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Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror - A Public Defender's Inside Account
American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award — Winner in the Book category
Independent Publishers — Winner of the Gold Medal in the Autobiography/Memoir category
ForeWord Book of the Year Awards — Winner of the Bronze Medal in the Social Science category
The Eric Hoffer Award - Winner in the Memoir category
A public defender’ s dedicated struggle to rescue two innocent men from the recent Kafkaesque practices of our vandalized justice system
“Our government can make you disappear.” Those were the words Steven Wax never imagined he would hear himself say. In his twenty-nine years as a public defender, Wax had never had to warn a client that he or she might be taken away to a military brig, or worse, a “black site,” one of our country’s dreaded secret prisons. How had our country come to this? The disappearance of people happens in places ruled by tyrants, military juntas, fascist strongmen—governments with such contempt for the rule of law that they strip their citizens of all rights. But in America?
Under the current Bush administration, not only are the civil rights of foreigners in jeopardy, but those of U.S. citizens. Wax interweaves the stories of two men that he and his team Brandon Mayfield, an American-born small town lawyer and family man, arrested as a suspected terrorist in the Madrid train station bombings after a fingerprint was incorrectly traced back to him by the FBI; and Adel Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator taken from his apartment to a Pakistani prison and then flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Kafka Comes to America reveals where and how our civil liberties have been eroded for a false security, and how each of us can make a difference. If these events could happen to Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad, they can happen to anyone. It could happen to us. It could happen to you.
Independent Publishers — Winner of the Gold Medal in the Autobiography/Memoir category
ForeWord Book of the Year Awards — Winner of the Bronze Medal in the Social Science category
The Eric Hoffer Award - Winner in the Memoir category
A public defender’ s dedicated struggle to rescue two innocent men from the recent Kafkaesque practices of our vandalized justice system
“Our government can make you disappear.” Those were the words Steven Wax never imagined he would hear himself say. In his twenty-nine years as a public defender, Wax had never had to warn a client that he or she might be taken away to a military brig, or worse, a “black site,” one of our country’s dreaded secret prisons. How had our country come to this? The disappearance of people happens in places ruled by tyrants, military juntas, fascist strongmen—governments with such contempt for the rule of law that they strip their citizens of all rights. But in America?
Under the current Bush administration, not only are the civil rights of foreigners in jeopardy, but those of U.S. citizens. Wax interweaves the stories of two men that he and his team Brandon Mayfield, an American-born small town lawyer and family man, arrested as a suspected terrorist in the Madrid train station bombings after a fingerprint was incorrectly traced back to him by the FBI; and Adel Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator taken from his apartment to a Pakistani prison and then flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Kafka Comes to America reveals where and how our civil liberties have been eroded for a false security, and how each of us can make a difference. If these events could happen to Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad, they can happen to anyone. It could happen to us. It could happen to you.
- GenresNonfiction
380 pages, Hardcover
First published June 3, 2008
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123 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 6, 2008
Guantanamo really is Kafka's The Trial come to life...Wax is a federal public defender in Oregon who's book details the effect of the 'war on terror' (I feel like that needs a trademark symbol) on two innocent men - Brandon Mayfield, the Portland attorney wrongfully accused of involvement in the Madrid train bombings, and Adel Hamad, a Sudanese relief worker wrongfully arrested in Pakistan and held for more than five years at Guantanamo. The book is part legal thriller (Wax does a good job explaining the complexities of his cases - he defends both men - and habeus corpus litigation) and part devastating critique of what we've allowed to happen to our civil liberties in the pursuit of terrorists.
In Mayfield's case, the FBI's mistaken identification of a latent fingerprint (the Spanish immediately discredited the FBI's identification) prompted abuses of the Patriot Act and National Security Letters, so called "sneak and peak" searches of Mayfield's home and work, and eventually illegal use of the material witness statute to arrest him without having enough evidence to charge him with any crime. The abuses are mostly admitted by the federal government through the Inspector General's investigation and as a result of the civil suit Mayfield filed (and in which he won $2 million and was allowed to proceed with his claim that pieces of the Patriot Act are unconstitutional). In the case of Adel Hamad, Wax is able to prove his innocence in relatively short order, but the fights government obstruction to hearing the evidence for years.
