Law: Constitutional Law 
Essential
The Purpose and Limits of Government
"With the aid of experience, this essay will examine the theory behind the Declaration’s universal insights. Its focus will be on the moral order the Declaration sketches and the place of government within that order."
Colonial Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History
"A collection of eighty documents which demonstrate how local government in colonial America was the seedbed of American constitutionalism."
Recommended
Unsolicited Advice for Obama
By Radley Balko: "I don't agree with Obama on much (I don't agree with the current administration on much, either), so I won't make an appeal with him to compromise with the Republicans on the issues where I agree with them. Instead, here are a few recommendations - some substantive, some symbolic - of moves Obama could make that are consistent with the principles he articulated during the campaign:"
Is it Constitutional?
Richard Rahn, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, asks a question about the government's $700 billion bailout that few others are asking: Is it constitutional?
Ask the Expert: Ilya Shapiro
Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies and Editor-in-Chief, Cato Supreme Court Review, answers the question "To promote individual liberty, is a conservative or liberal Supreme Court advantageous?"
Parody Flunks Out
By Harvey Silverglate: "Political humor is no longer welcome in Academia as administrators choke the life out of parody."
What Next for D.C.'s Gun Laws
By Robert A. Levy and David Kopel: "The Supreme Court ruled in June that provisions of Washington, D.C.'s gun laws are unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the city has responded with new regulations that are a flagrant attempt to circumvent the court's decision."
District of Columbia V. Heller: What's Next?
By Robert A. Levy: "Following a victory that some thought impossible, the advocates of the right to bear arms are asking themselves where to go next. None are more qualified to answer that question than Robert A. Levy, co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the landmark case that has permanently changed the shape of gun rights jurisprudence." - Dr. Jason Kuznicki
The Second Amendment Goes to Court
Alan Gura, Glenn Reynolds, Randy Barnett, Brian Doherty, Sanford Levinson, Jacob Sullum, and Dave Kopel respond to D.C. v. Heller
D.C. Gun Ban Struck Down
"On Thursday, the Court rediscovered the Second Amendment. More than five years after six Washington, D.C. residents challenged the city’s 32-year-old ban on all functional firearms in the home, the Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller that the law is unconstitutional. Heller is merely the opening salvo in a series of litigations that will ultimately resolve what weapons and persons can be regulated and what restrictions are permissible. But because of Thursday’s decision, the prospects for reviving the original meaning of the Second Amendment are now substantially brighter." - Robert A. Levy, Co-counsel to Mr. Heller
In a Class Of Your Own
By Roger Pilon: "When the Supreme Court affirms a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, that's news, especially when nearly every other circuit has gone the other way. That's what happened last week in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately, the news would be better had the 9th Circuit gotten it right."
Is Real ID Really Going to Happen?
By Matthew Blake: "Little about Real ID has gone as planned. All 50 states, and the District of Columbia, were given extensions by the Dept. of Homeland Security to comply with Real ID. This extension was given despite the fact that 17 states passed resolutions saying they have no intention of ever implementing the program."
Battle Over Eminent Domain Is Another Civil Rights Issue
By David T. Beito and Ilya Somin: "Few policies have done more to destroy community and opportunity for minorities than eminent domain. Some 3 to 4 million Americans, most of them ethnic minorities, have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of urban renewal takings since World War II."
Employers Must Pull the Trigger
By Robert A. Levy: "The owner of the property should be able to determine — for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all — whether to admit gun owners, non-gun owners, neither or both. Customers, employees and guests who object may go elsewhere. That's the controlling principle."
The Dance, Dance Revolution Will Be Televised After All
By Julian Sanchez: "The plan had been to celebrate the birth of the author of the Declaration of Independence by congregating, flashmob style, for ten minutes of quiet iPod-fueled dancing, then repair to a pub nearby. Instead, park police brought the party to an abrupt halt, arresting 28-year-old Brooke Oberwetter and leading her away in handcuffs, while chasing the rest of the group off."
FISA Funny Business
By Julian Sanchez: " The terrorist attack had been as devastating as it was unexpected. Convinced that better intelligence was the key to preventing fresh attacks, the president resolved to seek legislation granting the executive branch broad new wiretapping powers. But he had a problem: The opposition party, which controlled Congress, was equally determined to block provisions that they saw as an affront to privacy."
Armed for Liberty
By Alan Gura and Robert A. Levy: "Imagine a right — intended, in part, as a deterrent to oppressive government — that can be exercised only when, where, and in the manner that government directs. "
Limits on Eavesdropping Need to Stay
By Timothy B. Lee and Gene Healy: "Modern computer technology makes the potential for the abuse of unfettered executive power much greater today. Judicial oversight is at least as important in the 21st century as it was in the 20th, and Congress should resist Bush's demand for unchecked spying powers."
