The United States Justice Department - which includes the FBI, the DEA, the INS and more than 100,000 employees - functions as the law enforcer, prosecutor and jailer of America's citizens.

The department's legal reach is vast, extending to social controversies of race, religion and economics as well as to thousands of criminal and civil laws, including espionage; mail fraud; corruption; racketeering; vote-fixing pollution; computer crimes; adulterated food and drugs; price-fixing; tax fraud, gambling; forgery; and the sale, manufacture or possession of illicit drugs. The department, then, and the attorney general, make decisions daily that affect every American citizen.

But who monitors the Justice Department and its pervasive dealings?

In Above the Law, David Burnham reveals the chilling truth about this powerful arm of the government. Examining its record on such issues as drug enforcement, civil rights and national security, Burnham discovered that the agency runs virtually unpoliced, even after the BCCI scandal, the forcible abduction of deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and the disastrous mission at Waco.

For the first time, David Burnham conducts a thorough investigation of the investigator, exposing the Justice Department as never before.