Martin Garbus – författare

The boisterous  freedom promised by the First Amendment is both the heart of American experiment and the fissure along which it divides itself.  Those who would fight freedom''s enemies, from political correctness to corporate intimidation to outright censorship, face powerful adversaries.  But they also have a potent weapon at their disposal: good, old-fashioned talk--tough talk.  And as one of America''s leading First Amendment attorneys, Martin Garbus is one of the toughest talkers there is.Starting with his work on the tam that defended the legendary satirist Lenny Bruce against obscenity charges, Garbus has been a fearless advocate for some of the most important voices of our time, among them union organizer Cesar Chavez, actor Robert Redford, director Spike Lee, writer Samuel Beckett, Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov, and Czech playwright Vaclav Havel, who, as president of his country''s revolutionary government, invited Garbus to help write the nation''s constitution.But Garbus is not an ivory-tower theoretician.  He is a highly effective defense lawyer who takes on cases with the full intent of winning.  In Tough Talk, Garbus goes behind the scenes to show us how our system really works and what he does to make it work for his clients.  How does an attorney get controversial cases?  What does he do to gain control of a hostile courtroom?  How does he work with a defendant whose beliefs are the opposite of his own?Tough Talk is both the story of one man''s battle for freedom and a clear-eyed account of every major First Amendment issue this nation has faced in the last three decades, for the battles Garbus has fought have become the touchstones of America''s debate about the limits of freedom.  In showing us how he has harnessed his personal idealism to the gritty reality of the courtroom, Garbus gives brilliant testimony to the power of tough talk.From the Hardcover edition.

Renowned First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus presciently examines the impact of the new Supreme Court on the future of the United States. Drawing upon extensive knowledge of the American Constitutional law and legal precedents, Garbus, one of America's most astute legal historians, defrocks the Bush administration's grip on the judiciary as an extension of its own executive powers. Named by TIME magazine as legendary...one of the best trial lawyers in the country', Garbus has appeared before the US Supreme Court and the highest courts throughout America.'

Renowned First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus examines what will be the impact of the new Supreme Court on the future of the US republic. Drawing on extensive knowledge of Constitutional law and legal procedure, Garbus defrocks the executive branch's grip over the judiciary as an extension of its own powers. He warns of the threat of an incoming 'textualist' bench that wishes to roll back more than a century of hard-won reforms. And he offers the first clear-eyed account of how the new bench may endanger the US public's enjoyed liberty.

Before the US invasion of Iraq, before the American public saw the infamous photos from Abu Ghraib, the CIA went to the White House with a question: What, according to the Constitution, was the line separating interrogation from torture—and could that line be moved? The White House lawyers' answer—in the form of legal documents later known as the "Torture Memos"—became the US's justification for engaging in torture.The Torturer in the Mirror shows us how when one of us tortures, we are all implicated in the crime. In three uncompromising essays, Iraqi dissident Haifa Zangana, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and professor of sociology Thomas Ehrlich Reifer teach us how physically and psychologically insidious torture is, how deep a mark it leaves on both its victims and its practitioners, and how necessary it is for us as a society to hold torturers accountable.