About the Book
Written in response to Judge Richard Posner's "Not a Suicide Pact," Michael Tigar's new book examines the responses of governments throughout history to terrorist threats, including those in our own nation's history. Tigar focuses specifically on the effects of governmental action on the liberties and constitutional protections enjoyed by the people. Tigar creates a framework for analyzing our own government's responses to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 -- the now familiar litany of Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, telephone and e-mail spying, and the like -- and for balancing these responses with rights guaranteed under the Constitution, such as the right to be free of searches and seizures and the right to privacy. Judge Posner came down squarely on the side of the current administration in defending the government's responsibility to keep the people safe at nearly all costs. Tigar demonstrates exactly what those costs have historically been, what they have been recently, and makes the case that subversion of our fragile civil rights is in fact an undermining of the very basis of the republic. Michael Tigar is widely regarded as one of the top handful of trial lawyers alive today. Revered by other trial lawyers, but not widely known to the general public, Tigar has been on the front lines of major legal battles since the late 1960s, when, just two years out of law school, he led the nationwide effort to fight draft-related prosecutions and argued the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court. Over the past forty years he has represented such defendants as Angela Davis, John Demjanjuk, Terry Nichols (the Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator), and, most recently, Lynn Stewart. He is the author of several highly-regarded trial practice handbooks and of his autobiography, Fighting Injustice, and teaches at American University, Washington College of Law, and Duke Law School.
About the Author :
Michael E. Tigar is Professor of the Practice of Law at Duke University School of Law, and Professor Emeritus of Law at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, D.C. He has held full-time positions at UCLA and The University of Texas. He has been a lecturer at dozens of law schools and bar associations in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, including service as Professeur Invité at the Faculty of Law of Université Paul-Cezanne, Aix-en-Provence. He is a 1966 graduate of Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley, where he was first in his class, Editor-in-Chief of the law review and Order of the Coif. He has authored or co-authored twelve books, three plays, and scores of articles and essays. He has argued seven cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, about 100 federal appeals, and has tried cases in all parts of the country in state and federal courts. His latest books are Trial Stories (2008) (edited with Angela Jordan Davis), and Thinking About Terrorism: The Threat to Civil Liberties in Times of National Emergency (2007). His clients have included Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, John Connally, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Washington Post, Mobil Oil, Fantasy Films, Terry Nichols, Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Peltier, the Charleston Five, Fernando Chavez and Lynne Stewart. He has been chair of the 60,000-member Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association, and chair of the board of directors of the Texas Resource Center for Capital Litigation. In his teaching, he has worked with law students in clinical programs where students are counsel or law clerks in significant human rights litigation. He has made several trips to South Africa, working with organizations of African lawyers engaged in the struggle to end apartheid, and, after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, to lecture on human rights issues and to advise the African National Congress on issues in drafting a new constitution. He has been actively involved in efforts to bring to justice members of the Chilean junta, including former President Pinochet. Of Mr. Tigar's career, Justice William J. Brennan has written that his "tireless striving for justice stretches his arms towards perfection." In 1999, the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice held a ballot for "Lawyer of the Century." Mr. Tigar was third in the balloting, behind Clarence Darrow and Thurgood Marshall. In 2003, the Texas Civil Rights Project named its new building in Austin, Texas, (purchased with a gift from attorney Wayne Reaud) the "Michael Tigar Human Rights Center."
