America's Role in the World : What Does National Security Mean in the 21st Century? by
What Does National Security Mean in the 21st Century? The costs and benefits of immigration have always been debated. But as we work our way out of a tough economic recession, some wonder whether newcomers, especially those arriving illegally, are compromising our quality of life, taking jobs away from those already here, and threatening our security and sovereignty as a nation... The question facing Americans today is how to create a system that meets our diverse needs—a system that values the role immigrants play in society, takes heed of today's economic and legal responsibilities, and keeps us strong and competitive in the future. Following are descriptions of the three options presented for consideration in the issue guide: Option One: National Security Means Safeguarding the United States As the war in Afghanistan winds down, we continue to face the threat of terrorism, as well as threats from Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan. At the same time, traditional adversaries like Russia and China are gaining power. Our most important goal must be to safeguard the people of the United States. Option Two: National Security Depends on Putting Our Economic House in Order The United States cannot long remain a superpower if it is the world's largest debtor nation and runs huge budget deficits. We need to focus on increasing employment, eliminating our staggering public indebtedness and improving the balance of trade. Whatever steps we take domestically to improve the economy, it will mean spending less on the military and reducing the amount of money that flows overseas. Option Three: National Security Means Recognizing That Global Threats Are Our Greatest Challenge Our most urgent challenge is to address the long-term threats that endanger humanity and that demand an international solution. In the 21st century, we need to rethink what "national security" means. The greatest threats facing the United States—the risk of nuclear war, environmental devastation and global warming, pandemics, and the depletion of natural resources—also endanger other countries.
Black Site : the CIA in the post-9/11 world by
A bold account of one of the most controversial and haunting initiatives in American history, [this book] tells the full story of the post-9/11 counterterrorism world at the CIA. When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a war-fighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as 'the Program': a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With [this book], former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program, directly addressing how far America went to pursue al-Qa'ida and prevent another catastrophe. Heated debates about torture were later ignited in 2014 after the US Senate published a report of the Program, detailing the CIA's use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' to draw information from detainees. The report, Mudd posits, did not fully address key questions: How did the officials actually come to their decisions? What happened at the detention facilities--known as 'black sites'--on a day-to-day basis? What did they look like? How were prisoners transported there? And how did the officers feel about what they were doing? [This book] seeks answers to these questions and more, first by examining pre-9/11 Langley, when the CIA was tasked with collecting, disseminating, and analyzing information related to overseas events. Mudd argues that September 12, 2001, marked an operational revolution, as officials suddenly felt the weight of protecting a nation from a second wave of attacks inside the United States. Re-creating the incredibly tense atmosphere of the time, Mudd reveals that many officials felt an unshakable personal responsibility to thwart another attack. Based on interviews from dozens of officials--many of whom have never spoken out before--[this book] illuminates how the Agency quickly stepped into the process of organizing a full-blown interrogation program. Mudd offers a deeper understanding of how the enhanced interrogation techniques were developed and how intelligence professionals prepared to talk to the world's most hardened terrorists. With careful detail, he takes us through the process of each legally approved technique, including waterboarding. As compelling as it is revelatory, Black Site shows us the tragedy and triumph of the CIA during its most difficult days.
Bomb Power: the modern presidency and the national security state by 
Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror in the United States, India, and Israel by 
Can the War on Terrorism Be Won? by 
For Love of Country: debating the limits of patriotism by 
Habeas Data: privacy vs. the rise of surveillance tech by 
Law and the Long War: the future of justice in the age of terror by 
The National Security Doctrines of the American Presidency : How They Shape Our Present and Future by
The National Security Doctrines of the American Presidency: How They Shape our Present and Future provides a chronological examination of the foreign policy and national security doctrines of key American presidents from Washington to Obama, covering everything from our missionary zeal and our pursuit of open navigation of the seas, to our involvement in the ongoing political and military conflicts in the Middle East. It addresses the multiple sources behind the doctrines: real, rhetorical, and ideological. Arranged chronologically, each chapter offers commentary on the historical evolution of these doctrines, identifies the major themes, and highlights unique revelations. Ideal for universities, colleges, libraries, academics, classroom teachers, policy makers, and the educated electorate, this two-volume set represents a compendium of national security doctrines that explains how these first doctrines have constrained, restrained, and guided every American president regardless of party, providing comprehensive information that cannot be found in any other single source. Further, the work presents the reader with examples and explanations of precisely how these doctrines from long ago as well as those from recent history directly affect our present and future.
