Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 232
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-5381-3134-3 • Hardback • October 2019 • $42.00 • (£35.00)
978-1-5381-3135-0 • eBook • October 2019 • $39.50 • (£30.00)
Cecil C. Kuhne III is a Lawyer with Norton Rose Fulbright, a Law Firm in Dallas, Texas. His primary areas of practice include corporate investigations, both governmental and internal, and the analysis and resolution of a wide range of commercial disputes. Kuhne is the author of eighteen books on litigation published by the American Bar Association, including Sherlock Holmes for Lawyers: 100 Clues for Litigators From the Master Detective and Business Bribes: Corporate Corruption and the Courts.
Attorney Kuhne (Sherlock Holmes for Lawyers) recounts 16 spy trials in fascinating detail. He begins with the 1951 trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the first U.S. citizens to be tried, convicted, and executed for espionage during peacetime. More recent trials include that of Greg Chung, a Boeing engineer accused of funneling secret documents pertaining to the space shuttle to China in 2006, and the ACLU trial against the U.S. government over the telephone metadata collections leaked by Edward Snowden. One of the most unusual trials is that of “Jane” and “John Doe,” foreign spies for the CIA who retired to America with the promise of financial and personal security for life. But when the husband was laid off from his American job in 1997, the CIA wouldn’t pay them. The court ruled against the couple, citing that the contract was secret and therefore could not be used as evidence in court. Six appendices cite the U.S. espionage laws that define and complicate these cases. Readers interested in the legal aspects of prosecuting spies will be rewarded.— Publishers Weekly
Illustrating times when “the dark shadows of the clandestine backroom are suddenly exchanged for the bright lights of the open courtroom,” this collection by lawyer and author Kuhne features cases spanning from WWII to the present. Some are well known: Edward Snowden leaking classified documents about the NSA’s global surveillance program, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg sending top-secret intelligence about the U.S. atomic-bomb program to the Soviet Union. Other cases will be new and interesting to most readers, like a Soviet agent getting caught after his dry cleaner found papers containing information about espionage activities in his coat pocket. The author inserts
helpful supplemental documents throughout, including excerpts of Supreme Court opinions, the Espionage Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and other legislation related to the cases featured in the book. . . . [Kuhne] manages to distill sprawling and often dense legal proceedings into plain English that fans of geopolitical intrigue will enjoy.— Booklist
Mr. Kuhne's focus on the applicable laws used to promote the acts of Espionage discussed in his book is a unique approach. He tells the interesting story of where spying and jurisprudence have met in the courtroom. Both fans of nonfiction espionage literature and of timely legal issues should find it an interesting read.— Gene Coyle, Retired 30-year Veteran of the CIA and Recipient of the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit
The practice of intelligence in democratic societies is by definition inextricably linked with the system of law. This is something that students —alas, even practitioners— of intelligence often forget. Kuhne skillfully reminds us in this book, by revisiting some of the most decisive intelligence- and espionage-related legal cases in American history. The cases he discusses are neither pedantic nor obscure —they have made history in both the world of law and the world of intelligence. This book is invaluable for those who wish to truly comprehend the connections between them.— Joseph Fitsanakis, Associate Professor of Politics, Intelligence and National Security Studies program, Coastal Carolina University