that has been battered by national security advocates capitalizing on our darkest fears and rawest wounds.

Karen Greenberg ("The Least Worst Place," "The Torture Papers") has written extensively about the post-9/11 security state and now, with "Rogue Justice," she writes incisively and, on occasion, angrily about the systemic attack on our American values of freedom and privacy. These are two of the key principles that make America so special, and yet we as a people willingly sacrificed these goals in the name of security and the War on Terror. Politicians desperate to be seen taking actions to protect the country (and in many cases sincerely hoping that actual protection would result) worked with skillful, ambitious lawyers to undermine our Constitutional protections. Step by step, memo by memo, law by law, America authorized torture, suspended habeas corpus, and enabled systemic warrantless surveillance of Americans and our communications.

And in many cases, bald-faced lies were told to make these changes.

Greenberg, armed with facts and quoting extensively from original sources, explains in these pages how lawyers such as John Yoo used an Orwellian mastery of words to conclude that 'enhanced interrogation techniques' such as water-boarding did not constitute 'torture.' Other lawyers, misled by their co-workers, stood before judges and told bald-faced falsehoods about the nature of how the American surveillance system worked. And our worst fears were exploited to keep Guantanamo Bay and 'dark sites' open for business while excoriating the ability of our judicial system to handle terrorism cases.

And the blame does not fall entirely on the Bush Administration, although in Greenberg's telling the Obama Administration's sins are in many respects less brazen than his predecessor's. (With the notable exception of putting American names on the drone 'kill list,' of course.)

'Rogue Justice' is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand what the American government did in the name of security following 9/11. As Greenberg details, the undermining of the Constitution was serious and extensive, not just the paranoid fantasies of the ACLU attorneys. Thanks to the heroic efforts of Americans to buck the tide and take a stand for the Constitution, the pendulum appears to be shifting back toward a respect for human rights, privacy, and freedom of expression. But we still have a long way to go.

"Rogue Justice" is too short to be considered a definitive treatment of post-9/11 America, but it's an essential read nevertheless. Highly recommended.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State” by Karen Greenberg is another tale in the privacy vs security debate. This one is a bit different though...this narrative comes from the angle of how our Constitutional freedoms have been trampled by our overreaction to the failures of 9/11, and this is more extensive than just invasion of privacy. In our fear and panic after 9/11 it seems we simply whittled our legal practice to facilitate national security…and here is how we did it.

This story begins by reminding us that the Minneapolis office of the FBI had developed a huge clue as to what would occur on 9/11 a full month before the towers came down. All the follow up efforts of the local FBI people were frustrated by Washington DC headquarters staff who did not want to pursue the lead up to the FISA Court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Because of lies and misstatements in previous FBI applications to the FISA Court, it was getting harder to get approval for surveillance measures. Thus the FBI hesitated and passed on what might have prevented 9/11 from ever happening. This miss set the stage for the resulting disproportionate response by Washington leading to the suppression of many privacy, due process, and other constitutional rights. This book takes you down the sorry path.

So what happened to all our safeguards…that is what the book answers. We had a FISA wall that was supposed to insure surveillance was only on foreign individuals … the book shows how the government got around that. We also have always been against torture … the book details how the government legally justified that. The book discusses how we launched a divide between the intelligence community and law enforcement at the nexus of national security … how military commissions took over trying suspects instead of our long-developed legal system in the Federal Courts. If you ever wondered how/why the telephone companies and Yahoo/Google/Apple et al helped the government collect data (as we found out they did from Snowden), you will see that the Supreme Court of the United States helped that happen (Chapter 12).

This book is good reading. It will be embarrassing for some (FBI, CIA, White House, telephone companies, etc.) but shows that we as a country are finally getting back to our core principles after 15 years of overreaction. PS: I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaway.

[Clif · Rating 5 out of 5]

The collapse of the WTC towers on 9/11 was a horrible thing, but the reaction of the United States both immediately and for years afterward was a disaster for the country with regard to its own laws, one that could only have pleased Osama bin Laden.

