Jack Goldsmith

An excellent short history of the Internet that tries to put to rest the 90's libertarian prophecy of the Internet as the great globalizer and destroyer of nation states. The authors put clear arguments forward that show how the physical coercion of territorial governments can control the Internet, with the great firewall of China as an extreme example. Governments can coerce ISPs, which in turn can filter and shape the Internet. They can coerce financial service providers, which can make or show more break an online vendor. And so on. But this is not such a bad thing, according to them. The authors point out how the mundane presence of government gives the Internet the stability it needs to thrive as a marketplace. Their argument is valid, but I cannot imagine it will convince the most radical of the Internet libertarians. Stability is only necessary for businesses looking to make a buck through the Internet. The hippie culture of the early Internet enthusiasts could care less about the fortunes of eBay, wsj.com, Yahoo!, or any other example the authors bring forward.

Overall, this is a great read. It's fairly short, and manages to put forth a narrative style throughout much of it, which makes it that much more engaging.

The story about Jon Postel splitting the root of the Internet in the late 90's was particularly interesting. I'm don't know how I managed to earn my degree without learning about that before. show less

I have been a proud union member, for over 30 years and I was sixteen, when Hoffa disappeared, so I do remember that event, but I really never knew Hoffa's full story. With the film, The Irishman being recently released, along with this well-researched account, it gave me the perfect opportunity, to learn about this powerful union leader and what led up to his demise.
What also makes, this book special is that the author, a prominent lawyer and former government official, has a strong show more connection to this story. His step-father, Chuckie O' Neal, was Hoffa's right hand man for many years and was also arrested for his suspected involvement with Hoffa's disappearance, which destroyed Chuckie's life, despite his likely, innocence.
The author packs a lot into this book, and we get historical snapshots, of the FBI, Hoover, RFK, the teamsters, the mob and the sinister world of surveillance. Solid nonfiction. show less

Jack Goldsmith is a conservative lawyer who served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in Justice Dept. in 2003-4. He had just prior been a lawyer for the DoD, and so was familiar with the national security legal issues.

Goldsmith does an excellent job of depicting the problems of ensuring the government acts legally but at the same time protects Americans from attack. He understands and shares his understanding of the terrible state of mind of those in the government who read the daily show more threat matrix and are responsible for preventing new attacks on the US from an enemy that can hide easily. The Bush administration, contrary to public opinion, has been greatly concerned over the legality of its efforts to stop terrorism, and relies heavily on the OLC to know what is legal and what isn't. The hiistory of legal restraints on the intelligence services and the military has beem confusing pver the ;ast 50 years. Goldsmith summarizes: "The executive branch and Congress press the [intelligence] community to engage in controversial action at the edges of the law, and then fail to protect it from recriminations when things go awry. This leads the community to retrench and become risk averse, which invites complaints by politicians that the community is fecklessly timid. Intelligence excesses of the 1960s led to the Church committee reproaches and reforms of the 1970s, which led to complaints that the community had become too risk averse, which led to the aggressive behavior under William Casey in the 1980s that resulted in the Iran-Contra and related scandals, which led to another round of intelligence purges and restrictions in the 1990s that deepened the culture of risk aversion and once again led (both before and after 9/11) to complaints about excessive timidity, which after 9/11 led to renewed aggressive action, which once again (following the interrogation and rendition and terrorist surveillance controversies) is leading to retrenchment by the intelligence community in the face of complaints that it has gone too far."

Goldsmith talks about the legal basis that the administration thought it had for several of these activities, and reviews them in the context of previous crisis Presidents and their actions. When Goldsmith took over OLC he reviewed some of the legal decisions by previous OLC staffers, and found a couple of them so problematic that he withdrew them and rewrote them.

Overall, Goldsmith gives a balanced view of the Bush administration. He explains much of what is driving it, and so makes some of their decisions more understandable. On the other hand, he compares Bush unfavorably with the administration of FDR, and how FDR was successful in obtaining public consent for changing the previous direction of policy. The Bush administration was so focused on enhancing the power of the Presidency, which Cheney and others viewed as having been diminished because of the turmoil over Nixon, that they did not ever seek Congressional approval or public understanding of their actions.

An interesting, well-written book with a fascinating and historically important perspective show less

I found this book to have some really interesting points and a point of view not often expressed. It was interesting to see some of the controversies of the Bush Presidency discussed in purely legal terms. In terms of reading it, the beginning and end are great, and the middle is a bit of a struggle to get through. The last chapter makes it all worth it though. It would probably be an easier read for someone with more of a legal background.