The Supreme Court: Missing in Action

Since September 11, 2001, we have been fighting the so-called "war on terror" without the active participation of all three branches of government. For the first several years, a very aggressive president acted alone, without Congress or the Supreme Court. Since the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, the president has been acting sometimes with and sometimes against Congress. But at no time has the Supreme Court been an active participant in constitutional debates about the post-9/11 world. On the major constitutional issues of the recent past—Iraq, torture, wiretapping without warrants, the Patriot Act, and Guantánamo—the Court has decided cases related to just one of these.