Unauthorized Disclosure: David Beito

On this week's podcast episode, David Beito, the author of The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance, joined the show to discuss his book. 

David is a history professor at the University of Alabama, and he spent 15 years researching and compiling archival materials for this thorough examination of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's attacks on civil liberties. 

During the interview, David describes how historical accounts tend to downplay the racism that drove FDR to roundup Japanese Americans during World War II and put them in camps. He articulates the ends-justify-the-means approach that FDR and his administration had to the New Deal, which helped officials justify trampling rights to privacy and freedom of expression. 

David spends part of the interview outlining how FDR used radio to further his agenda and promoted censorship to control what was said about his administration on the airwaves. He also recalls a committee that was chaired by Senator Hugo Black, where millions of private telegrams were sifted through to help FDR go after political enemies.