As Wax (a remarkable lawyer) does, you just have to wonder what the hell the government is afraid of? Wax has an unshaking belief in the rule of law and cannot comprehend why the government continues (despite multiple rebukes from the Supreme Court) to refuse to actually charge and try the men it claims are "the worst of the worst" (a claim, by the way, that Wax clearly illustrates as false)? Wax argues that Guantanamo represents the worst ways in which we've acted out of post 9/11 fear, and worries greatly about the harm the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft approach to terrorism has done to our nation's reputation. No idealist, he knows that terrorism represents a real threat, he just argues for operating within the legal sysytem and within the Constitutional system of checks and ballances that has served the country well for over 200 years.
The thing that leaves me hopeful? As Wax notes, the government paid him to fight against it, and allowed him to do so without fear - at least it's a start to fixing the mess we've made. And, after five years of wrongful imprisonment, Wax is finally able to get Adel home to his wife and daughters.
In Mayfield's case, the FBI's mistaken identification of a latent fingerprint (the Spanish immediately discredited the FBI's identification) prompted abuses of the Patriot Act and National Security Letters, so called "sneak and peak" searches of Mayfield's home and work, and eventually illegal use of the material witness statute to arrest him without having enough evidence to charge him with any crime. The abuses are mostly admitted by the federal government through the Inspector General's investigation and as a result of the civil suit Mayfield filed (and in which he won $2 million and was allowed to proceed with his claim that pieces of the Patriot Act are unconstitutional). In the case of Adel Hamad, Wax is able to prove his innocence in relatively short order, but the fights government obstruction to hearing the evidence for years.
As Wax (a remarkable lawyer) does, you just have to wonder what the hell the government is afraid of? Wax has an unshaking belief in the rule of law and cannot comprehend why the government continues (despite multiple rebukes from the Supreme Court) to refuse to actually charge and try the men it claims are "the worst of the worst" (a claim, by the way, that Wax clearly illustrates as false)? Wax argues that Guantanamo represents the worst ways in which we've acted out of post 9/11 fear, and worries greatly about the harm the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft approach to terrorism has done to our nation's reputation. No idealist, he knows that terrorism represents a real threat, he just argues for operating within the legal sysytem and within the Constitutional system of checks and ballances that has served the country well for over 200 years.
The thing that leaves me hopeful? As Wax notes, the government paid him to fight against it, and allowed him to do so without fear - at least it's a start to fixing the mess we've made. And, after five years of wrongful imprisonment, Wax is finally able to get Adel home to his wife and daughters.
April 16, 2020
A powerful look at the tension in the US between security and freedom during the W. Bush administration after 9/11. The author, Steven Wax, was a federal public defender based in Portland Oregon in 2004 when a local attorney, who was Muslim, was jailed as a grand jury witness. This book tells of Wax’s defense of Brandon Mayfield and Wax’s later experience representing men held in Guantanamo in the “war on terror”. I live in the Portland area. These court battles were covered extensively in the local media. Such coverage is necessarily fragmentary and it is interesting to see the stories in their entirety from one of people deeply involved.
Wax makes a strong case for the vigilance that we must maintain to protect our freedoms in the face of fear.
Wax makes a strong case for the vigilance that we must maintain to protect our freedoms in the face of fear.
March 9, 2023
A remarkable account of a Federal Public Defender who represented several terrorism suspects during the post-9-11 years under the Bush Administration. Specifically the book focuses on his representation of an innocent lawyer whose conversion to Islam made him a marked man, fueled by an inaccurate FBI fingerprint identification, as well as several Guantanamo detainees.
As a criminal defense attorney myself, one who lived through the post-9-11 "security" nightmare, reading this book is a brutal reminder of the rights sacrificed in the name of "protecting America." Experiencing through the author's account the details of America's plunge into a security state is profoundly disturbing, but oddly inspiring.
Surprisingly well-written, humanizing both the clients and the attorneys devoted to the justice and the Constitution.
It is a challenging read, but very rewarding.
As a criminal defense attorney myself, one who lived through the post-9-11 "security" nightmare, reading this book is a brutal reminder of the rights sacrificed in the name of "protecting America." Experiencing through the author's account the details of America's plunge into a security state is profoundly disturbing, but oddly inspiring.
Surprisingly well-written, humanizing both the clients and the attorneys devoted to the justice and the Constitution.
It is a challenging read, but very rewarding.
December 21, 2020
Steven Wax was a Portland defense attorney who represented an American, Brandon Mayfield accused of a bombing in Madrid and Adel Hamid a Sudanese man arrested in Pakistan and flown to Guantanamo Bay with no evidence that he was an enemy combatant. Wax describes how these men's rights were violated because of the Bush administration over zealous response to the war and terror and how fear has taken away our rights. The US was completely unprepared for the 9/11 attacks. In response, the Patriot Act was passed and the Homeland Security Department was created. These agencies were given enhanced powers of surveillance and took away rights to a speedy trail so after the fact, evidence could be collected to charge a person with a crime. Have these erosion of our civil rights made us safer?
