Infringing Rights--of Citizens & Others

My reading this summer has taken a decided turn away from detective fiction toward nonfiction on the theme of government infringement of rights. As Citizens of the U.S.A., we believe the Bill of Rights protects us, but what about when the government believes it has grounds to toss out our legal protections? It is, in fact, not the first time in our history... READ on...

These are three books I highly recommend to gain insight and inspiration.

In Writing in an Age of Silence, author Sara Paretsky through a telling of her
life and art, considers the government policies and rights infringements
occuring today in the context of her experience with the Civil Rights movement in Chicago.





Books on Trial while not exactly a page-turner, is an engrossing account of the raid of an Oklahoma City bookstore and the World War II era trials of several innocent people who were arrested, tried, and sentenced under the "criminal syndicalism" laws .
Find Books on Trial at the CLC Library.

Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror
Steven T. Wax considers contemporary rights infringements in a book based on his experience defending two men who suffered as a result of the U.S. government's post-911 anti-terrorism zeal. Wax draws on his experiences defending Adel Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator working in Pakistan, held in detention in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps in Cuba, and Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer and convert to Islam, who was falsely accused of a role in the Spanish al Qaeda train bombing.