Year of Award
2014
Presentation Date
11-20-2014
Abstract
University of Minnesota Law School Professor Heidi Kitrosser discusses her award-winning book Reclaiming Accountability: Transparency, Executive Power, and the U.S. Constitution at the 2014 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize Lecture.
In Reclaiming Accountability, Professor Kitrosser examines the tension between Americans' desire for transparency in government and the need for secrecy in matters of national security—two imperatives that are generally considered antithetical. She contends that this is not the case, and that our concern ought to lie not with secrecy per se but with the sort of unchecked secrecy that can result from "presidentialism," or constitutional arguments for broad executive control of information. Taking readers through the key presidentialist assertions—including "supremacy" and "unitary executive theory"—Professor Kitrosser explains how they misread the Constitution in a way that is profoundly at odds with democratic principles. Professor Kitrosser's book will be published in January 2015 by the University of Chicago Press.
Runtime: 00:38:08
Recommended Citation
Kitrosser, Heidi, "2014 Palmer Prize Winner - Reclaiming Accountability: Transparency, Executive Power, and the U.S. Constitution" (2014). The Palmer Prize Lecture. 3.
https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/palmer/3