Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 2008 No Reason to Believe: Radical Skepticism, Emergency Power, and Constitutional Constraint David Cole Georgetown University Law Center, [email protected] Georgetown Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 1272206 This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/441 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1272206 75 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1329-1364 (2008) This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Human Rights Law Commons GEORGETOWN LAW Faculty Publications Georgetown Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 1272206 October 2010 No Reason to Believe: Radical Skepticism, Emergency Power, and Constitutional Constraint 75 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1329-1364 (2008) (reviewing ERIC A. POSNER & ADRIAN VERMEULE, TERROR IN THE BALANCE: SECURITY, LIBERTY, AND THE COURTS (2007)) David Cole Professor of Law Georgetown University Law Center [email protected] This paper can be downloaded without charge from: Scholarly Commons: http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/441/ SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1272206 Posted with permission of the author REVIEW No Reason to Believe: Radical Skepticism, Emergency Power, and Constitntional Constraint David Colet Terror in the Balance:Security, Liberty, and the Courts Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule. Oxford, 2007. Pp 3,319. INTRODUCTION Most observers of American history look back with regret and shame on our nation's record of respecting civil liberties in times of crisis. The list of abuses is all too familiar: incarcerating peace activ- ists for mere speech during World War I; rounding up thousands of for- eign nationals on political affiliation charges in the Palmer Raids of 1919-1920; interning approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants during World War II; targeting millions for loyal- ty inquisitions, civil sanctions, blacklisting, and criminal punishment based on suspected political affiliations in the Cold War; and round- ing up thousands of Arab and Muslim foreign nationals who had no connection to terrorism in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sep- tember 11, 2001, while authorizing torture and cruel treatment as an intelligence gathering tool.' In each case, the government cast a dra- matically overbroad net, sweeping up many thousands of people who posed no danger whatsoever and thus infringed on basic liberties without any evident security benefits. At the same time, the victims of government overreaching were not evenly or randomly distributed among the general populace but were concentrated in disempowered minority groups-groups unlikely to have the political clout to object effectively to their mistreatment. And in each instance, government officials seemed to be driven to compromise some of our most funda- mental principles by grossly exaggerated fears. In retrospect, most t Professor, Georgetown University Law Center. 1 See David Cole, Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism 22-46,85-153 (New Press 2003). 1329 1330 The University of Chicago Law Review [75:1329 commentators recognize that these were terrible mistakes.2 The chal- lenge is generally thought to be how not to repeat them. In Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts, Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule offer a strikingly contrarian and radical- ly skeptical perspective on these historical events. In their view, the system worked exactly as it should because in each instance, executive officials took aggressive action in response to perceived security threats, and courts and Congress deferred to or approved of the executive's initiatives. "There is a straightforward tradeoff between liberty and se- curity" (p 12), the authors contend, and it is therefore desirable and indeed inevitable that liberties will be sacrificed when security threats arise. Theirs is not simply a descriptive account but a normative pre- scription: "If dissent weakens resolve, then dissent should be curtailed" (p 16). Given the inescapable tradeoffs involved, all we can realistically hope for is an optimal balance of liberty and security; and in the au- thors' views, during an emergency no one is better situated than the executive to strike that balance. The rest of us-whether Article III judges, members of Congress, academics, lawyers, philosophers, or ordi- nary citizens-should simply sit back and trust the executive. Because those of us outside the executive branch are unqualified to assess the balance struck, our position must be one of outright deference. The first half of Posner and Vermeule's book advances this execu- tive deference thesis. In the second half, however, the authors heed- lessly abandon their own injunction and opine at length on such liber- ty-security questions as whether, during emergencies, torture is per- missible (yes), dissent should be suppressed (yes), procedural protec- tions