Karen Greenberg gives us an account of the speed with which the G. W. Bush administration threw out the Constitution, preferring to go to "the dark side" as Vice-President Cheney termed it, going with preposterous legal rulings of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the executive department agency charged with giving the President legal advice. There, a zealot for increased presidential power, John Yoo, was happy to approve torture by smothering it in euphemisms.

Because the CIA had not been informed of the FBI's knowledge of a guy taking flight training with no interest in learning how to land prior to 9/11, there was a frenzy to break down the wall between domestic crime investigations and international intelligence gathering. This wall was in place to prevent Americans from coming under surveillance with the excuse of national security. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created the FISA court to hold hearings on any request to monitor Americans for national security reasons and the Bush administration set about to defeat this firewall purpose. As a result the FISA court went from rarely holding hearings and denying requests for warrants, to allowing almost anything to result in a warrant (an approval for surveillance).

All restraint was dropped. "Special renditions" to CIA black sites for torture opened as people were grabbed, labeled as unlawful combatants and locked away indefinitely. The CIA was more than eager to run the program even though the FBI wanted nothing to do with torture. The prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba allowed the farce of the US doing un-Constitutional things because it was not on US territory, the same reasoning that allowed the torture black sites in Europe and the middle east. Habeas corpus, the requirement that a person not be kept in prison without a hearing on the charges against him/her was fought over in the courts even as the suspects rotted in solitary confinement for years.

As for being kept in the dark, so were the American people. The NSA began its wholesale mopping up of personal communications. Denials of this, lies, were made before Congress by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper when he was asked directly if the American people were being monitored. The deception continued until Edward Snowden exposed the truth.

Throughout the book, the reader follows the courtroom activities that would generally wave through all the government wanted to do with a few courageous judges providing exceptions. Greenberg shows how powerful fear and government are when combined to push through things that contradict the Constitution.

And in the end, all the perpetrators, the violators of the highest law of the land, escaped with the blessing of President Obama. The lesson he learned being that capturing people and bringing them to trial, though far more effective that torture, is messy, potentially embarrassing for the government and far more risky than the simple act of killing by drone that needs only the President's approval, even if is an American being assassinated. Thus, in addition to being commander in chief, the President is now an assassin and this has been accepted with little objection by a Congress happy to avoid its Constitutional responsibilities and defer to the President.

I finished this book far better informed of what happened, all laid out clearly by Karen Greenberg. I couldn't help but note that the CIA had been taken to task by the Church Commission back in the 1970's and limitations were placed on what the agency could do. Then came 9/11 and the CIA committed more misdeeds followed by another Congressional investigation showing how the agency had again gone off the rails with nothing to show for it. I can only wonder what good the CIA has done in the 75 years of its existence.

And Edward Snowden...has any one individual ever done so much for his country? Yet our government wants to get him behind bars for exposing that government's lies that deceived us all. How many thousands of Americans were content to let the Constitution be subverted without anyone saying a word about it!

[George Odera · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Never let a good crisis go to waste," it was famously said. For George W. Bush and his administration, he must have recited these words like catechism and religiously lived by them. After 9/11, with the nation's mood poignant, and the government's response seemingly benevolent, the Bush administration embarked on the expansion of executive power under the guise of "the war on terror."

The author gives a sordid account of how two American presidents, Bush and his successor Obama, exercised executive power in ways that were not dissimilar to an autocrat. The passage of the Patriot Act and FISA Amendment Act sanctioned mass surveillance of American citizens, the Military Commissions Act effectively abrogated the constitutional right to a writ of habeas corpus, and the Department of Justice gave legal justification for not only torture of terrorism suspects, but also their execution abroad by drone strikes. The war on terror quickly morphed into a war against civil liberties and constitutional rights.

