Homeland Insecurity: Aliens, Citizens and Wartime Challenges to American Civil Liberties

Homeland Insecurity is a well-written, carefully documented book by award-winning author Stephen Fox. The book explores the effects of the fear-driven and intolerant policies put in place by the Franklin Roosevelt administration, policies based on earlier historical lessons, to control the behavior of German and Italian nationals (immigrants). To execute these policies, the government trampled, suspended, or ignored the most cherished human rights of American society. It was a time of profiling, secret arrests, suspension of due process and habeas corpus, deportation, extraordinary rendition, second class citizenship and other forms of harassment-all in the name of homeland security.Homeland Insecurity begins with a quote by the San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll: "It is said that those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it. I suspect that those who do remember history are doomed to repeat it, too. Human nature is human nature and an even deeper driving force than memory." Homeland Insecurity explores the government's embrace of limited remembrances (lessons). Policymakers, the media, and the public chose to act only on the messages (lessons) that supported their assumptions. When this narrow outlook coincided with the prejudices and insecurities of J. Edgar Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, the result was tragic. Fox bases his thematic analysis of the government's actions on in-depth examination of previously unused FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service files. In addition, the first-person interviews provided by the immigrants enrich this compelling and enjoyable read. Homeland Insecurity suggests that the activities of the Bush administration to protect the United States after 9/11 borrowed much (lessons) from the assault on constitutional and civil liberties during World War II. This book is a must read for all Americans concerned about the future of the Bill of Rights.Stephen Fox is the award-winning author of monographs and articles on Italian and German Americans. His previous oral and documentary histories include Under Siege! and 'Against All Enemies.'