Above the Law
Secret Deals, Political Fixes and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice
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- 7,99 €
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- 7,99 €
Descripción editorial
The U.S. Department of Justice is an institution of vast reach and power over the American people, with little oversight into its internal operations. This book examines the ways that attorneys general, FBI directors, federal prosecutors and other Justice Department officials have often abused their powers to achieve political goals rather than pursuing justice. Its warning remains as relevant in the digital post-9/11 era of the expanded national security state as it was in the days of J. Edgar Hoover.
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Former New York Times reporter Burnham, who has investigated the Internal Revenue Service (A Law unto Itself), here offers a meandering, anecdotal survey of scandal and questionable practices, both past and present, within the vast U.S. Department of Justice. Justice includes not only agencies such as the FBI, the DEA and the INS but also the Attorney General and the 93 U.S. attorneys distributed around the country. The author's main conclusion: the department remains underscrutinized, which allows this ``chaotic, slipshod, almost medieval institution'' to ignore certain responsibilities and follow political pressure. Among his arguments: federal officials exaggerate crime statistics to promote their political agendas; the availability of high-tech equipment will allow federal gumshoes to act on ``ever higher levels of official paranoia''; a mix of class bias, political deals and bad laws has kept the department from truly prosecuting white-collar crime. Though unwieldy, this book remains a potent call for reform.
