Freedom at Risk

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This collection of 25 essays constitutes a credible and alarming expose of the Reagan administration's disregard for First Amendment values and its aggressive attempts to institutionalize government secrecy, censorship and repression. Athan Theoharis reveals new practices in FBI domestic surveillance; Michael Ratner and Eleanor Stein examine ``The New Conspiracy Trail: Patterns in Federal Prosecution'' (which include preventive detention and anonymous juries); Mark Schapiro reports on the exclusion of certain foreign visitors on ideological grounds (``the excludables'' include writers Graham Greene, Farley Mowat, Gabriel Garcia Marquez); American-born Margaret Randall describes her battle with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is attempting to deport her on the basis of her anti-government writings; Steven Burkholder analyzes the case of Samuel Loring Morrison, the first American convicted of espionage for leaking information to the press. There are several hard-hitting pieces on the Administration's dangerously narrow interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act and federal restrictions of the free flow of academic information and ideas. Curry is a history professor at the University of Connecticut. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Contributors to this solemn collection of 25 essays share the conviction that the Reagan administration has categorically and substantively weakened political liberties in the United States by institutionalizing the repressive powers of government, particularly in the national bureaucracy. Included are pieces by Thomas I. Emerson on the status of the First Amendment; Nat Hentoff on the dangers to individual privacy posed by random drug testing; and Diana Autin on the Reagan effort to gut the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, editor Curry provides in his introductory essay a timely overview of the major issues. Kenneth F. Kister, Pinellas Park P.L., Fla.