Harvard Law School Professor Charles Fried and his son, Suffolk University Professor Gregory Fried, have been awarded the 2011 Bruce K. Gould Book Award for “Because it is Wrong: Torture, Privacy, and Presidential Power in the age of Terror” (W.W. Norton &Company 2010).
The award, given by the Touro Law Center, recognizes outstanding publications related to the law, legal profession, or legal system. Recent recipients of the award include Bob Woodward, Christopher Dodd, and Sandra Day O’Connor.
The Frieds’ book addresses questions about torture and the use of tactics such as eavesdropping and other forms of surveillance as preventive measures against acts of terrorism in the post-9/11 era. The authors look at the origins of these tactics during the George W. Bush Administration, and, citing examples from history and philosophy, they explore the broader issues of moral and legal rule-breaking, justification, and consequences.
Gregory Fried is chair of the philosophy department at Suffolk University in Boston. Charles Fried, who has been teaching at HLS since 1961, served as U.S. Solicitor General from 1985-89 and as an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts from 1995-99.