Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11

The surprising truth behind Barack Obama's decision to continue many of his predecessor's counterterrorism policies.

Conventional wisdom holds that 9/11 sounded the death knell for presidential accountability. In fact, the opposite is true. The novel powers that our post-9/11 commanders in chief assumed—endless detentions, military commissions, state secrets, broad surveillance, and more—are the culmination of a two-century expansion of presidential authority. But these new powers have been...