Overall, the book teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are benevolent. It's biggest shortcoming is not in its content, but it's timing; it was written perhaps 6 years too soon, thus preceded many significant developments in the security state. For instance, the author took comfort in the expiry of section 215 of the Patriot Act, which gave the government power to forcefully collect customers data from telecommunications companies. But she did not anticipate the purchase of internet users' information by the government from data brokers as a way to bypass the strictures of the Fourth Amendment; it recently came to light that US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other parts of the Department of Homeland Security are sidestepping the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable government searches and seizures by buying access to, and using, huge volumes of people’s cell phone location information quietly extracted from smartphone apps. The book was also published 3 years before the decision in Carpenter v. United States, a landmark SCOTUS case which held that the government needs a warrant to access a person’s cellphone location history from cellular service providers because of the “privacies of life” those records can reveal. 

The book makes for an illuminating read.

[Carter Geer · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me about 18 years to finish, but I’m just glad that I got through it. Not the most stellar book I’ve read. Incredibly informative about the government’s unethical actions during the War on Terror post-9/11. My biggest critique is that it never read like a story; it read like a textbook. She basically outlined every single damn thing that happened and every single damn person in the entire government. So that made it incredibly boring through certain parts. Nevertheless, still got something from it. Probably the lowest rating book I’ve read in a while.

[Jay Carper · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my reading and experience, lawyers tend to see the law in one (or more) of five ways:

1) A necessary framework for civilization, one that keeps us (all of us) from descending into barbarism. Without a consistent and rational system of justice, we might as well go back to the caves and trees.
2) A useful tool for keeping the little people in line. The law is justification for hanging some and jailing others, and a cattle prod to keep the rest moving in the right direction.
3) An obstacle to getting the real work done. The law is only for the people who aren't smart enough or powerful enough to know what really needs to happen. Those who have a more informed perspective, must be able to bypass the law or at least reinterpret it to suite their purposes as required.
4) A protective cover for what would otherwise be considered criminal behavior. With the right spin and pressure, any law can be made to say anything, and that's a good thing for people who want to be able to do anything they want while staying "within the law."
5) A game to be used for the entertainment of lawyers, a professional, high stakes sport full of word games and logic puzzles, prizes and penalties. The only real losers are those who don't know the unwritten rules.

Of course, every lawyer operates in all five paradigms. They're just people, after all, and can't be expected to be 100% consistent. Unfortunately, the only thoroughly honorable approach to law (#1), pays the lowest dividends, so the legal profession attracts and encourages people who are drawn to the other four.

The men who wrote the United States Constitution tended toward idealism and wrote it with the assumption that their successors would also be men of honor and high ideals. The Bill of Rights almost didn't pass for just that reason. It didn't work out that way. We've been on a downhill slide ever since. Today, Washington is dominated by men and women who scoff at idealism, who sneer at honor, who hold the first way anathema and the others as religious dogma. Although they give lip service to the founders' intent, not one DC lawyer in a hundred believes in anything like those original principles. They would imprison Washington, Adams, Jefferson, et al, in a third world dungeon and label the tens of thousands of non-uniformed militiamen who fought for our liberty as "enemy combatants" unworthy of the respect that one human being owes to another. They are liars, torturers, thieves, and murderers. The best thing that could happen to the United States, would be a black hole that swallowed up everything in the Capital Beltway. That would be far too kind to the legal filth who wrote and continue to support the Patriot Act and the like.

My greatest complaint against Greenberg's book is that she was far too easy on too many people. This is the softball version of the story. Greenberg seems to have assumed at least good intent on the part of those who destroyed the United States--and I'm sure many of them actually had some good intentions--and gave a complete pass to some of the worst offenders. Maybe she feared for her life if she told us how bad it really is. I would, if I were her.

(Review based on a free advanced reader copy.)

[A whole new girl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very ambitious work which gives the nitty gritty and minute details of the process in which the United States' citizens are losing rights to privacy from big government. It is also the story about how our precious legal processes, rights and procedures are being undermined by sneaky legislation and decisions made by politicians behind closed doors without regard for long-standing legal principles and due process.