National security vs. civil & privacy rights by
This new series from Grey House offers indepth, single volumes that follow the debate, or path, to a decision on a controversial topic as it evolved throughout history. Each volume offers a wide range of opinion essays and editorials, speeches, and journal articles and expert analysis. This volume offers a sweeping overview of the shifting tensions and public opinions fueled by Americans' expectations of privacy vs. their collective desire for national security. ... Diving into how far the government has gone and "should" go in the name of national security, this volume analyzes primary and secondary source documents such as Supreme Court decisions, articles from respected periodicals, and legislation. Coverage includes domestic spying, Apple's refusal to help with "back door" access of the iPhone, and the differences between President Obama's and President Trump's surveillance states.
Playing to the Edge: American intelligence in the age of terror by
An unprecedented high-level master narrative of America's intelligence wars, from the only person ever to helm both the CIA and the NSA, at a time of heinous new threats and momentous change For General Michael Hayden, playing to the edge means playing so close to the line that you get chalk dust on your cleats. Otherwise, by playing back, you may protect yourself, but you will be less successful in protecting America. "Play to the edge" was Hayden's guiding principle when he ran the National Security Agency, and it remained so when he ran the CIA. In his view, many shortsighted and uninformed people are quick to criticize, and this book will give them much to chew on but little easy comfort. It is an unapologetic insider's look told from the perspective of the people who faced awesome responsibilities head on, in the moment. How did American intelligence respond to terrorism, a major war, and the most sweeping technological revolution in the last five hundred years? What was the NSA before 9/11 and how did it change in its aftermath? Why did the NSA begin the controversial terrorist surveillance program that included the acquisition of domestic phone records? What else was set in motion during this period that formed the backdrop for the infamous Snowden revelations in 2013?
The Threat : how the FBI protects America in the age of terror and Trump by
On March 16, 2018, just twenty-six hours before his scheduled retirement from the organization he had served with distinction for more than two decades, Andrew G. McCabe was fired from his position as deputy director of the FBI. President Donald Trump celebrated on Twitter: 'Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI--A great day for Democracy.' Now McCabe offers a dramatic and candid account of his career, and an impassioned defense of the FBI's integrity and independence in protecting America and upholding the Constitution. McCabe started as a street agent in the FBI's New York field office, serving under Director Louis Freeh. He became an expert in two kinds of investigations that are critical to American national security: Russian organized crime -- which is inextricably linked to the Russian state -- and terrorism. Under Director Robert Mueller, McCabe led the investigations of major attacks on American soil, including the Boston Marathon bombing, a plot to bomb the New York subways, and several narrowly averted bombings of aircraft. And under James Comey, McCabe was deeply involved in the controversial investigations of the Benghazi attack, the Clinton Foundation's activities, and Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. He recounts in detail the time between Donald Trump's November 2016 election and his firing, set against a narrative spanning two decades when the FBI's mission shifted to a new goal: preventing terrorist attacks on Americans. But as McCabe shows, right now the greatest threat to the United States comes from within, as President Trump and his administration ignore the law, attack democratic institutions, degrade human rights, and undermine the U.S. Constitution that protects every citizen. McCabe tells the true story of what the FBI is, how it works, and why it will endure as an institution of integrity that protects America.
A War Like No Other: the constitution in a time of terror by 
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. surveillance state by 
Permanent Record by
In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the account of a bright young man who grew up online -- a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet's conscience.
