In October 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, Congress passed, and President Bush signed, the USA Patriot Act. The law is intended to prevent future terrorist acts by enhancing various law enforcement tools. Critics argue that the Patriot Act is a dangerous infringement on American civil liberties. Now, more than two years after the passage of the Patriot Act, do we have any evidence that the critics are right? For that matter, do we even know whether the Patriot Act is working to deter terrorism? Should the Patriot Act be allowed to expire, or should its provisions become a permanent part of the war on terrorism?

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Congress passed and President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act—legislation intended to thwart the threat of domestic terrorism. Critics were quick to denounce USA Patriot as a dangerous expansion of government power at the expense of our civil liberties. Are the critics right? Or can we win the war on terrorism without sacrificing our civil liberties here at home? And what has the American experience in earlier crises, such as the Civil War and the two world wars, taught us about balancing national security and personal freedom?

One of the more interesting sections of the war funding bill Congress will soon send President Bush is its provision for "readiness..."

I disagree somewhat with my friend Peter Feaver about the president's plan for Afghanistan deserving the support of us loyal opposition. . . .

Professor David W. Brady discusses the role that gridlock plays in shaping national policy with Hoover fellow Peter Robinson. Together they look at key legislative issues, from the divided government under Reagan, through Clinton's Democratic government, to complete unified Republican control under George W. Bush, analyzing important cruxes in lawmaking: the swing votes, the veto, the filibuster, and the rise of tough budget politics.

Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of its Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force, notes that the conscious decision to make Apple the focal point of a special investigation offers a bittersweet commentary on the fragile state of the US political economy.

In the Age of Discontinuity, published by Harper & Row at the height of the Vietnam War and some 25 years after the end of World War Two, management guru Peter Drucker wrote about managing change when there is a total disconnect between the past as we perceive it and the present evolving into the future. . . .

Archbishop Chaput has written that “The logic behind abortion makes all human rights politically contingent.”...

To succeed in the war on terror, Philip Bobbitt insists, the West needs an entirely new conceptual framework.

By Peter Robinson.