"We're going to have to work on the dark side." --Vice President Cheney

In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long held agenda to restore Presidential powers to an all-time zenith, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.

THE DARK SIDE is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world--decisions that not only violated the Constitution to which White House officials took an oath, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author Jane Mayer relates how America, the world's most powerful democracy and leading voice for human rights, a country founded on the principle that all men are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, came to embrace a policy based on the notion that the threat to the republic is so dire that our bedrock principles no longer matter. The book follows the impact of the decisions from the secretive offices of the White House to horrific hell-holes around the world, where U.S.-held prisoners--many of them completely innocent--were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the 21st century.

In all cases, whatever the short term gains, there were incalcuable losses in terms of moral standing, and our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself. THE DARK SIDE chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency..