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Synopsis
When David Cole was first writing Enemy Aliens, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the anti-immigrant brand of American patriotism was at fever pitch. Now, as the pendulum swings back, and court after court finds the Bush administration's tactics of secrecy and assumption of guilt unconstitutional, Cole's book stands as a prescient and critical indictment of the double standards we have applied in the war on terror.
Called "brilliantly argued" by Edward Said, and "the essential book in the field" by former CIA Director James Woolsey, Enemy Aliens shows why it is a moral, constitutional, and practical imperative to afford every person in the United States the protections from government excesses that we expect for ourselves.
The New York Review of Books - Anthony Lewis
The harsh treatment of aliens since September 11 has had little political attention.... In this powerful book, Enemy Aliens, David Cole shows why we should care... He lays out the Bush administration's policies in the way they can best be understood, in their impact on individual aliens. His tone is measured, his legal hand sure. He lets the facts speak, and the result is gripping. Cole gives the most convincing view that I have read of the legal and bureaucratic threats that now face immigrants and visitors to America. But then he goes on to make an even more important point. The repressive measures that President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft first took against aliens are now being applied to citizens.