The Rights of the People by David K. Shipler

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The Rights of the People

Name: The Rights of the People
Price: 13.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: David K. Shipler
ISBN: 9780307595508

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Published on Apr 19, 2011 | 400 Pages

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Published on Apr 19, 2011 | 400 Pages

Buy from Other Retailers:

From the best-selling author of The Working Poor, an impassioned, incisive look at the violations of civil liberties in the United States that have accelerated over the past decade—and their direct impact on our lives.

How have our rights to privacy and justice been undermined? What exactly have we lost? Pulitzer Prize–winner David K. Shipler searches for the answers to these questions by examining the historical expansion and contraction of our fundamental rights and, most pointedly, the real-life stories of individual men and women who have suffered. This is the account of what has been taken—and of how much we stand to regain by protesting the departures from the Bill of Rights.

With keen insight and telling detail, Shipler describes how the Supreme Court’s constitutional rulings play out on the streets as Washington, D.C., police officers search for guns in poor African American neighborhoods, how a fruitless search warrant turns the house of a Homeland Security employee upside down, and how the secret surveillance and jailing of an innocent lawyer result from an FBI lab mistake. Each instance—often as shocking as it is compelling—is a clear illustration of the risks posed to individual liberties in our modern society. And, in Shipler’s hands, each serves as a powerful incitement for a retrieval of these precious rights.

A brilliant, immeasurably important book for our time.

“Important. . . . I suspect Shipler’s arguments will speak to . . . most Americans. . . . The Rights of the People is timely, eloquent, solid, fair-minded and, on almost every page, upsetting.” —Craig Seligman, Bloomberg

“If you ever wondered how the erosion of constitutional liberties affects ordinary people, this is the book to read. Shipler shows us, through carefully drawn and often moving accounts of real-life encounters between individuals and the state, the true cost of sacrificing liberty for security.” —David Cole, author of No Equal Justice

“This powerful book demonstrates the reality behind abstract debates about liberty and security, and shows us what happens when liberty starts to erode.” —Linda Greenhouse, author of Becoming Justice Blackmun

“David Shipler has done something extraordinary. He took the guarantees in our Constitution and explored, on the ground, how they were actually being applied in the lives of Americans. The result is a wonderful book that shows how large a gap there is between constitutional promises and reality.” —Anthony Lewis, author of Gideon’s Trumpet

“An insightful analysis of the erosion of basic civil liberties within the past decade . . . A sobering look at the rights Americans take for granted.” —Booklist (Starred review)

“Shipler’s sure grasp of frequently impenetrable Supreme Court decisions (translated nicely for the non-lawyer), his engaged reporting and his generally evenhanded assessment of the reasons for these sometimes abrupt, mostly incremental intrusions on our freedoms make for an informed, persuasive argument. A timely call for vigilence.” —Kirkus

“Provocative. . . . Shocking.” —Publishers Weekly

“David Shipler’s panoramic canvas portrays in vivid detail how our right to be ‘secure against unreasonable searches and seizures’ (in the words of the Bill of Rights) is being undermined not only by the excesses of our antiterrrorism strategies but also by everyday policing. As a consummate reporter, Shipler has done a prodigious service to the Constitution by going beyond abstractions to show why we, like the framers, should insist on safeguarding the Fourth Amendment’s protection of our privacy, liberty, and individuality.” —Susan Herman, president of the ACLU and author of Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy

Author

David K. Shipler

David K. Shipler reported for The New York Times from 1966 to 1988 in New York, Saigon, Moscow, Jerusalem, and Washington, DC. He is the author of six books, including the bestsellers Russia and The Working Poor, as well as Arab and Jew, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has taught at Princeton, American University, and Dartmouth. He writes online at The Shipler Report.

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The Rights of the People

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By David K. Shipler