No, a President Can't Do as He Pleases
By Edward H. Crane and Robert A. Levy: "For many years, we were at risk of losing important civil liberties through unchecked transgressions by the executive branch. Maybe we are still at risk. But thanks to the media, the courts and — belatedly — an energized opposition in Congress, the administration has finally resigned itself to a semblance of congressional oversight, even if judicial scrutiny remains inadequate."
The Surveillance Scam
By Timothy B. Lee: "In his State of the Union address, President Bush pressed Congress to quickly pass legislation to make permanent the sweeping spying powers that Congress granted last August. Those powers, which include the ability to eavesdrop on foreign-to-domestic communications without meaningful judicial oversight, were due to expire last week. Congress has passed a two-week extension of the law, but that barely gives Congress time to catch its breath before the White House resumes its campaign to make it permanent."
The Whys of Spies
By Jacob Sullum: "Last August, panicked at the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack that could be averted only by granting the executive branch new surveillance powers, Congress passed the Protect America Act. With the law scheduled to expire this month, the Bush administration is trying to scare Congress into making the powers permanent."
Flunking Free Speech: The persistent threat to liberty on college campuses
By Michael C. Moynihan: "According to a dossier compiled by FIRE, incoming freshman were required to undergo "treatment" (the university's word) by residence hall apparatchiks, and forced "to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism." These young scholar-scamps in Wilmington are told solemnly that they are, according to the precepts of the university, carriers of racist original sin: '[A] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.'"
New Handshake, Same Grip
By David Nather: "For the past seven years, George W. Bush has expanded presidential power in ways that no one could have predicted when he took office. He and Vice President Dick Cheney have worn their independence — from oversight by either lawmakers or judges — as a badge of honor, necessary to keep the nation safe from another terrorist attack and restore what they have regarded as a weakened presidency. But the cost has been a poisonous friction with Congress and a growing public perception that they simply weren’t interested in checks and balances."
Restoring Habeas
By Julian Sanchez: "No American would accept the proposition that one of our citizens, having been cleared of wrongdoing by American courts, could be abducted by a foreign power and imprisoned for years, only to have his fate determined by a kangaroo court that flouted the most elementary procedural rights. The Supreme Court should not accept it from our government either."
Bill of Rights Day
By Tim Lynch: "Since today is Bill of Rights Day, it seems like an appropriate time to pause and consider the condition of the safeguards set forth in our fundamental legal charter."
Free to Booze
With Brandon Arnold: "Cheers! Today is the 74th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. On December 5, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment, thereby repealing the 18th Amendment and ending our 13 years as a dry nation."
Carefully Plotted Course Propels Gun Case to Top
By Adam Liptak: "Robert A. Levy, a rich libertarian lawyer who has never owned a gun, helped create and single-handedly financed the case that may finally resolve the meaning of the Second Amendment."
Supremes to Hear Second Amendment Case
With Robert A. Levy: "For the first time in nearly 70 years, the Supreme Court has agreed to examine the meaning of the Second Amendment. That's good news for all Americans who would like to be able to defend themselves where they live and sleep. And it's especially good news for residents of Washington, D.C., which has been the murder capital of the nation despite an outright ban on all functional firearms since 1976."
National City: Eminent Domain Gone Wild
Reason.tv host Drew Carey visits National City, California, where the local government is taking eminent domain abuse to new lows.
Unholster the 2nd Amendment
By Robert A. Levy: "Later this month, the Supreme Court will decide whether to review the circuit court's blockbuster opinion in Parker vs. District of Columbia, the first federal appellate opinion to overturn a gun control law on the ground that the 2nd Amendment protects the rights of individuals."
Restoring the Lost Constitution
With Randy Barnett: "The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government."
Funding the REAL ID Act: Improved Homeland Security or More Washington Waste?
Featuring: David Williams, Vice President of Policy, Citizens Against Government Waste; Andrew Moylan, Government Affairs Manager, National Taxpayers Union; and Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute.
Constitution Day
The Supreme Court: Past and Prologue A Look at the October 2006 and October 2007 Terms
Public Power, Private Gain
This comprehensive report, prepared by the Institute for Justice and senior attorney Dana Berliner, carefully catalogues the extent of the problem of eminent domain abuse. It illustrates how municipal good intention, often for urban redevelopment or economic promise, can be unfairly built upon the rightful ownership of others. When projects are carried out heavy-handedly and unnecessarily, not through voluntary transaction, but coercion, the protection of property is eroded and our bedrock freedom to decide upon our own course is worn away.
Costly Federal Agencies
Your tax dollars aren't necessarily hard at work. Eliminating these costly departments and agencies would save Americans their hard-earned dollars and help return the federal government to its constitutional limits.