Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11 - Hardcover

Jack Goldsmith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393081338 ISBN 13: 9780393081336

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012

Synopsis

Conventional wisdom holds that 9/11 sounded the death knell for presidential accountability. In fact, the opposite is true. The novel powers that our post-9/11 commanders in chief assumed endless detentions, military commissions, state secrets, broad surveillance, and more are the culmination of a two-century expansion of presidential authority. But these new powers have been met with thousands of barely visible legal and political constraints enforced by congressional committees, government lawyers, courts, and the media that have transformed our unprecedentedly powerful presidency into one that is also unprecedentedly accountable.

These constraints are the key to understanding why Obama continued the Bush counterterrorism program, and in this light, the events of the last decade should be seen as a victory, not a failure, of American constitutional government. We have actually preserved the framers original idea of a balanced constitution, despite the vast increase in presidential power made necessary by this age of permanent emergency.

About this title

About the Author

Jack Goldsmith is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor at the Harvard Law School. He served in the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel. Also available: The Terror Presidency (ISBN 978 0 393 33533 0).

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393081338
• ISBN 13: 9780393081336
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336