 Filvaroff, D. B. (1972). Conspiracy and the First Amendment. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 189-253. The American legal system has not always responded well in times of deep intellectual, social, and political unrest. from Debs, to the Japanese Relocation Cases, to Dennis, the courts have often leaned with, rather than against, the winds of orthodoxy and popular prejudice; they have tended to vindicate officialdom, particularly at the federal level, in its response to dissent or potential disloyality...One of the legal weapons used in the traditional unequal contest between government and dissent has been the doctrine of criminal conspiracy. While there has been much critical comment concerning the nature and uses of this historic crime, and while the literature surrounding the first amendment rights of free speech and association is certainly voluminous, relatively little careful study has been directed to the ways in which the two concepts converge and conflict when the government institutes prosecutions for conspiracy to commit speech or speech-related offenses, an American variant of the "political crime"...Peculiarly subject to abuse in even the run-of-the-mine criminal case, the conspiracy device-the "darling of the modern prosecutor's nursery"-demands heightened critical analysis when basic political rights may be at stake.Bush, J. A. (2009). The Prehistory of Corporations and Conspiracy in International Criminal Law: What Nuremberg Really Said. Columbia Law Review, 1094-1262. Among the most important questions in international criminal law since the mid-1990s have been the status of Anglo-American conspiracy law and the liability of corporations and their officers for human rights violations. These two issues have arisen in a broad range of settings, including Alien Tort Statute suits, cases arising out of the American detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and in the various international criminal tribunals at The Hague. The cases and jurists have, despite their otherwise diverse answers, agreed that the Nuremberg trials after World War II are the most important precedent. This Essay examines the five Nuremberg cases that featured economic perpetrators and the legal theories used there. The Essay focuses on the forgotten, crucial months between the first Nuremberg trial (1945-46) and the later twelve trials (1946-49), when theories of corporate and conspiracy liability were considered and debated. Using unpublished memos, letters, and diaries, the Essay concludes that conspiracy was seen to be a vital part of international law, albeit mainly for its evidentiary advantages, and that criminal charges against corporations were considered entirely permissible, though ultimately not used. The Essay also shows that other legal concepts, including genocide and crimes against humanity, were used against economic perpetrators. The Essay concludes by reprinting a sample of documents by such key figures as Robert H. Jackson, Telford Taylor, and Raphael Lemkin.deHaven-Smith, L. (2010). Beyond conspiracy theory: Patterns of high crime in American government. American behavioral scientist, 53(6), 795-825. This article explores the conceptual, methodological, and practical implications of research on state crimes against democracy (SCADs). In contrast to conspiracy theories, which speculate about each suspicious event in isolation, the SCAD construct delineates a general category of criminality and calls for crimes that fit this category to be examined comparatively. Using this approach, an analysis of post—World War II SCADs and suspected SCADs highlights a number of commonalities in SCAD targets, timing, and policy consequences. SCADs often appear where presidential politics and foreign policy intersect. SCADs differ from earlier forms of political corruption in that they frequently involve political, military, and/or economic elites at the very highest levels of the social and political order.The article concludes by suggesting statutory and constitutional reforms to improve SCAD prevention and detection.Katyal, N. K. (2003). Conspiracy theory. Yale Law Journal, 1307-1398. This is a central issue in criminal law, since more than one-quarter of all federal criminal prosecutions and a large number of state cases involve prosecutions for conspiracy. Virtually every state recognizes the crime. Yet criticisms of the doctrine are pervasive, and generally take two forms. First, the rationale for the offense of conspiracy is questioned. Why should group behavior receive additional punishment, and why should any punishment at all attach at the moment of agreement? In the second critique, conspiracy law is excoriated for giving prosecutors too much power.Witt, M. T. (2013). Conspiracy Theory Reconsidered Responding to Mass Suspicions of Political Criminality in High Office. Administration & Society, 45(3), 267-295. This article criticizes recent proposals for covert government operations against conspiracy-theory groups and networks. The article argues that fear of secret plots by political insiders is intrinsic to America’s civic culture, legal traditions, and political institutions. The appropriate government response to conspiracy theories is not to try to silence mass suspicions but instead to establish procedures for ensuring that suspicious events are thoroughly and credibly investigated. As it stands, investigations of assassinations, defense failures, election breakdowns, and other political events with grave implications for America and the world fail to meet basic standards for transparency, independence, and objectivity.Bale, J. M. (2007). Political paranoia v. political realism: on distinguishing between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine conspiratorial politics. Patterns of Prejudice, 41(1), 45-60. Scholars and intellectuals often fail to pay sufficient attention to the historical and political importance of conspiratorial politics, that is, real-world covert and clandestine activities. This is primarily because they rarely make an effort to distinguish conceptually between such activities, which are a regular if not omnipresent feature of national and international politics, and bogus ‘conspiracy theories’, elaborate fantasies that purport to show that various sinister, powerful groups with evil intentions, operating behind the scenes, are secretly controlling the course of world events. Bale’s purpose is to provide a clear analytical distinction between actual conspiratorial politics and ‘conspiracy theories’ in the pejorative sense of that term, and to suggest that research methods appropriate to investigating and analysing the former have long been available. In a world full of secret services, surreptitious pressure groups, criminal cartels and terrorist organizations, academics can no longer afford to ignore bona fide conspiratorial activities of various types, which have often had considerable historical significance in the past and are likely to continue to exert an impact on events in the future.Coady, D. (2010). Conspiracy Theories and Official Stories. International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 17(2), 197-209. Conspiracy theories have a bad reputation. This is especially true in the academy and in the media. Within these institutions, to describe someone as a conspiracy theorist is often to imply that his or her views should not be taken seriously. