ABFFE Book of the Month: Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice by Eric Lichtblau

The ABFFE Book of the Month for May is Bush’s Law by Eric Lichtblau (Pantheon), 978-0375424922.  Lichtblau, who covers the Justice Department for the New York Times, reveals the struggle that began in the government immediately after the 9/11 attacks between those who advocated an unlimited extension of executive power to meet the emergency and those who fought to preserve civil liberties.  Lichtblau won a Pulitzer Prize for his role in revealing the fact that the National Security Agency was spying on Americans in violation of the law.

Interview with the Author

ABFFE: Your book describes the panic felt by government officials over the threat of a second terrorist attack after 9/11. How did this fear shape the Bush administration's policies?

ERIC LICHTBLAU: Without question, the very real fear of another attack drove virtually every major policy decision in national security after 9/11, from the creation of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program to the harsh interrogation methods used on detainees to try and ply information from them, to the restructuring of the FBI and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. (I say it drove `virtually’ every major policy decision because the invasion of Iraq is a separate discussion; whether it was really a response to 9/11, or merely the result of a pre-conceived plan, will be debated for many years.) The edict from Bush-- ``don’t let this happen again’’—was one that bled down to all levels of government.


ABFFE: How effective were the measures taken to protect our national security?

ERIC LICHTBLAU: The White House, and in particular Vice President Cheney, point to the fact that the United States has not been hit again since 9/11 as proof of their effectiveness. There is wide debate among counter-terrorism experts about whether the absence of any further attacks reflects stronger defense at home, better offense (causing the scattering of al Qaeda), luck, or simply patience by al Qaeda. It’s also worth noting that US intelligence analysts found in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the invasion of Iraq was actually breeding support for anti-American extremists and jihadists.


ABFFE: Did the Bush administration's desire for secrecy actually undermine its effort to protect the country?

ERIC LICHTBLAU: I argue in my book that it did. In the case of the NSA wiretapping program and numerous other operations, many senior level government officials with the highest security clearances were not allowed to know about secret operations – in the case of the NSA operation, at Cheney’s direction – and that bred suspicion that ultimately undermined the integrity of these programs within the government itself. Moreover, the lack of transparency fueled distrust from Congress, the media and ultimately the public.


ABFFE: The New York Times initially refused to publish your story about the illegal spying by the National Security Administration. How would you rate the performance of the press following 9/11?

ERIC LICHTBLAU: In the months and early years after 9/11, there was no doubt a passivity among the press in looking at the government’s own actions. Our main focus, like that of the government itself, was to try to ``connect the dots’’ of the next big terror attack, and there was not the usual skepticism by the media in really examining many of the assertions put out by the government about security threats, both at home and abroad. That began to change in 2004, with a whole string of stories broken by the media – from the Abu Ghraib scandal to CIA secret prisons, Guantanamo abuses and the NSA program. The media began to get its bearings back and ask the hard questions we’re trained to ask.


ABFFE: On numerous occasions, the Bush administration attempted to retaliate against you for stories that raised questions about its policies. What impact did this have on your reporting?

ERIC LICHTBLAU: I did have my press pass confiscated by the Justice Department and was the subject of an unflattering internal email at the FBI advising agents not to talk to me, but I’d say I had it easy compared to government officials who raised concerns internally and faced the loss of their jobs, criminal investigations and worse. But for reporters, the current climate has certainly created a chill that makes it difficult to go after sensitive stories because of concern about the legal perils. That’s a day-to-day reality of the job.


ABFFE: Who are the heroes of your story?

ERIC LICHTBLAU: I tried to write an even-handed account that wasn’t a story of heroes and villains. What I set out to do was to tell the stories of how people within the government responded to a remarkable and tumultuous period in American history. My book is dotted with the stories of people like Jim Comey at the Justice Department, Jim Ziglar at the INS, Bassem Youssef at the FBI and others who began to raise uncomfortable questions about some of the tactics at play, and often paid the price for it.
 

To read about other Book of the Month selections, click here.