America's Disappeared

The confirmation proceedings for Alberto R. Gonzales and Condeleeza Rice, like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, triggered a national debate about the U.S. government’s controversial treatment of detainees and its practice of torture. At the heart of the debate is the question: Is the United States undermining democracy, freedom, and human rights in it’s effort to protect its citizens from terrorism? The authors of AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED answer, yes.
AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED describes how the U.S. government, in response to the events of 9/11, launched an unprecedented campaign of racial profiling, detentions, and deportations so grievous as to evoke the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It brings together, for the first time, detainees’ own testimonies along with analysis by the leading constitutional attorneys and human rights advocates. In addition to a detailed exploration of detention—the forms currently in use, and the conditions of each—the book challenges the Bush administration’s justifications for violating the Geneva Conventions and the most basic definitions of human rights.“To read America's Disappeared is to be moved by the personal stories of human beings plucked out of our midst, tortured, kept away from family, from legal counsel, from the world. To read these stories is to be shocked by the way our constitutional rights have been violated again and again, with the government justifying this as a 'war on terrorism'. The essays in this collection not only confront us with the human reality of the detentions at Guantnamo and the tortures of Abu Ghraib. They also scrutinize and dissect the legal arguments of the government, as it tries to defend the indefensible. This volume informs us as it angers us, and provokes us to act in whatever way we can to bring democracy alive in our country.” –Howard Zinn


“America's Disappeared is a strong, eloquent and necessary book, one that presents its readers with a challenge and a charge to not sit by and allow the juggernaut of the Bush Administration to roll over our Constitution, our human rights, and our fellow human beings.” –Lewis H. Lapham, Editor of Lapham's Quarterly


“Here are further proofs, as though any more were needed, of what a loathsome nation we've become.” –Kurt VonnegutRACHEL MEEROPOL is a fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York City. BARBARA OLSHANSKY is the Leah Kaplan Distinguished Professor in Human Rights at Stanford University. MICHAEL RATNER is the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.