March 30, 2013
In Kafka Comes to America, Steven T. Wax -- the long-time Federal Public Defender for Oregon -- recounts his experience representing two clients, Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad.
Mayfield was a youngish attorney starting a practice in Beaverton, OR. Then he was suddenly in the international news, arrested as a material witness in the Madrid train station bombings, with leaks from the government indicating that his fingerprint matched one found on a bag of explosives. Much later, it was revealed that the Spanish National Police never agreed with the FBI's identification and in fact eventually matched the print to an Algerian suspect. By the way, it appears that the FBI focused on Mayfield largely because he was a Muslim married to an Egyptian-American.
Hamad was one of several Guantánamo detainee's Wax's office represented. Sudanese, he had spent years working for relief organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan: he taught school in a refugee camp and he was a hospital administrator. One day Pakistani police -- along with someone with an American accent -- picked him up in his apartment in July 2002. He was questioned (again and again) in a prison in Pakistan, suffering physically to the point that his captors hospitalized him, and then in March 2003 questioning and rough treatment in the Middle East, he was flown to Guantánamo. Two years later, after Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466, Findlaw (2004) the Army notified detainees that they could petition for habeas corpus and, in March 2005, Hamad handwrote his petition. It was in February 2006 that he first met his lawyer. In December 2007, he finally returned home. He still hopes to have a hearing that will declare that he never was an enemy combatant.
The book presents a good picture of the multi-faceted advocacy Hamad's team presented -- administrative, judicial, political. They interviewed his family and colleagues in Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. They met with high-ranking Sudanese government officials (and they often couldn't get their calls to U.S. officials returned). One way they increased awareness of his situation was through videos on YouTube, first Guantánamo Unclassified (narrated by one of the public defender investigators) and then and then Guantánamo: Waiting for Justice (introduced by Martin Sheen). For more, visit projecthamad.org.
Mayfield was a youngish attorney starting a practice in Beaverton, OR. Then he was suddenly in the international news, arrested as a material witness in the Madrid train station bombings, with leaks from the government indicating that his fingerprint matched one found on a bag of explosives. Much later, it was revealed that the Spanish National Police never agreed with the FBI's identification and in fact eventually matched the print to an Algerian suspect. By the way, it appears that the FBI focused on Mayfield largely because he was a Muslim married to an Egyptian-American.
Hamad was one of several Guantánamo detainee's Wax's office represented. Sudanese, he had spent years working for relief organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan: he taught school in a refugee camp and he was a hospital administrator. One day Pakistani police -- along with someone with an American accent -- picked him up in his apartment in July 2002. He was questioned (again and again) in a prison in Pakistan, suffering physically to the point that his captors hospitalized him, and then in March 2003 questioning and rough treatment in the Middle East, he was flown to Guantánamo. Two years later, after Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466, Findlaw (2004) the Army notified detainees that they could petition for habeas corpus and, in March 2005, Hamad handwrote his petition. It was in February 2006 that he first met his lawyer. In December 2007, he finally returned home. He still hopes to have a hearing that will declare that he never was an enemy combatant.
The book presents a good picture of the multi-faceted advocacy Hamad's team presented -- administrative, judicial, political. They interviewed his family and colleagues in Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. They met with high-ranking Sudanese government officials (and they often couldn't get their calls to U.S. officials returned). One way they increased awareness of his situation was through videos on YouTube, first Guantánamo Unclassified (narrated by one of the public defender investigators) and then and then Guantánamo: Waiting for Justice (introduced by Martin Sheen). For more, visit projecthamad.org.
May 13, 2009
We Americans like "up close and personal" stories, at least if they're about athletes, celebrities, inspirational figures or the like. Yet it may be another story if we're talking about getting up close and personal with those our government accuses of being terrorists. Yet many of those stories are ones we probably need to hear.[return][return]Steven T. Wax, the head of the federal public defender's office in Portland, Ore., gives us such a look through the prism of what happened to two of his clients in
Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror
. One, Brandon Mayfield, made headlines across the country. He is the Portland lawyer who the FBI claimed a fingerprint tied to the March 2004 Madrid train bombings. The other is unknown to probably 99 percent of Americans. Adel Hamad is a Sudanese national who worked for an international Muslim non-governmental organization as a hospital administrator in Pakistan. He was hauled from his Peshawar apartment to a Pakistani prison and eventually flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantanamo Bay, labeled and detained as an enemy combatant.[return][return]The two stories serve as excellent bookends for the ramifications of the policies and practices the U.S. has employed in the so-called War on Terror. Mayfield's story shows the impact of the Patriot Act and a tendency to rush to judgment in terrorism cases on a relatively average American citizen and family. Hamad's story shows the Kafkaesque limbo in which some innocent foreign civilians have been left for years. Both stories are frightening.[return][return]Balance of review here.
