The New Republic

Opponents of the Child Online Protection Act are putting their best face on last week's Supreme Court decision to send Ashcroft v. ACLU back to a lower court for further study. The ACLU was thrilled when a Philadelphia district court, concerned that the law violated free speech, temporarily banned it in 1999. And Ann Beeson, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case before the Supreme Court, said the Court "clearly had enough doubts about this broad censorship law to leave READ MORE >>

The Supreme Court is about to decide the constitutionality of school choice; but it is doing so with a peculiar blindness to the politics of school choice. In arguments on February 20, a majority of justices seemed to agree that Cleveland's voucher program would be constitutional if low-income parents had a meaningful range of schools--religious and secular, public and private-- from which to choose. But the more skeptical justices worried that because nearby suburban public schools have chosen not to accept transfer students READ MORE >>

The Supreme Court has not yet indicated how it will respond to September 11, but the judicial philosophy that the conservative majority had embraced before the Twin Towers fell seems hard to sustain in a new and anxious age. The conservatives had planted their flag on principles of federalism and states' rights; today both parties appreciate the need for a national response to international terror. The conservatives had displayed contempt for Congress as a policy-making body; today Congress enjoys renewed public respect. READ MORE >>

Of all the new security measures adopted by the Bush administration since September 11, the most draconian involve the detention and interrogation of aliens. In his dragnet effort to uncover evidence of terrorism, Attorney General John Ashcroft has authorized the detention of some 1,100 noncitizens. Some have been held for months and--thanks to recently passed legislation--may be held indefinitely. Critics call the Ashcroft detentions unconstitutional. READ MORE >>

A Trial by Jury by D. Graham Burnett (Alfred A. Knopf, 183 pp., $21) READ MORE >>

The terrorist threat is all too real, but newspapers and TV stations around the globe are still managing to exaggerate it. As new cases of anthrax infection continue to emerge, the World Health Organization is begging people not to panic. But tabloid headlines like this one from The Mirror in London send a different message: "PANIC." A Time/CNN poll found that nearly half of all Americans say they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned that they or their families will be exposed to anthrax, even though only a handful of politicians and journalists have been targeted so far. READ MORE >>

Imagine this: FBI agents get an anonymous tip that a red van with biological weapons has just dumped anthrax in the Central Park reservoir. They'd like to search all the red vans in the area, but by law they can't. Once a crime has occurred, an anonymous tip can't create reasonable suspicion for an investigative search, according to the Supreme Court. READ MORE >>

Hours after the catastrophe, we were told that America would never be the same. Freedom had allowed terrorists to commit the unthinkable, and therefore freedom would have to be curtailed. The secretary of transportation announced that travelers must prepare for a massive increase in security, including "higher levels of surveillance, more stringent searches." A former director of the FBI invoked Burke on "ordered liberty." Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard called ominously for "a change in certain habits we have here at home." READ MORE >>

Federal judges are about to make a crucial decision on workplace privacy, but you won't read about it in a court opinion. On September 11, the Judicial Conference of the United States, the organization with ultimate authority over the internal operation of the federal courts, will decide whether to approve or dismantle a computer program that monitors judges and their staff members when they use the Internet on the job. Defenders of the program say judges should accept the same invasions of privacy their decisions have imposed on other American workers. READ MORE >>

I may be a winner! The Supreme Court held this week that The New York Times violated my rights when it published four freelance op-ed pieces of mine between 1986 and 1995 and then sent them to Lexis-Nexis, the electronic database, without my permission. READ MORE >>