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Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment
More than any other people on earth, Americans are free to say and write what they think. The media can air the secrets of the White House, the boardroom, or the bedroom with little fear of punishment or penalty The reason for this extraordinary freedom is not a superior culture of tolerance, but just fourteen words in our most fundamental legal document: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution. In Lewis’s telling, the story of how the right of free expression evolved along with our nation makes a compelling case for the adaptability of our constitution. Although Americans have gleefully and sometimes outrageously exercised their right to free speech since before the nation’s founding, the Supreme Court did not begin to recognize this right until 1919. Freedom of speech and the press as we know it today is surprisingly recent. Anthony Lewis tells us how these rights were created, revealing a story of hard choices, heroic (and some less heroic) judges, and fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face-to-face with one of America’s great founding ideas. .
Price: $14.29
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Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It's Wrong
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The Constitution of the United States of America, with the Bill of Rights and all of the Amendments; The Declaration of Independence; and the Articles of Confederation
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More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws
Multiple regression analyses are rarely the subject of heated public debate or 225-page books for laypeople But John R. Lott, Jr.'s study in the January 1997 Journal of Legal Studies showing that concealed-carry weapons permits reduced the crime rate set off a firestorm. The updated study, together with illustrative anecdotes and a short description of the political and academic response to the study, as well as responses to the responses, makes up Lott's informative More Guns, Less Crime. In retrospect, it perhaps should not have been surprising that increasing the number of civilians with guns would reduce crime rates. The possibility of armed victims reduces the expected benefits and increases the expected costs of criminal activity. And, at the margin at least, people respond to changes in costs, even for crime, as Nobel-Prize winning economist [TAG]Gary Becker showed long ago. Allusions to the preferences of criminals for unarmed victims have seeped into popular culture; Ringo, a British thug in Pulp Fiction, noted off-handedly why he avoided certain targets: "Bars, liquor stores, gas stations, you get your head blown off stickin' up one of them." But Lott's actual quantification of this, in the largest and most comprehensive study of the effects of gun control to date, a study well-detailed in the book, provoked a number of attacks, ranging from the amateurish to the subtly misleading, desperate to discredit him. Lott takes the time to refute each argument; it's almost touching the way he footnotes each time he telephones an attacker who eventually hangs up on him without substantiating any of their claims. Lott loses a little focus when he leaves his firm quantitative base; as an economist, he should know that the low number of rejected background checks under the Brady Bill doesn't demonstrate anything by itself, because some people may have been deterred from even undergoing the background check in the first place, but he attacks the bill on this ground anyway. But the conclusions that are backed by evidence--that concealed-weapons permits reduce crime, and do so at a lower cost to society than increasing the number of police or prisons--are important ones that should be considered by policymakers. --Ted Frank.
Price: $8.29
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Copyright's Paradox
The United States Supreme Court famously labeled copyright "the engine of free expression" because it provides a vital economic incentive for much of the literature, commentary, music, art, and film that makes up our public discourse. Yet today's copyright law also does the opposite--it is often used to quash news reporting, political commentary, church dissent, historical scholarship, cultural critique, and artistic expression. In Copyright's Paradox, Neil Weinstock Netanel explores the tensions between copyright law and free speech, revealing how copyright can impose unacceptable burdens on expression. Netanel provides concrete illustrations of how copyright often prevents speakers from effectively conveying their message, tracing this conflict across both traditional and digital media and considering current controversies such as the remix and copying culture rampant on YouTube and MySpace, hip-hop music and digital sampling, and the Google Book Search litigation. The author juxtaposes the dramatic expansion of copyright holders' proprietary control against the individual's newly found ability to digitally cut, paste, edit, remix, and distribute sound recordings, movies, TV programs, graphics, and texts the world over. He tests whether, in light of these developments and others, copyright still serves as a vital engine of free expression and he assesses how copyright does--and does not--burden speech. Taking First Amendment values as his lodestar, Netanel argues that copyright should be limited to how it can best promote robust debate and expressive diversity, and he presents a blueprint for how that can be accomplished. Copyright and free speech will always stand in some tension. But there are ways in which copyright can continue to serve as an engine of free expression while leaving ample room for speakers to build on copyrighted works to convey their message, express their personal commitments, and create new art. This book shows us how..
