The Retrieval of Liberalism in Policing

Description

There is a growing sense that many liberal states are in the midst of a shift in legal and political norms - a shift that is happening slowly and for a variety of security-related reasons. The internet and tech booms that are paving the way for new forms of electronic surveillance predated the 9/11 attacks by several years, while the police's vast use of secret informants and deceptive operations began well before that. On the other hand, the recent uptick in reactionary movements - movements in which the rule of law seems expendable - began many years after 9/11 and continues to this day. In The Retrieval of Liberalism in Policing, Luke William Hunt provides an account of how policing in liberal societies has become illiberal, in light of both internal and external threats to security. Hunt provides an examination of the moral limits on modern police practices that flow from the basic legal and philosophical tenets of the liberal tradition, arguing that policing in liberal states is constrained by a liberal conception of persons coupled with particular principles of the rule of law. Part I lays out the book's theoretical foundation, beginning with an overview of the police's law enforcement role in the liberal polity and a methodology for evaluating that role. Part II addresses applications of that theory, including the police's use of informants, deceptive operations, and surveillance. Hunt concludes by emphasizing how the liberal conception of persons and the rule of law constrain policing from multiple foundational stances, making the key point that policing in liberal societies has become illiberal in light of its response to both internal and external threats to security. Overall, this book provides an account of what it might mean to retrieve policing that is consistent with the basic tenets of liberalism and the limits imposed by those tenets. Cover The Retrieval of Liberalism in Policing Copyright Dedication Contents Preface Introduction: The Receding of Liberalism in Policing Part I: The Liberal Polity 1. The Role and Legitimacy of Police in the Liberal Polity 1.1 Who Are the Police and What Do They Do? 1.2 Law and Order and Legitimacy 2. Policing as Nonideal Governance by Law 2.1 Nonideal Theory: The Path from Here to There 2.2 Setting a Course: The Ideal of Justice 2.3 Toward the Priority of Liberal Personhood 3. Policing and the Priority of Liberal Personhood 3.1 Security and the Conception of Persons as Reciprocators 3.2 The Rule of Law, Punishment, and the Conception of Persons as Moral Agents 3.3 Dignity and Liberal Personhood Part II: Policine in the Liberal Polity 4. Confidential Human Sources and Unconscionability 4.1 Sources of Law: Principles, Regulations, and Normativity 4.2 Confidential Human Sources and Procedural Unconscionability 4.3 Substantive Unconscionability and Affronts to Liberal Personhood 4.4 A Family of Objections to CHS–​Police Agreements 5. Entrapment, Prerogative Power, and the Rule of Law 5.1 Predisposition and Counterfactuals 5.2 National Security, Prerogative Power, and Police 5.3 Beyond the Objective Test 6. Surveillance and the Rule of Law: Three Cases 6.1 Rule of Law Surveillance: Jones, Carpenter, and Discretion 6.2 Direct Rule of Law Departure Surveillance: “Big Brother’s Little Helpers” and FISA End-​Arounds 6.3 Indirect Rule of Law Departure Surveillance: Gabonese Gaff Epilogue: The Retrieval of Dignity in Policing Index