Patriots Act: Voices of Dissent and the Risk of Speaking Out (Hardcover)

by Bill Katovsky (Author) "John Sellers is an impresario of the bold, nonviolent political statement..." (more)
Key Phrases: air marshal program, aviation security, action camp, New York, White House, Marine Corps (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Oral historian Katovsky (Embedded) sets out to "defend the defenders of our freedoms and civil liberties" with 20 oral histories of outspoken contemporary American dissenters. Some of his subjects, like Max Cleland, Randi Rhodes and Paul Krugman, are well-known critics of the Bush administration; some, like former FAA official Bogdan Dzakovic, "Pentagon Papers" leaker Daniel Ellsberg and former White House anti-terrorism advisor Rand Beers, became whistleblowers out of frustration with the ineffectiveness and dishonesty they encountered in the government. In celebrating his interviewees' lives, Katovsky provides brief overviews of their careers (though some are much longer than others and wander into areas where the subjects have opinions, but not expertise), and in the absence of any opposing views or objective reporting, the interviews begin to sound self-righteous. However, as the title suggests, the book avoids becoming a partisan philippic by emphasizing the protestors' patriotism-their faith in the idea of liberty at the core of the American political tradition and in the good intentions and courage of their fellow citizens. Readers who share Katovsky's politics will find this a bracing tribute to those who have risked popularity, a pristine police record, or a job by acting on their beliefs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Patriot seems to have changed meaning, in that voicing criticism (a right ingrained in the constitution and something once encouraged and expected of citizens) can now cause you to be labeled unpatriotic. This powerful book explores what it really means to be patriotic by introducing readers to 20 Americans who love their country enough to be critical of it. Rand Beers, former special assistant to the president, explains why he could no longer support George W. Bush's antiterrorism policies. A man and wife express their confusion at being arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts at the president's Independence Day speech. The book explores a wide range of subjects, from free speech and the relationship between government and big business to abuse of civil liberties to the importance of political satire. Recommend this one to poli-sci students and readers concerned about the post-9/11 political climate. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1.00 edition (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592288162
• ISBN-13: 978-1592288168
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #994,440 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Explosive, Inspiring Reading, August 10, 2006

By	Laurie Tsutakawa (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Maybe this book got buried in the rising slag-heap mountain of titles exposing the bald-faced lies of George Bush and his puppeteers. Or perhaps somebody thought that Patriots Act was just some un-ironic, dry policy look at the crazy, paranoid post-9/11 government policy that started ripping out the Constitution like so much stained green shag carpet in a North Las Vegas motel. Not at all! This collection of personal stories -- an oral history in the mode of the legendary Studs Terkel, where the interviewer gets the key subjects talking straight from the soul -- is like a heat-seeking missile, right on target with the issues tearing our nation and the world apart.

Don't be fooled by the quiet decency of the book's subjects, some of them famous, some of them unknown, but all of them willing to stick their necks out for principle. It's bracing to read the words of Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst who risked all to leak the Pentagon Papers to stop the Vietnam War; or of triple amputee, Vietnam war vet and former Veterans Administration director and U.S. Senator from Georgia Max Cleland who talks about how our power-mad leaders led our young soldiers into Iraq and toward the same misguided charnel house that consumed his generation in Vietnam. Or why former FBI agent Colleen Rowley risked her long career to reveal how internecine federal agency warfare and career caution at the FBI made the U.S. vulnerable to the tragic Al Qaeda attacks of 2001.

More subtle in the book are the gray men and women, loyal to government service and principle, like Rand Beers, who took over from Richard Clarke as White House counter-terror advisor. Beers later resigned in protest five days before the nation went to war in Iraq on false pretenses. More moving yet in the book are the smallest and most vulnerable of our residents and citizens, like the Syrian-American teenager who was thrown into INS prison with her mother for nine months in a mass sweep of our Arabic populace in the wake of 9/11. Convince me that she is not a more patriotic adherent of democracy than most of us.

