David Kirby - When They Come for You: How Police and Government Are Trampling Our Liberties - and How to Take Them Back

October 4, 2018The people profiled in the pages that follow no doubt believed in the statements at the opening of this book. They believed that if you obeyed the letter of the law, then you had nothing to worry about. But their belief in a just governmentand in justice itselfwas forever shattered the day that federal, state, or local authorities came for them.

This book, then, is for everyone elsefor those hundreds of millions of Americans who remain skeptical that their lives could ever be upended by overzealous or trigger-happy police, unethical investigators, corrupt prosecutors, indifferent or malevolent judges, and power-hungry bureaucrats at all levels of government. These peopleall representing the governmenthave aggressively threatened the safety, peace of mind, and civil rights of everyday citizens who were simplyand in most cases legallygoing about their daily lives.

When I first began researching this book, nearly five years ago, many people I knew regarded it as an earnest civics project. Today, they tell me the subject is of the utmost urgency. I hear it from many people I knowfrom Far Left friends to those who voted for Donald Trump and still support him, if somewhat less enthusiastically than they once did. Perhaps their fading allegiance stems from Trumps documented record of assaulting the civil and constitutional rights of millions in this country.

But it remains critical to state: The steady erosion of liberties that we witness daily, and the corresponding uptick in state-sanctioned abuse of citizens, did not begin with the Trump administration. (Although matters have, I would argue, grown considerably worse since January 20, 2017.) As we shall see in these pages, the Obama years were also marked by dark patterns of official abuse: spying on the media; prosecuting state leakers; monitoring and sometimes repressing political activists; aggressively seizing the civil assets of innocent Americans; viciously prosecuting legal cannabis growers, distributors, and consumersand much more. Given Obamas progressive public rhetoric, I was taken aback to discover the Obama administrations shameful record on legal and judicial matters.

It is my sincere hope that people of all political stripes will find the lessons in this book not only compelling but politically universal. Everyone should be unsettled by the stories that I have curated here as they come to realize that something similar could happen to them or to someone they love. Indeed, this book is neither liberal nor conservative in scope. To paraphrase the noted libertarian expression: When the states boot is on your throat, it doesnt matter if its a left boot or a right boot.

I consider myself a leftist libertarianor leftitarian, as some people have dubbed the concept. It may sound ideologically oxymoronic, but it is not. As a progressive who grew up in California and spent most of my adulthood in New York City, I am hardly anti-government. In fact, I worked in New York City government for a number of years and witnessed firsthand how dedicated public servants can accomplish miracles for ordinary citizens. I still maintain that taxpayer money should fund quality schools, clean parks, safe streets, solid infrastructure, protection of our fragile environment, and access to affordable food and medicine that will not kill us because it was not tested properly by authorities. On the other hand, I have always cast a jaundiced eye upon the powers exerted by government authoritiesno matter who is in office, no matter how beguiling their promises. As much as I admire good government, I dont always trust it. I have seen the damage done when its powers grow unchecked, out of control.