"From an award-winning legal scholar, a stirring argument about the central role of citizen activists in shaping our nation's constitutional law Who determines whether gay Americans can marry? Who says whether citizens can own guns? And who decides on the fate of prisoners taken in the War on Terror? Most Americans would answer: the Supreme Court. While the rest of us stand by waiting for their decisions, the nine justices decide the fate of our freedoms....

In a 2002 speech, President George W. Bush said, "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long." Bush has no psychic visionaries, but in the war on terrorism his administration has nonetheless adopted a sweeping new "preemptive" strategy, which turns on the ability to predict the future. At home and abroad, the administration has cut corners on fundamental commitments of the rule of law in the name of preventing future...