But tucked away in the book's center of these portraits of high character in low times is a shocker right in synch with today's headlines. And I mean today!-- when the British MI-5 and other security agencies stopped a plot by suicidal jihadis aiming to blow up a dozen airliners traveling from Great Britain to the America. Smack in the middle of Patriots Act is an incendiary interview with former FAA counter-terrorist Red Team member Bogdan Dzakovic. As part of the Red Team, Dzakovic zealously tested airport and airplane security measures. He and team members simulated terrorist attacks. They posed as hijackers. They snuck bombs and weapons onto aircraft. Dzakovic 's Red Team succeeded and found aviation security lacking nearly nine times out of ten, but the politically compromised FAA reacted not with proper alarm and concern, but with apathy, embarrassment and cover-ups. When Dkakovic went public with his findings as a whistleblower, the FAA punished him. It buried him and his career in a bureaucratic closet. Read his chapter and you will be horrified to know that America is not safer today even though billions have been wasted by Homeland Security. But, airline passengers are much more miserable. I wish there were more patriots in this country like this Red Team member. Or like Ellsberg, Cleland, Rowley....

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get it. Give it. Live it., April 10, 2006

By	Martin James Higgins "American `Nam Vet" (Taliban-occupied Marin County, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Patriots Act reveals a unseen world of political experience, guiding you through the lives of people who've made their dissent the functional center of their life. John Sellers' Ruckus stunts (actually brilliantly executed media events), Randi Rhodes' fearless denunciations of George Bush, a TSA security manager's frustration with airport inadequacies and illogicalities, a next-door-neighbor couple's confrontation with anti-First Amendment goons at a July Fourth event with the prez, and 16 other "oral histories" gave me an in-depth - and occasionally shocking - view of protest as patriotism.

What Katovsky has done here - as in his previous book, "Embedded: The Media in Iraq "(buy it!)- is to let the people on the forefront of our culture, media, and society tell their stories in their own words. I'm always amazed at how articulate and erudite people can be when they speak with passion about the issues they care most about. But Patriots Act is not a compilation of transcribed complaints. Each of the interviewees brings another piece of the puzzle to light. How is it that the most American trait of all - the right and ability to dissent - is often looked upon as anti-American? Why does a whistle-blower have to lose his or her job when attempting to bring problems to the public's attention and solve endemic problems? Why do Americans put personal comfort behind the need for honesty, truth, and accountability?

The first copy of this book I bought, I sent directly to a politically active friend who experiences chronic bouts of "what's the use?" When we spoke on the phone days later she sounded as invigorated as she was when I first met her, twenty-some years ago.

Get it. Give it. Live it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Dissenting Review, September 17, 2006

By	doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

"Dissent" ranges from simply disagreeing with the status quo, to running an opposition campaign, to actually facing up to the Man physically. Since we're dealing with such a wide-ranging and crucial form of expression, this book showcases an interesting variety of dissenters, from politicians to provocateurs to just folks, and it's hardly necessary for the reader to agree with all of them. With that being said, the book does little to advance the American ideals of free speech and dissent, due to its unfocused nature and reliance on autobiographies rather than in-depth analysis. On the good side, we get tales of Nicole and Jeff Rank, Nadin Hamoui, and Max Mecklenberg, who were all badly harassed by the authorities for merely having an unacceptable opinion or even for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We learn of the unfair struggles of courageous whistle-blowers like Bogdan Dzakovic, Colleen Rowley, and Jay Stroup, who yearned to protect the public but were eliminated by inflexible bureaucracies. These are several moving examples of American dissent and government harassment, but these great and humble tales are surrounded by cases of self-aggrandizement and soapbox sermonizing.

The book gets off to a horrendous start, as eco-provocateur John Sellers rambles on and on for 37 pages about hanging cheesy banners off of tall buildings and how you should join his organization. Tweeti Blancett, who has stood up to energy companies and their pocketed politicians, spends most of her article talking about her right-wing Southern and Texas ancestors, with the implication that this makes her a unique or politically acceptable dissident. This is actually a recurring problem throughout this book, as the respondents (probably egged on by the editor Katovsky) feel the need to give a long and questionably useful autobiography and talk about how they're not your "typical" dissident, before rattling off their particular episode of interest right at the end of their essay. Meanwhile, you can dismiss Mort Sahl's useless rants about the modern political comics that have made him obsolete; while even the eminent and hugely respectable Daniel Ellsberg eventually rambles off into dystopian visions and a confused political agenda. This book has many great stories of citizens and leaders who have bucked the system or spoken their minds, then unfairly suffered the consequences, and they are worth reading. But many of them deserve to be surrounded by better material. [~doomsdayer520~]