The book shows how 9/11 was a HUGE catalyst and rationale for a huge power exchange giving up important rights and checks and balances to the government under the guise of fighting terrorism by any means necessary.

To be a good citizen is dependent not only on what each one of us *does* but depends on the citizens keeping tabs on what our Government is doing. The book is rather terrifying in that it confirms my worst fears and tells me that the truth is much more sinister than I had believed. I *know* our government has completely overstepped its traditional and historical powers, but it is frightening to see evidence of the politicians and powers that be working to deliberately strip the citizens and the country's legal institutions of their rights and powers.

I have not finished the book. Therefore, I may be wrong about the hopelessnes of the situation. Perhaps the last half of the book gives positive solutions to taking back our power. I could be dead wrong but I didn't sense the book ends on a positive note. I will need to finish it and see.

It is heavy reading and disturbing in import. However, one of the FANTASTIC elements of this book is Ms. Greenberg's painstakingly detailed footnotes and end notes. She has documented EXTENSIVELY the evidence behind her facts and assertions. Her notes go beyond her evidence and contain AMAZING tidbits of facts and details about the behind the scene details as well as contemporaneous news articles and documentation to back up her points.

Her notes are worth at least 3 starts alone! There is an education to be had in the depth of her research here. Unfortunately because I DO care so much and am so disturbed at the rights we have negotiated away to the government, it is a very difficult book to read and I will need to return to it at a later date. This book would be a TREMENDOUS resource for a person researching the makings of our Security State, however since I am not researching this area I get no pleasure from reading this book. For me, I like my nonfiction books to minister a modicum of hope because a book telling whole truths can sometimes be too foreboding and depressing to bear.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed, sober history of the legal issues surrounding the US government’s expanded counterterrorism policies following 9/11 and their impact on the justice system.

Greenberg shows how Yoo, Gonzales and Addington worked to bend the law in ways that gave legal cover to controversial policies (ex. Yoo’s cherry-picking of cases to support various positions and Addington’s objections to the “obnoxious” FISA court), and how Jack Goldsmith sought to limit OLC’s role to analyzing legality only. He describes the administration’s broad definition of executive power, how difficult it was for Goldsmith to reconcile the NSA’s surveillance program with the law (rather than the other way around), and how Bush’s advisers apparently kept the president in the dark regarding STELLAR WIND’s legal questions.

Greenberg covers a lot of ground in 320 pages, and jumps to and from lots of different topics in a way that will not leave every reader satisfied. Most of the book deals with the legal issues and a presentation of all the competing arguments. Obviously, it doesn’t always make for riveting reading.

The book doesn’t add anything new and is often just a dry, sometimes breezy rehash of known facts. The short length also makes it less than “definitive.” For some reason CIA officers are referred to as “agents.” Still, a readable work.

[Bookforum Magazine]

"In Rogue Justice, Karen J. greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, shows how such stark fears have boomeranged to pervert our institutions of law enforcement and justice. Greenberg details the ways in which all three branches of American government have compromised, diluted, or abandoned the restraints on state power that are, when you come down to it, the guarantors of our freedom."

–Jedediah Purdy on Karen Greenberg's Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State in the April/May 2016 issue of Bookforum


To read the rest of this review, go to Bookforum:
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/023_01

[Beth Shultz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me longer than usual to read this book. I would get so disturbed by the contents that I would have to put it down. A very informative book that everyone should read. I received this book from Goodreads Giveaway.

