For those folks who can’t stand the thought of catching “Zodiac” this weekend or cleaning out their basements, here are some recent releases that have come into Legal Times. Check them out.
• Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror, by Frederick A.O. Schwartz Jr. (yes, that family) and Aziz Huq, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. The authors ask, “Must we truly adopt tactics that are deeply unbecoming to our nation’s proud history and actually harm our security?” It’s an interesting question. Whether the reader feels “unbecoming” is more a matter for Miss Manners than legal types is yet another one.
• Melvin Belli: King of the Courtroom, by Mark Shaw. Speaking of “Zodiac,” California personal injury lawyer Belli, the “king of torts,” was involved. How, we’re not sure. Read the book. We do know that it was Belli who represented Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who…Oh, just read the book.
• Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post-9/11 World, by Maureen Webb, who started the book in the course of doing analysis for the International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance. Webb asks, “Did you know that your government is watching you?” Well, yeah.
• Inventing Human Rights: A History, by Lynn Hunt, UCLA history professor, starts with the 18th century and the French revolution. And then she “takes an in-depth look at the state of human rights today.” Not good — that’s our guess.
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