Enemy Aliens: Double Standards And Constitutional Freedoms In The War On Terrorism

by David Cole

When David Cole was first writing Enemy Aliens, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the anti-immigrant brand of American patriotism was at a 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.

Genres: Politics, Terrorism, Nonfiction

316 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 2003

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main point of this book is to show the history in the U.S. of suppressing the rights of aliens, especially regarding political dissent, and then using that as a gateway to denying the consitutional rights of U.S. citizens. It has great information on this starting at the beginning of the last century and extending up to the post-9/11 present.

[Rabya]

great book and love the title!

[Kavitha Rajagopalan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great context, well researched. I enjoyed my face-to-face conversation (and interview for my own book research) with Cole even more. His arguments are more nuanced than the title suggests.

[Craig Bolton]

Enemy Aliens: Double Standards And Constitutional Freedoms In The War On Terrorism by David Cole (2005)