[phoenix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written. Facts woven together with a strong story telling feeling.
However, the second half of the book becomes more & more just a collection of factual stories, without a clear red line, narratively speaking. Except for the last two chapters.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 1 out of 5]

[Note:  This book was provided free of charge by Blogging For Books/Broadway Books.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

What you get out of this book depends a great deal on your perspective going into it.  My own thoughts about this book were less than kind--it is useless as history, but an effective demonstration of the propaganda of the radical left.  If you live in a world where Obama is far too conservative, where one finds a greater deal of humanity in traitors and Islamist terrorists than in fairly ordinary neo-Conservative politicians, and where the ACLU is almost the only force for the good aside from liberal judges that exist in our political system, this is your kind of book.  As I do not share the leftist fantasy world of the author, I was left with the feeling that the author was essentially unreliable in everything she was saying.  She was trying to pass off her own conspiratorial views as being historical truth, and one wondered if she was self-deceived or merely trying to deceive others.  I say this as well, it should be noted, as someone who takes a dim view of the surveillance of civilians that is discussed here [1].  The biggest changed of the laws I thought worthwhile after reading this book is a tightening of libel laws, because if the US had the same libel laws as the UK, this author would be paying former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [2] a lot of money, and the world would be a more just place if that was the case.

In terms of its contents and structure, this book has between 250 and 300 pages of main text that roughly covers in chronological fashion the period between 2000 and 2016.  Despite the apocalyptic tone of much of the author's discussion of freedom and the rule of law where terrorism is concerned, the author seems to take a decided glee in the way that government efforts at promoting security and defending government agents from prosecution were hampered by an ineffective legal system.  She seems to find it somehow unreasonable that people should see the triumph of bureaucratic legalism as a bad thing, and seems to view only radical left-wing political activists as believing in true freedom, which seems baffling.  The author, moreover, consistently misapplies labels like conservative to neo-conservatives, and only slightly mentions the more libertarian wing of Republicans and seems not to recognize old fashioned paleo-conservatives at all.  The author's political bias seeps through on nearly every page, and that means that the author's comments and claims to write about history simply lack any kind of credibility.

In looking at this book, one has to wonder what the point of it was.  What led the author to write a book that combines libelous disregard for Republicans, heavy criticism of far too leftist "mainstream" Democrats, and praise only for loony left-wing activists and terrorists, and release it at this point?  I will offer my two cents worth here.  The author's praise of terrorists and reliance on the left-wing activism of a good deal of the judicial branch suggests that the author fears that she and others of her ilk will be treated like terrorists in the Trump presidency.  These fears appear to be overblown, as the author thinks that a Republican or even fairly "mainstream" or "moderate" Democrat is the prelude to a fascist state.  Her desires for people not to live in fear about terrorism are contradicted by her own living in fear about Republicans.  Any author who thinks that moderate conservatives are more to fear than Islamist terrorists should seriously reconsider a career as a writer who claims to write nonfiction, as the only nonfiction this book shows is an account of the shadows and delusions of her own head.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

In writing Rogue Justice, The Making of the Security State, author Karen J. Greenberg has created an insightful, and telling  account of how dangerously close America came to losing many of the freedoms afforded to us in the Bill of Rights following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is certainly accurate about Rouge Justice when he explained that the book is “a must read for anyone who cares about the constitution”.

Rogue Justice is an amazing tale of the legal workings that took place following the aftermath of 9/11 and how attorneys from both sides of the fight of security versus constitutional rights engaged the US court system, often outside public limelight and in secret, to pursue their side’s cause. Rogue Justice puts the conflict between national security and civil liberties in a post 9/11 world front and center, and gives a devastating account of the Bush Administration’s dilution of citizen’s rights and liberties in favor of national security, all the while strengthening the office of the president to usurp the constitution in order to detain U.S. Citizens indefinitely, torture people in the name of national security, and conduct wholesale, dragnet surveillance on citizens of the United States.

Greenburg is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law, and she has written an extremely well researched book comprised of hundreds of interviews, hearing, trials, and input from many lawyers, experts, and journalists.

