Praise for National Security Investigations and Prosecutions

As former Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, I have read extensively in this area, and National Security Investigations and Prosecutions is the single best treatment of the topic that I have ever seen. Rich in scholarly analysis, it is also highly practical and impartial. The seamless integration and clear exposition of legal theory, public policy, and operational reality is unique in the field, and should serve as a crucial buttress to wise and effective legislation, executive action, and judicial review. Perhaps more importantly, I believe this book will help all Americans by substantially advancing our ongoing national conversation about these grave and important issues, commensurate with the times in which we live.

Serious students of national security law will want to come to grips with the authors' penetrating analysis and comprehensive description of this sensitive arena. Our national security depends on excellent scholarship here.

Messrs. Kris and Wilson shed new, and welcome, light on an area of law little known, but of increasing importance: the laws governing the conduct of intelligence and counterterrorism activities within the United States. Long the province of a tiny group of government lawyers, working largely in secrecy, national security law is now of interest to everyone who cares about how we can, and should, respond to foreign threats in our Constitutional democracy. Kris and Wilson take on the toughest issues without partisan rancor and allow their razor-sharp analysis to carefully dissect the law as it is, and as it should be. Their tone is measured, non-partisan, and the necessarily dry style is made easy to read by beautiful writing. This treatise should be on the desk of every government official engaged in national security work and every citizen who cares how that work is done.

This treatise is a very helpful contribution for anyone involved in the legal aspects of the war on terrorism and intelligence. It provides expert and thoughtful analysis of this incredibly complex and secretive topic and helps make the topic accessible. Given the centrality of the issues - classified intelligence collection and the balance with civil liberties - this is a valuable addition.

In this useful and timely book, coauthors David Kris and Doug Wilson combine the refined research skills and dogged persistence of respected legal scholars with the practical insights of widely admired top Justice Department lawyers. An ambitious undertaking, the book traces the evolution over half an eventful century of law, judicial review, and Congressional oversight governing the arcane world of national security investigations. Kris and Wilson take us from the simpler pre-Cold-War era of targeted landline intercepts to the massive data sweeps of the wireless electronic age, while providing along the way helpful historical context, informed insight into Intelligence Community organization and functions, a practitioner's tutorial on changing techniques, and a focused discussion on the impact of related litigation and prosecutions. They include an extensive explanation and analysis of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is today at the center of a lively debate over NSA's controversial "warrantless surveillance" program. Their exhaustive account makes clear that the laws they analyze derive from the perceived need to protect the American people from a repetition of well-documented abuses of their own government, as well as from the attacks of adversaries - an apt reminder for our executive and legislative branches today.

Both scholarly and grounded in the practice of national security law, this long-awaited book brings clarity and light to questions once shrouded in secrecy and myth.

National Security Investigations and Prosecutions is a deep and thorough explanation of the law that governs the FBI and other government agencies in their most important activities. It offers incisive and clearly expressed legal argument informed by a pragmatic and balanced approach to some of the most significant and difficult issues of our time. The book is at once a reference for legal scholars, a manual for practitioners, and a primer for students of this often inaccessible but critically important area of law and policy.

Kris and Wilson combine lucid legal analysis with common sense firmly rooted in operational experience, bridging the gap between theory and practice and presenting the law in a functional context. The difficulty of that task and the value of the result are revealed by the fact that it took the U.S. government longer to review and release the book for publication than it did for the authors to write it.

This treatise, essentially the first of its kind, brings much-needed clarity to the sometimes arcane body of law governing national security investigations - as an explication of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act alone, it is unprecedented and invaluable. The book represents a major contribution to the debate about how to balance liberty and security in an age of terror, and is required reading for anyone hoping to transcend the mere exchange of platitudes and join a more informed conversation about how the government can and should protect the nation without destroying its fundamental values. The authors, with whom I have had the privilege of working, have a passion for this topic which is clearly conveyed through their insightful commentary.