Price: $22.89
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Is There a Right to Remain Silent?: Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11 (Inalienable Rights)
The right to remain silent, guaranteed by the famed Fifth Amendment case, Miranda v. Arizona, is perhaps one of the most easily recognized and oft-quoted constitutional rights in American culture. Yet despite its ubiquity, there is widespread misunderstanding about the right and the protections promised under the Fifth Amendment. In Is There a Right to Remain Silent? renowned legal scholar and bestselling author Alan Dershowitz reveals precisely why our Fifth Amendment rights matter and how they are being reshaped, limited, and in some cases revoked in the wake of 9/11. As security concerns have heightened, law enforcement has increasingly turned its attention from punishing to preventing crime. Dershowitz argues that recent Supreme Court decisions have opened the door to coercive interrogations--even when they amount to torture--if they are undertaken to prevent a crime, especially a terrorist attack, and so long as the fruits of such interrogations are not introduced into evidence at the criminal trial of the coerced person. In effect, the court has given a green light to all preventive interrogation methods. By deftly tracing the evolution of the Fifth Amendment from its inception in the Bill of Rights to the present day, where national security is the nation's first priority, Dershowitz puts forward a bold reinterpretation of the Fifth Amendment for the post-9/11 world. As the world we live in changes from a "deterrent state" to the heightened vigilance of today's "preventative state," our construction, he argues, must also change. We must develop a jurisprudence that will contain both substantive and procedural rules for all actions taken by government officials in order to prevent harmful conduct-including terrorism. Timely, provocative, and incisively written, Is There a Right to Remain Silent? presents an absorbing look at one of our most essential constitutional rights at one of the most critical moments in recent American history..
Price: $7.07
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The Lost Constitution
Rare-book expert Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline, the main characters from Back Bay and Harvard Yard, are back for another treasure hunt through time. They have learned of an early, annotated draft of the Constitution, stolen and smuggled out of Philadelphia. The draft’s marginal notes spell out, in shocking detail, the Founders’ unequivocal intentions---the unmistakable meaning of the Bill of Rights. Peddled and purloined, trafficked and concealed for over two centuries, the lost Constitution could forever change America’s history---and its future. Moreover, Congress is already at war, fighting tooth and claw over the eternally contentious Bill of Rights. When word gets out of the lost draft’s existence, it launches a frenzied search, as both sides of the partisan machine believe it will reinforce their arguments. While battling politicians from both sides of the debate, Peter and Evangeline must get to the document first, because they know that if the wrong people find it, they will burn it, stripping the nation of its constitutional moorings. The search takes Peter and Evangeline into the rich history of America and New England, from Shay’s Rebellion to the birth of the American industrial revolution to the march of the legendary 20th Maine in the Civil War. Past and present play off one another as the search for the draft heats up. It finally boils over on the first night of the World Series, at that Mecca of New England, Boston’s fabled Fenway Park, and the truth is finally revealed.… .
Price: $5.76
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Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and the First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism
The #1 New York Times bestselling author, Harvard Law School professor, and tireless defender of civil liberties unearths a little-known letter by his hero, Thomas Jefferson, and shares its secrets The letter illuminates Jefferson’s views on freedom of speech in a way that has important implications for the country today, particularly in the struggle against terrorism. This book is about the remarkable letter Dershowitz found, how he found it, and why it matters not only to him, but to us today..
Price: $13.78
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The Seven Myths of Gun Control: Reclaiming the Truth About Guns, Crime, and the Second Amendment
Today, the right to own a gun is under assault like never before. Every time a firearm is used in a high-profile crime, calls for stricter gun regulation—even outright prohibition—are pounded into us by a press that has taken sides. In fact, when it comes to guns, journalists have clearly made up their minds. According to a recent study, television news stories calling for stricter gun laws outnumbered newscasts opposing such laws by a ratio of ten to one. In other words, we are hearing only one side of the story. This is the other side. "A blockbuster book every freedom-loving American should read." — Christopher Ruddy, editor, NewsMax.com In The Seven Myths of Gun Control, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Richard Poe cuts through the blizzard of anti-gun propaganda and uncovers the truth about guns, crime, and freedom. He details the seven most common arguments used by gun prohibitionists, debunking each one with a wealth of statistical and legal data gleaned from top experts in the field of guns and gun rights. You will discover that, contrary to myth, the availability of guns leads to less crime, not more; that guns do not pose a special threat to our children; and that the Second Amendment is as vital to the lives and liberty of modern Americans as it was in frontier times. You will also learn how the current drive to further regulate and even outlaw firearms is a point-blank assault not only on truth but on freedom as well. Provocative, accessible, and persuasive, The Seven Myths of Gun Control is a thoughtful and invaluable contribution to the national debate about guns. From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $9.52
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