It’s quite likely, when reading Rogue Justice, that you will find yourself asking: How can the government expect to fight terrorism by conforming to the thought process that extraditions, torture, indefinite detention, elimination of wiretapping warrants, and even targeting killings will not exacerbate the problem? There are many in the US that believe that in order to secure the nation, we must put aside certain rights guaranteed in the United States Constitution in order to battle terrorism, but this seems like a backward logic. When we engage terrorism in its many forms, are we not fighting to protect these exact principals of freedom that protect us from these violations? The words of the great American Benjamin Franklin come to mind, who said, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”

It’s interesting to think about the implications of Rogue Justice being published in 2012 versus 2016, and we’re left to imagine the potential outrage of the public in general had they known the secret maneuvering of the FBI, CIA, the Attorney General, the NSA, and countless lawyers in the Department of Justice. While you must read Rogue Justice to get the full effect, it is our prediction that you walk away from the book more leery of government activity, more grateful of your civil liberties, and hopefully appreciative of all the lawyers and activities, defense attorneys, and even Edward Snowden for acting in a way that sought to protect your rights from a government that would dilute them in order to pursue its agenda against terrorists.





I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

After September 11, President George W. Bush turned to the Justice Department for its official OK for activities previously thought inconceivable. They included torture, indefinite detention and NSA spying on Americans. When President Obama took office, it was expected that these policies would be reduced, or eliminated. If anything, some of these policies were actually expanded.

The things and people from the early days of the "war on terror" are in this book, including FISA, the PATRIOT Act, John Walker Lindh (the American Taliban), military commissions and John Yoo. He is the Justice Department who went through mental gymnastics trying to give George W. Bush the legal justification to run the "war on terror" any way he wanted.

This is a first-rate piece of writing. For anyone who wants to know how America went from "land of the free" to torture, warrantless surveillance of Americans and waterboarding, start right here. It is very highly recommended.

[Burk · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book. While many books have documented/chronicled the excesses of the Bush administration in its war against American civil liberties, i.e., flagrantly violating them in the stated goal of protecting the country from those who do not value such liberties (the old, "destroy the village to save it"), Greenberg goes on to include the total departure of Obama from his campaign rhetoric to his actual expansion of Bush era travesties, including his personal authorization of drone assassinations of even American citizens without observing even basic due process. But most enlightening was the author's examination of the federal court system and how it supported the transgressions of both administrations in their flagrant disregard for civil liberties and basic due process. If the question were - who guards the guards, the answer over the last 2-3 decades would definitely not be the courts. So much for checks and balances. And, for that matter, our civil liberties.

[GreyAtlas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The style of writing didn't grip me. It was informative, and better written than other non-fictions I've come across, but it just wasn't impressionable. The drone kill list created by Obama was interesting, and the beginning progression about how people were detained post-9/11 was good to know.

Would I recommend? Mehh, it was like a 250 page news article. Informative but only if you're interested in the topic.

[Hancock · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you respect any of the U.S. presidents since the September 11 attacks on the U.S., this book will cure you of that.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." (the Fourth Amendment) Oh, brother, did things get out of hand following 9/11. Government agencies blindsided, citizen rights diluted, doors opened for limitless surveillance. This book's narrative is understandably legalistic at times, but since I was mostly interested in the essential thread of justice gone awry, I skimmed over those parts. Yes it is sometimes necessary to override strict Constitutional wordings, but even so our Bill of Rights freedoms are virtually a national religion credo. Constant vigilance is required as well as support for watchdog institutions such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

[Nick Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.

If you're like me, you found September 11, 2001 to be a tragic event, though not one that inspired fear. Admittedly, there aren't many Americans who are like me in that regard, but given that the odds of dying from accidents, the flu, and suicide all have much higher odds of killing a person in the US and I'm not unnerved by any of those things, why would I find terrorism to be more existentially threatening?

I know. That kind of detached view is weird. You can stop reading if you want. I'm not scared of that, either.

It was really the reaction of the country to the al-Qaeda attacks that concerned me. The average American citizen was so terrified by the thought that terrorism was something that could happen here, not just the places it "belonged" over in the Middle East or Africa or Ireland, that almost everybody was willing to sell their rights to the government for protection, and the government was more than willing to take the deal. Congress and the courts, backed by a frightened electorate, knowingly handed unprecedented power to the executive branch, and even then the hungry executive went hunting for even greater power in secret. This process has been reversed in recent years in some limited measure, but not to a fraction of the distance those of us who recall what people in surveillance states like the USSR had to live with would prefer.

