EP 441: The Preventive State with Special Guest Alan Dershowitz

My guest today Professor Alan Dershowitz, an American lawyer and law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional and criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School 

Mr. Dershowitz has taken on high-profile and often unpopular causes and clients. As he has represented such celebrity clients as Mike Tyson, Patty Hearst, Leona Helmsley, Julian Assange, and Jim Bakker. 

He is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst.

He is here today to discuss his new book, The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms while Preserving Essential Liberties.

Ladies and gentlemen, if reliable but uncertain intelligence predicted a mass casualty terrorist attack and indicated likely suspects, what preventive actions would be constitutionally authorized? Detention? Interrogation? Torture? 

What if the attack involved a weaponized virus? Should the government compel widespread inoculation that might kill hundreds of people while saving millions? What if an article describing how to circumvent the inoculation mandate was about to be published? Should censorship of the article be authorized?

These are the sorts of questions Professor Alan Dershowitz has been asking for more than 60 years, in his teaching, writing, and litigation. 

In it, he suggests an overarching jurisprudential framework that would set limits to the ballooning power of what he calls “the preventive state.”

 This important book offers unprecedented insights into one of the most under-examined developments of our age: the growing magnitude and frequency of cataclysmic threats, coupled with the increasingly effective—but increasingly intrusive—tools intended to predict and prevent them.

This masterful analysis should be read by everyone who cares about security, liberty, and democracy.

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