August 12, 2008
Wow, can this guy not write. (He even mentions that he got an agent interested, who then...turned him down. Ouch.) But the story is admirable, and worth it--two tales about innocents caught in the wheels of Bush "justice": one a Muslim convert in Portland--also covered in Lichtblau's book--whose fingerprint is mistakenly found on a bag of detonators after the Madrid bombings, an ID the Spanish withdrew quickly but the FBI lied about, the other a Muslim health worker picked up for no good reason in Afghanistan and finally released, after years and years of labor by these lawyers, with no apology or acknowledgement. Yikes. Can you imagine how many others there are who don't have the good luck to find such selfless advocates? The mind reels. Worth plugging through--though Wax isn't inept, just not very smooth--simply to see, if nothing else, how slowly, stubbornly, and stupidly the wheels of justice grind, when people as admirable as this prod them to move at all.
July 8, 2009
The book was fantastic, and horrifying, and maddening. Aside from the fact that Steven T. Wax would do better writing legal briefings and often times I felt like I was reading an assigned text book for school, the content was very good. It was a unique view of how our civil liberties are being violated left and right, under the Bush Administration. I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars only because I had a hard time reading the book. The content was worth 5 stars.
October 16, 2013
A sobering read. In recounting his work for the prisoners at Gitmo (and a falsely identified surveillance target in Portland), Steven Wax provides a helpful counter-narrative to the more popular story that gets championed by shows like "24". This engaging and well-documented book reveals the more insidious aspects of an administration in the throes of a war on terror; I recommend it to anyone interested in the interplay between freedom and security (and human decency).
January 29, 2017
3.5 stars. Probably not the best time to read this book as it deals a lot with how the Executive Branch (under GW Bush) spent all of its energy on overstepping its authority to protect us from the war on terror... except that innocent men and women were swept up in the mix and were never granted due process. The book tells two great stories; but has a lot of legal jargon thrown in, so reader beware and prepare yourself for that.
February 12, 2013
Notwithstanding the severe, and possibly illegal, measures undertaken by the Bush administration to limit access to the court system, it is interesting to note that the "closed" system actually paid for the attorneys who represented the wrongfully accused; the ones whose tireless efforts lead to their release.
Interesting conflict of principles.
Interesting conflict of principles.
May 26, 2009
Wax is a better attorney than a writer. But this book rates four stars for important content. If you would like to get a better sense, from the standpoint of a man with flawless cred (he was a prosecutor before becoming a U.S. public defender), of what has been done in the name of all American citizens at Guantanamo and elsewhere in the name of "fighting the war on terror" ... read this.
September 27, 2010
This is one of the most depressing books I've ever read. I highly recommend it and think it should be required reading, but it really shines a bright and harsh light on our societies failure to respect the constitution and the ability of the government to get away with grievous crimes and violations of human rights.
September 30, 2008
Innocent people are getting swept up in the war on terror even in the U.S. If the U.S. government does not maintain it's fundamental beliefs and hold true to the Constitution, we'll end up just like another oppressive regime.
October 29, 2008
Exhaustively documented, written by a credible source, prose that's hard to put down ... and chilling. This is a very important book, one I hope is read much more widely.
Melissa--if you read this, I'd love to hear your perspective!
Melissa--if you read this, I'd love to hear your perspective!
December 17, 2007
Very readable. He offers a lot of context that puts legal issues in perspective.
Read
May 14, 2008We are having an event with the author of this book on June 10 at 7 pm.
September 23, 2008
Importnat information. Shocking and true. How can this happen in my country?
February 14, 2009
Portland public defender takes on Guantanamo and other 'terrorism' cases. Informative and depressing.
Read
May 26, 2016AuthorsOnTheWeb Internet Marketing campaign for Other Press.
October 22, 2013
Excellent.
November 7, 2014
Absolutely riveting. Steve Wax is a gem of a public servant!
November 2, 2016
Kafka has built his home in America
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews