Harbinger theory how the post-9/11 emergency became permanent and the case for reform

Includes bibliographical references and index.

North American law has been transformed in ways unimaginable before 9/11. Laws now authorise and courts have condoned indefinite detention without charge on secret evidence, mass secret surveillance, and targeted killing of U.S. citizens, suggesting a shift in the cultural currency of a liberal form of legality to authoritarian legality. This book demonstrates that extreme measures have been consistently embraced in politics, scholarship, and public opinion in a specific belief that 9/11 was the harbinger of a new order of terror.