The War on Leakers : National Security and American Democracy, From Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden by
Four days before Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, someone leaked American contingency war plans to the Chicago Tribune. The small splash the story made was overwhelmed by the shock waves caused by the Japanese attack on the Pacific fleet anchored in Hawaiibut the ripples never subsided, growing quietly but steadily across the Cold War, Vietnam, the fall of Communism, and into the present.Ripped from today's headlines, Lloyd C. Gardner's latest book takes a deep dive into the previously unexamined history of national security leakers. The War on Leakers joins the growing debate over surveillance and the national security state, bringing to bear the unique perspective of one our most respected diplomatic historians. Gardner examines how national security leaks have been grappled with over nearly five decades, what the relationship of leaking” has been to the exercise of American power during and after the Cold War, and the implications of all this for how we should think about the role of leakers and democracy.Gardner's eye-opening new history asks us to consider why America has invested so much of its resources, technology, and credibility in a system that all but cries out for loyal Americans to leak its secrets.
The challenge : Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the fight over presidential power by
In November 2001, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 31-year-old Yemeni, was captured and turned over to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. After confessing to being Osama bin Laden's driver, Hamdan was transferred to Guantánamo Bay, and was soon designated by President Bush for trial before a special military tribunal. The Pentagon assigned a military defense lawyer to represent him, a 35-year-old graduate of the Naval Academy, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. No one expected Swift to mount much of a defense. The rules of the tribunals, America's first in over fifty years, were stacked against him--assuming he wasn't expected to throw the game altogether. Instead, with the help of a young constitutional law professor at Georgetown, Neal Katyal, Swift sued the Bush Administration over the legality of the tribunals. In 2006, Katyal argued the case before the Supreme Court and won. This is the inside story of what may be the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law in the history of the Supreme Court.
Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice In Guantanamo Bay by
Every time human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith lands in Cuba, he takes the eight o’clock ferry to the windward side; his journey ends at Guantánamo Bay. One of the few people in the world who has ongoing independent access to the prison, Smith reveals the grotesque injustices that are perpetrated there in the name of national securityincluding the justifications created to legitimate the use of torture and the bureaucratic structures that have been put in place to shield prison authorities from legal accountability. By bearing witness to the stories of the forty prisoners that he represents, Smith asks us to consider what is done to American democracy when the rule of law is jettisoned in the name of combating terrorism.
Guantánamo: an American history by 
Guantánamo Diary by
Mohamedou Slahi has been imprisoned at the detainee camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba since 2002. In all these years, the United States has never charged him with a crime. Although he was ordered released by a federal judge, the U.S. government fought that decision, and there is no sign that the United States plans to let him go. Three years into his captivity Slahi began a diary, recounting his life before he disappeared into U.S. custody and daily life as a detainee. His diary is not merely a vivid record of a miscarriage of justice, but a deeply personal memoir---terrifying, darkly humorous, and surprisingly gracious. Guantnámo Diary is a document of immense emotional power and historical importance.
The Leasing of Guantanamo Bay by
Post-2002 events at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay have generated a spate of books on its use as a detention center in the U.S. fight against terrorism. Yet the crucial enabling factor-the lease that gave the U.S. control over the territory in Cuba-has till now escaped any but cursory consideration. The Leasing of Guantanamo Bay explains just how Guantanamo Bay came to be a leased territory where the U.S. has no sovereignty and Cuba has no jurisdiction. This is the first definitive account of the details and workings of the unusual and problematic state-to-state leasing arrangement that is the essential but murky foundation for all the ongoing controversies about Guantanamo Bay's role in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, charges of U.S. human rights violations, and U.S.-Cuban relations. The Leasing of Guantanamo Bay provides an overview of territorial leasing between states and shows how it challenges, compromises, and complicates established notions of sovereignty and jurisdiction. Strauss unfolds the history of the Guantanamo Bay, recounting how the U.S. has deviated widely from the original terms of the lease yet never been legally challenged by Cuba, owing to the strong state-weak state dynamics. The lease is a hodge-podge of three U.S.-Cuba agreements full of discrepancies and uncorrected errors. Cuba's failure to cash the annual rent checks of the U.S. has legal implications not only for the future of Guantanamo Bay but of the Westphalian system of states. Compiled for the first time in one place are the verbatim texts of all the key documents relevant to the Guantanamo Bay lease-including treaties and other agreements, a previously unpublished U.N. legal assessment, and once-classified government correspondence.