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that philosophers have tended to ignore the topic, despite the enduring appeal of conspiracy theories in popular culture. Recently, however, some philosophers have at least treated conspiracy theorists respectfully enough to try to articulate where they go wrong. I begin this paper by clarifying the nature of conspiracy theories. I then argue against some recent critiques of conspiracy theories. Many criticisms of conspiracy theories are unfounded. I also argue that unwillingness to entertain conspiracy theories is an intellectual and moral failing. I end by suggesting an Aristotelian approach to the issue, according to which the intellectual virtue of realism is a golden mean between the intellectual vices of paranoia and naivety.Bale, J. (1997). 'Conspiracy Theories' and Clandestine Politics. Lobster, 29, 18. Johnson, L. K. (1989). Covert Action and Accountability: Decision-Making for America's Secret Foreign Policy. International Studies Quarterly, 81-109. Hagen, K. (2010). Is Infiltration of “Extremist Groups” Justified?. International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 24(2), 153-168. Many intellectuals scoff at what they call “conspiracy theories.” But two Harvard law professors, Cass Sunstein (now working for the Obama administration) and Adrian Vermeule, go further. They argue in the Journal of Political Philosophy that groups that espouse such theories ought to be infiltrated and undermined by government agents and allies. While some may find this proposal appalling (as indeed we all should), others may find the argument plausible, especially if they have been swayed by the notion that conspiracy theories (or a definable subset thereof), by their nature, somehow or another, do not warrant belief. I will argue that Sunstein and Vermeule’s proposal not only conflicts with the values of an open society, but is also epistemically indefensible. In making my case, I will adopt their favored example, counter-narratives about 9/11.Sunstein, C. R., & Vermeule, A. (2009). Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures*. Journal of Political Philosophy, 17(2), 202-227. We begin by narrowing our focus to conspiracy theories that are false, harmful, and unjustified (in the epistemological sense), and by discussing different understandings of the nature of such conspiracy theories and different accounts of the kinds of errors made by those who hold them. Our primary claim is that those who hold conspiracy theories of this distinctive sort typically do so not as a result of a mental illness of any kind, or of simple irrationality, but as a result of a “crippled epistemology,” in the form of a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources.
Our principal claim here involves the potential value of cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, designed to introduce informational diversity into such groups and to expose indefensible conspiracy theories as such....
Of course it is necessary to specify how, exactly, conspiracy theories begin. Some such theories seem to bubble up spontaneously, appearing roughly simultaneously in many different social networks; others are initiated and spread, quite intentionally, by conspiracy entrepreneurs who profit directly or indirectly from propagating their theories....Griffin, D. R. (2011). Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory. Interlink Books. Edelman, P. H., & George, T. E. (2007). Six Degrees of Cass Sunstein: Collaboration Networks in Legal Scholarship. Green Bag 2d, 11, 19-521. Of the most cited legal collaborations, only a small number of the authors have written with more than a dozen different people. Two scholars stand out on this score: Yale law professor and economist Ian Ayres and University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein. As of January 2007, Ayres has published with 44 people (including his two children), and Sunstein with 58...Ayres and Sunstein are remarkably productive. Ayres’s publication list includes nine books and more than 100 articles. But, while humbling, Ayres’s sizable body of work doesn’t match Sunstein’s (at least not yet). Sunstein defines prolific, publishing close to 500 works, and he undoubtedly will have reached or surpassed that number by the time you are reading this. His list of co-authored works also is long: That figure includes more than 80 works written with others.
In a 2003 study, Brian Leiter found that Cass Sunstein was the most cited living legal scholar with an average of 335 citations per year in law teaching.
DeHaven-Smith, L. (2013). Conspiracy theory in America. Most Americans will be shocked to learn that the conspiracy-theory label was popularized as a pejorative term by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a propaganda program initiated in 1967. This program was directed at criticisms of the Warren Commission’s report. The propaganda campaign called on media corporations and journalists to criticize “conspiracy theorists” and raise questions about their motives and judgments. The CIA told its contacts that “parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists.” In the shadows of McCarthyism and the Cold War, this warning about communist influence was delivered simultaneously to hundreds of well-positioned members of the press in a global CIA propaganda network, infusing the conspiracy-theory label with powerfully negative associations.CIA Document #1035-960
RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren ReportThis trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization....Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government...
Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments...
b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (I) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories....
Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself...Kathryn S. Olmsted (2011), Government secrecy and conspiracy theories, in Susan Maret (ed.) Government Secrecy (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Volume 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.91-100 In the twentieth century, the U.S. government began expanding its size and power and keeping more information secret. Executive branch officials began spying on Americans, plotting to kill foreign leaders, and deliberately deceiving Congress and the media. As the government began to conduct real conspiracies, many Americans began to suspect it of even worse crimes, like the mass murder of American citizens to provide a pretext for war. Until the federal government becomes committed to transparency and openness, these toxic conspiracy theories will continue to pollute the body politic. |