for criminal trials should be jettisoned (yes), ethnic profiling should be permitted (yes),3 and the laws of war should govern the treatment of al Qaeda detainees (no). Had the authors adhered to the jurisprudential approach that they recommend for the rest of us, they would have simply argued that these decisions are correct because the executive branch made them. That certainly would have made for a 2 See, for example, Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime 12-13,528-30 (Norton 2004) (lamenting the excessive sacrifice of civil liberties during tumultuous periods in United States history); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: PatternsofAmerican Nativism 1860- 1925 229-33 (Rutgers 2d ed 1988) (describing the Palmer Raids as a shocking attempt to satisfy the public's temporary antiradical nativism); Peter Irons, Justice at War viii (Oxford 1983) (de- scribing the background of Japanese-American wartime cases as "a legal scandal without precedent in the history of American law"); Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Free Speech in the United States 204-15 (Harvard 1946) (describing and criticizing the Palmer Raids). 3 In fact, the authors do not even save their discussion of ethnic profiling until the book's latter halt They choose, instead, to address it on pages 45 and 116-17. 2008] Radical Skepticism, Emergency Power,Constitutional Constraint 1331 shorter book. But at the same time that the authors disclaim any in- tention or ability to evaluate the Bush Administration's policies, they make extensive arguments- beyond mere deference to the execu- tive-in defense of each of the Administration's choices. When one concludes the book, one cannot help but wonder whether Posner and Vermeule advocate a deferential approach because, without defe- rence, they would have reached the same conclusions on the merits that the Administration reached. After all, it is easy to defer to those with whom one agrees. It is no secret that the Bush Administration has pressed aggres- sively since September 11 for an expansive executive role, and has objected to any checks and balances imposed by the judicial or legisla- tive branches. Others, especially Jack Goldsmith, Ron Suskind, and Bob Woodward, have shed important light on the ideological com- mitments and political pressures that drove the White House to adopt such positions-even when a more restrained and cooperative ap- proach might have actually served their interests far more effectively.' But with the exception of John Yoo and Richard Posner, no one has offered much of an intellectual defense of the vision of executive power that has driven United States policy in the "War on Terror."5 This book is by far the most serious, sustained, and thoughtful effort to 4 See, for example, Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency:Law and Judgment inside the Bush Administration 71-98 (Norton 2007) (describing how the combination of an ideological commitment to unrestrained executive power and the fear of another terrorist attack led the execu- tive branch to advance legal theories of an unchecked commander-in-chief power); Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine:Deep inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies since 9/11 79-81 (Simon & Schuster 2006) (arguing that the Bush Administration was driven after 9/11 by the sense that even a 1 percent chance of a terrorist attack justified harsh preventive intervention, including the invasion of Iraq); Bob Woodward, Bush at War 42 (Simon & Schuster 2002) (discussing John Ashcroft's advice that the government's principal job was to prevent another attack through any means necessary, even if subsequent criminal prosecutions would not be possible). 5 See John Yoo, War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror 119-20 (Atlantic Monthly 2006) (arguing that both the modern realities of the twenty-first century and the intentions of the Framers of the Constitution support unchecked executive power "to man- age foreign affairs and address emergencies which, almost by definition, cannot be addressed by existing laws"); John Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 143-57 (Chicago 2005) (looking to the Constitution's text, structure, and history to contend that the president has flexible warmaking and foreign affairs powers); Richard A. Posn- er, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency 7 (Oxford 2006) (cha- racterizing constitutional law as a "loose garment" that permits substantial infringements on constitutional rights when the nation's security is at risk). For my critiques of Yoo's and Posner's arguments, see generally David Cole, What Bush Wants to Hear, NY Rev of Books 8 (Nov 17, 2005) (reviewing Yoo); David Cole, The Poverty of Posner's Pragmatism:Balancing Away Liberty after 9/11, 59 Stan L Rev 1735 (2007) (reviewing Posner). 1332 The University of Chicago Law Review [75:1329 defend the broad executive emergency power that has appeared since September 11, so it deserves careful consideration.