9/11 Library Resources

To mark the ten year anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Brooklyn Law School Associate Librarian Linda Holmes has displayed a number of books from the BLS Library collection in the first floor library display case including Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (Call #HV6432.7 .K43 2006).

The BLS Library recently added to its collection Habeas Corpus in America: The Politics of Individual Rights by Justin J. Wert (Call #KF9011 .W47 2011). Americans view habeas corpus as the cornerstone of our legal system, allowing an arrested person to challenge the legality of his detention. This book reexamines this right to show that it is as much a tool of politics as it is one of law. Chapter 1, Habeas Corpus and History, begins: “In the years since September 11, 2001, the writ of habeas corpus once again emerged from legal obscurity, and, as during periods of war and crisis before, it occupied center stage in an unfortunately all too familiar battle over the constitutional limits of governmental power and individual rights during war.” Tracing the history of the writ from the early days of the republic to the recent US Supreme Court cases of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Boumediene v. Bush, the author shows the evolution of the writ during the antebellum period, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the ongoing war on terrorism. With new scrutiny of habeas corpus prompted by the Guantánamo detainees, this book is essential understanding how law and politics intersect after 9/11.

See also a new addition to the William S. Hein & Co. Legal Research Guide Series recently added to the BLS Library collection, Habeas Corpus: A Legal Research Guide by Nathan Andrew Preuss (Call # KF241.C75 P74 2011).