The Least Worst Place : Guantanamo's First 100 Days by
Named one of the Washington Post Book World's Best Books of 2009, The Least Worst Place offers a gripping narrative account of the first one hundred days of Guantanamo. Greenberg, one of America's leading experts on the Bush Administration's policies on terrorism, tells the story through a group of career officers who tried--and ultimately failed--to stymie the Pentagon's desire to implement harsh new policies in Guantanamo and bypass the Geneva Conventions. Peopled with genuine heroes and villains, this narrative of the earliest days of the post-9/11 era centers on the conflicts between Gitmo-based Marine officers intent on upholding the Geneva Accords and an intelligence unit set up under the Pentagon's aegis. The latter ultimately won out, replacing transparency with secrecy, military protocol with violations of basic operation procedures, and humane and legal detainee treatment with harsh interrogation methods and torture. Greenberg's riveting account puts a human face on this little-known story, revealing how America first lost its moral bearings in the wake of 9/11.
My Guantanamo Diary: the detainees and the stories they told me by
Mahvish Khan is an American lawyer, born in Michigan to immigrant Afghan parents. Outraged that her country was illegally imprisoning people at Guantánamo, she volunteered to translate for the prisoners. She spoke their language, understood their customs, and brought them Starbucks chai, the closest available drink to the kind of tea they would drink at home. And they quickly befriended her, offering fatherly advice as well as a uniquely personal insight into their plight, and that of their families thousands of miles away. For Khan, the experience was a validation of her Afghan heritage--as well as her American freedoms, which allowed her to intervene at Guantánamo purely out of her sense that it was the right thing to do. Mahvish Khan's story is a challenging, brave test of who she is--and who we are.
Obama's Guantánamo: stories from an enduring prison by
Obama's Guantánamo: Stories from an Enduring Prison describes President Obama's failure to close America's enduring offshore detention center, as he had promised to do within his first year in office, and the costs of that failure for those imprisoned there. Like its predecessor, Guantánamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law, Obama's Guantánamo consists of accounts from lawyers who have not only represented detainees, but also served as their main connection to the outside world. Their stories provide us with an accessible explanation of the forces at work in the detentions and place detainees' stories in the larger context of America's submission to fearmongering. These stories demonstrate all that is wrong with the prison and the importance of maintaining a commitment to human rights even in times of insecurity
Our Nation Unhinged : The Human Consequences of the War on Terror by
Jose Padilla short-shackled and wearing blackened goggles and earmuffs to block out all light and sound on his way to the dentist. Fifteen-year-old Omar Khadr crying out to an American soldier, "Kill me!" Hunger strikers at Guantánamo being restrained and force-fed through tubes up their nostrils. John Walker Lindh lying naked and blindfolded in a metal container, bound by his hands and feet, in the freezing Afghan winter night. This is the story of the Bush administration's response to the attacks of September 11, 2001--and of how we have been led down a path of executive abuses, human tragedies, abandonment of the Constitution, and the erosion of due process and liberty. In this vitally important book, Peter Jan Honigsberg chronicles the black hole of the American judicial system from 2001 to the present, providing an incisive analysis of exactly what we have lost over the past seven years and where we are now headed.
The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay by 
Atrocities and International Accountability: beyond transitional justice by
Rebuilding societies where conflict has occurred is rarely a simple process. Where conflict has been accompanied by gross and systematic violations of human rights, the procedure becomes very controversial. The traditional debate on "transitional justice" sought to balance justice, truth, accountability, peace, and stability. The appearance of impunity for past crimes undermines confidence in new democratic structures and casts doubt upon commitments to human rights. Yet the need to consolidate peace sometimes resulted in reluctance on the part of authorities--both local and international--to confront suspected perpetrators of human rights violations, especially when they are a part of a peace process. Experience in many regions of the world therefore suggested a tradeoff between peace and justice. But that is changing. There is a growing consensus that some forms of justice and accountability are integral to--rather than in tension with--peace and stability. This volume considers whether we are truly going beyond the transitional justice debate. It brings together eminent scholars and practitioners with direct experience in some of the most challenging cases of international justice, and illustrates that justice and accountability remain complex, but not mutually exclusive, ideals.
Detention in the 'War on Terror' by 
How Should the United States Treat Prisoners in the War on Terror? by 
The Ethics of Torture by
Torture has recently been the subject of some sensational headlines. As a result, there has been a huge surge in interest in the ethical implications of this contentious issue. The Ethics of Torture offers the first complete introduction to the philosophical debates surrounding torture. The book asks key questions in light of recent events such as the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib. What makes torture morally reprehensible? Are there any conditions under which torture is acceptable? What is it like to be tortured, and why do people engage in torture? The authors argue that the force of the most common arguments for torture (like the ticking-bomb argument) are significantly overestimated, while the wrongness of torture has been significantly underestimated-even by those who argue against it.This is the ideal introduction to the ethics of torture for students of moral philosophy or political theory. It also constitutes a significant contribution to the torture debate in its own right, presenting a unique approach to investigating this dark practice.
Hearts of Darkness : Torturing Children in the War on Terror by
George W. Bush's war on terror defended torture as a matter of official policy and furthered an already emergent culture of cruelty. As torture became normalized in the Bush era, it not only corrupted American ideals and political culture, it also passed over to the dark side in sanctioning the unimaginable and unspeakable: the torture of children. This shocking book documents cases of child torture by American military personnel, many of which have never been reported in the media. Giroux raises serious challenges the Obama administration must address in light of this shameful period in American history if it wants to restore democratic culture. Going further than simply blaming those at the top, Hearts of Darkness also raises questions about the collusion of the media, educators, the criminal justice system and other institutions that have enabled a culture that accepts the torture of children.
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture by
The complete official summary report of the Senate Intelligence Committee Investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation and detention program launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Based on more than six million internal CIA documents, the report details secret prisons, prisoner deaths, interrogation practices, and cooperation with other foreign and domestic agencies. It also examines charges that the CIA deceived elected officials and governmental overseers about the extent and legality of its operations.
Torture by 
The Torture and Prisoner Abuse Debate by
"Laura Finley examines the legitimacy of this 'original sin' argument. She outlines the considerable precedents for the use of torture in European and American history, from the Inquisition and slavery, through the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Vietnam War. The evidence is by no means limited to military and national security situations. Indeed, Finley demonstrates frequent parallels to the problems of abuse in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan in the interrogation practices of American police and the disciplinary measures used in our penal systems. She also documents the attention given to torture in American law and executive policy. In so doing, she widens the debate on prisoner abuse from the limited context of the War on Terror in question for American society at large… this exploration of the question of torture will help to widen discussion of a controversial issue."
The Torture Papers by
The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. These documents present for the first time a compilation of materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain. The Bush Administration, concerned about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques, understood the need to establish a legally viable argument to justify such procedures. The memos and reports document the systematic attempt of the US Government to prepare the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law, with the express intent of evading legal punishment in the aftermath of any discovery of these practices and policies.
Why Torture Doesn't Work: the neuroscience of interrogation by
Torture is banned because it is cruel and inhumane. But as Shane O'Mara writes in this account of the human brain under stress, another reason torture should never be condoned is because it does not work the way torturers assume it does.
In countless films and TV shows such as Homeland and 24 , torture is portrayed as a harsh necessity. If cruelty can extract secrets that will save lives, so be it. CIA officers and others conducted torture using precisely this justification. But does torture accomplish what its defenders say it does? For ethical reasons, there are no scientific studies of torture. But neuroscientists know a lot about how the brain reacts to fear, extreme temperatures, starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, and immersion in freezing water, all tools of the torturer's trade. These stressors create problems for memory, mood, and thinking, and sufferers predictably produce information that is deeply unreliable--and, for intelligence purposes, even counterproductive. As O'Mara guides us through the neuroscience of suffering, he reveals the brain to be much more complex than the brute calculations of torturers have allowed, and he points the way to a humane approach to interrogation, founded in the science of brain and behavior.
Torture may be effective in forcing confessions, as in Stalin's Russia. But if we want information that we can depend on to save lives, O'Mara writes, our model should be Napoleon: "It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile."
