The fear of crime is a reality in the US today. So is crime, dramatized quarterly by FBI statistics. The failure of our political institutions to respond sensibly to either the fear or the reality is skillfully described and documented in Mr. Harris" account of the enactment of the Omnibus Crime Bill during 1967-68. Harris recounts how the right-wing members of Congress used the public"s fear to pressure their colleagues into enacting a law that limits the age-old right of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution, permits large-scale and virtually uncontrolled wire-tapping and bugging invasions of the privacy of guilty and innocent alike, and further deprives the poor and the black of equality under the law. Its enactment, according to one observer, constitutes a great leap toward a police state. The book is an attempt to show what the American people allowed to happen, and to provide a timely reminder that tyranny can follow in the steps of fear.