Enemy Aliens Double Standards and Constitutional Freedom in the War on Terrorism

Synopsis
Since September 11, the United States government has detained more than 1,200 people in connection with its investigation of that day?s attacks, not a single one of whom has been charged with any crime. In Enemy Aliens, award-winning author and Georgetown law professor David Cole argues that such steps represent a dangerous sacrifice of the liberty of immigrants for the purported security of the majority. He argues that we have relied on a double standard, imposing measures on foreigners that we would not tolerate if they were applied more broadly to us all. While the trade-offs are politically easy (the twenty million noncitizens living among us can?t vote, after all), historical precedents such as the internment of Japanese citizens in World War II and the harrassment of immigrants in the McCarthy witch hunts show that acceptance of such treatment for outsiders often paves the way for similar measures against American citizens.

Coming on the heels of his multi-award-winning No Equal Justice, which exposed race and class-based double standards in the criminal justice system, Enemy Aliens brings Cole?s keen intelligence, constitutional acumen, and personal litigation experience to bear on this deeply troubling issue.

David Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a volunteer staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is also legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a commentator on National Public Radio?s All Things Considered, author of No Equal Justice, and co-author of Terrorism and the Constitution (both from The New Press). He was named one of the top forty-five public-sector lawyers under forty-five by The American Lawyer.