The executive director of the ACLU takes a critical look at civil liberties in this country at a time when constitutional freedoms are in peril. Using the stories of real Americans on the frontlines of the fight for civil liberties, this book examines the dangerous erosion of the Bill of Rights in the age of the War on Terror. Readers are taken behind the scenes of some important civil liberties cases, including: the National Security Agency's warrantless spying program; legal battles over the rights of individuals suspected of terrorism, such as John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban"); South Dakota's attempts to place an outright ban on abortions in the face of an attempt to open an abortion clinic on an Indian reservation; a modern-day Scopes trial over "intelligent design" in Dover, Pennsylvania; and a gay teenager sentenced to 17 years for having consensual sex with a younger teenage boy.--From publisher's description.