cover image EQUAL JUSTICE IN THE BALANCE: America's Legal Responses to the Emerging Terrorist Threat

EQUAL JUSTICE IN THE BALANCE: America's Legal Responses to the Emerging Terrorist Threat

Raneta Lawson Mack, Michael J. Kelly, Raneta Lawson Mack, , foreword by Janet Reno, afterword by Michael Ratner. . Univ. of Michigan, $35 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-472-11394-1

Coming to market with uncharacteristic speed for an offering from a university press, this disorganized tome could have used a less hasty production schedule. Mack and Kelly ask how much latitude a government should receive without appropriate checks and balances, but unfortunately fail to answer this worthy question. They fill the early chapters with wordy and opaque meditations on the definitions of "terror" and "justice," and eventually assert that what the West really needs to do is to make sure that the Islamic world knows we care. The issues they raise are important: the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo, the government's holding of suspected terrorists without access to lawyers, the government's expanded use of wire-tapping, and congressional reservations about new security policies. Far too often, the authors merely denounce without providing explanation or analysis to back up their assertions. Unfortunately, this tic distracts from the relevant observations and criticisms that do slip through. Analyzing what they see as the shortcomings of the USA Patriot Act section by section, for example, they argue that it broadens too far the justifications for seizing and disposing of suspected terrorists' property, makes it difficult to distinguish legitimate dissent from unlawful behavior and dramatically expands the government's ability to eavesdrop. Unraveling such insights from extraneous matter, however, will prove frustrating to even the most sympathetic and patient of readers. (May)