Rogue Justice is the story of how the White House and security agencies went about gathering the various powers related to surveillance, detention, interrogation, et al in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It details who wrote the policies, who fought them from within and without, their implications, and how the various parties wrestled with the ramifications of forces with the United States government trying to void large chunks of the Bill of Rights and Constitution. It's essential reading on the creation of the modern security state, and takes to task the various actors within the government responsible for our current reduced level of privacy, freedom, political accountability, and government transparency.

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC through a Goodreads Giveaway.

Wow! I'm not very well versed in politics to begin with, and when it came to 9/11, I was only aware that our country was being attacked. I was only 18 at the time, fresh out of high school, trying to figure out what to do with my life. I hadn't thought about all that was going on in a very frantic government that was trying to protect me and all Americans. This book was an eye opener that has made me even more aware of my rights and how close we came to losing them and still could.

It was a fascinating read. I give the author extreme credit for all the details and difficulties that had to be covered. Law is a difficult subject on its own, but you throw in all the politics, the Acts and memos, the committees and lawyers it starts to get heavy. I had to reread a few sections to make sure I understood exactly what I had just gone over. Sometimes it felt like a history book. History is not my favorite subject. Trying to remember which lawyer was which and who wrote or did what was overwhelming at times. However, the overall message was delivered and received.

Through her book I watched our country panic as the planes hit the towers. I watched what that panic created, the Yoo memo, the Patriot Act, etc. I watched our Executive and Judicial Branches trying to decide just how to proceed and stay legal within the new world of Terror. I watched as boundaries were pushed and sometimes outright broken. We are in a new frontier with this war. What was most pleasing is that because of our country and its freedoms we can question and challenge our government to make sure it stays in check and doesn't run rampant with our rights. I saw this through Karen's work. There is still a long way to go when it comes to the laws regarding Terrorists, but there is hope that our country won't forget where it came from and why we are here in the process. And remember that freedom has its costs.

Thank you for an enlightening read.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rouge Justin by Karen Greenberg covers the litany of abuses by the American government against US citizens following 9/11 when the desire to protect the country led to the spying and killing of American citizens. This book does not try to settle the debate about where the line should be on the scale of security vs right to privacy but instead catalogs the abuses under Bush and Obama. This shows how the security state came about and the foundations created in the confusion of policy following 9/11 from the Yoo memo’s that defined what was acceptable as torture to the various metadata capture of conversations and email that would be revealed by Edward Snowden’s leak. The book focuses on three main areas including FISA courts and the separation of criminal vs intelligence that no longer exists, the capture of dragnet sweeps of communications and emails, and the legal status of United States Citizens held as “enemy combatants” when arrested on US soil. To be clear this is not a book that simply bashes Bush but one that takes all the politicians including Obama to task for creating a security environment that tramples the rights of citizens in an effort to keep United States citizenry safe. For those who are unsure of how the security state has grown in recent years this is an excellent and well thought out primer and for those who are aware it condenses the information in an easy to read and reference format. Really an essential read for anyone wanting to be informed on this debate.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State by Karen J. Greenberg does a commendable job of "connecting the dots" from just prior to 9/11 through today with respect to the assault on civil liberties and justice. There is plenty of blame to go around and Greenberg does not hesitate to put responsibility where it belongs.

Certainly readers leaning heavily left or right will prefer more responsibility be shouldered by the other end of the spectrum (I am including myself here, I tend to place more on those who conceived of, and followed through on, plans to circumvent and disregard the Constitution and our liberties under the guise of "combating terrorism" but I tend to lean left) but I think Greenberg does a fair job of not trying to demonize either side. This allows her to speak to a broader audience about how and whether we can regain the principles the country used to value or remain little more than a shell of the country that once at least tried to value civil liberties.

I would recommend this to those who want a nice overview without heavyhandedness so they can look at the many decisions that will confront this country in the near future with a good grasp of what went wrong and what we might do to improve.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing.

[Stephen Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were countless eye-popping moments in this book for me. The one that I've kept coming back to after I put down Rogue Justice is this one --> when the NSA had been sending all of this information gleaned from warrantless hoovering of American citizens' personal communications to the FBI, they began to get a bit chuffy because they weren't hearing any gratitude back. So someone in the NSA pressed the issue and the answer from various FBI field offices was, "all you are sending us is crap."
So, George W Bush and his rule-of-law-avoiding lawyers went to so much trouble to ditch the civil liberties found within the Bill of Rights, to invade Americans' privacy, to store all of that data, to make secret decisions & legal conclusions which weren't unearthed until years later, to torture people from around Asia & the Middle East . . . and it was all useless. No terrorism prevented. Just lots of my e-mails, Facebook messages, IM chats, and phone calls are all sitting in a massive database in Utah, along with everyone else's.
Great book. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a pulse and might not blindly trust their government. I did receive an ARC in exchange for this review.

[Chris Demer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a brilliant book delineating how the "war on terror" allowed the government of George Bush and his colleagues to assault the rule of law and remove many of the protections of the fourth amendment. In the process, the courts were weakened.
Citizens were (are) spied upon, searched without warrants, held without charges, detained in secretly authorized "black sites" and tortured. The legal grounds for much of this came from presidential advisors, particularly John Yoo, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others.

We have allowed the weakening of our rights in the name of national security and the means by which this has been accomplished have been disgraceful.

To be honest, I found the book to be difficult reading, partly because I was so ill-informed of the many strategies, documents, court cases, "enemy combatants" etc. It was a bit much to take in. I did not finish the book because of this. I may read the rest at a later time.

[Les Gehman · Rating 5 out of 5]

If this book doesn’t make you mad, you haven’t been paying attention. Karen Greenberg documents how since 9/11 our constitutional rights have been dying the death of a thousand cuts at the hands of government and elected officials who take advantage of every tragedy to expand government power and chip away at our rights. Greenberg does a great job of tracing the assault on our civil liberties through each legal opinion, court case, and piece of legislation as they occurred from 9/11 to the present day. If every American read this book this summer, we would have a very different government following the November 2016 election.

(This book was provided to me by the publisher as a LibraryThing early reviewer.)

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.

This is a detailed report of the actions of government in response to the
9/11 attacks. It details the legal aspects that have eroded constitutional
rights and liberties of US citizens in the name of national security.
It describes how both the Bush and Obama administrations have taken
advantage of the nation's fear of terrorism to expand the powers of
government and act in defiance of US and International Law to imprison,
torture and kill "enemy combatants" including those who are US citizens.

It is chilling what has been done and one can only imagine what might
happen in the future. This is a book that everyone should read and then
ask questions of this year's candidates for office - what would they do?

[Ethan Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a revealing contemplation into the events, following 9/11, that shaped our post-privacy America. The overreaching government officials, the secret meetings, the "Plausible deniability" were all displayed in a creepy aesthetic that offered a suspenseful tone. The impactful conclusions to each of Karen J. Greenberg’s assertions made for a poignant ebb and flow that drew readers in, while never slowing the pace. I would have appreciated a few more secondary sources to evidence the author's claims, but the anecdotal feel of many of her propositions was natural and believable; considering recent history, they were also familiar. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the intricacy of the privacy’s death in America.

[Cayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at what goes on behind the scenes, on just how little the American people are let in on in today's world. It's clear that the balance between protecting American citizens and reducing their freedoms is precarious at best. As the book eludes to, it is like a pendulum in motion. The ways in which the government can act in direct conflict with the principles of the Constitution, without public knowledge is scary. This books shows just how important the balance between secrecy and transparency is in the master of national security.
*I received this book as a winner of a Goodreads giveaway.