Includes bibliographical references and index.

This is not a war -- This is not a crime -- This is an emergency -- The political constitution -- The role of judges -- American exceptionalism -- If Washington blows up? -- The morning after.

Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of repressive laws, setting in motion a vicious cycle that threatens to devastate civil liberties over the twenty-first century. In this book, Bruce Ackerman peers into the future and presents a practical alternative. He proposes an ʺemergency constitutionʺ that enables government to take extraordinary actions to prevent a second strike in the short run while