This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, May 12, 2008. I'm Kila Brown. The

Constitution was meant to protect liberty and shackle government.

So how did we get to a world in which provisions of the Constitution are believed

by many to give various branches of government unchecked authority?

William H. Miller is president of the Institute for Justice and co-author with Cato's Bob Levy of the Dirty

Doesn't, how 12 Supreme Court cases radically expanded government and eroded freedom.

We spoke about a few of those cases following a Cato book for him last week.

Were there any cases that almost made it into this list? I noticed you have Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore at the end of the book.

Actually when we looked at the 12 cases that made the top of the list,

those were so glaringly obvious that we really felt very comfortable and confident

that it was worth doing those

and no others. That's not to say there aren't a lot of bad Supreme Court cases of

course there are. In the regulating interstate commerce section you talk about two

cases Wickered v. Filburn and Gonzales v.

Rach, and I noted that Bob Levy said that the court used the exact same reasoning

in deciding both of those cases. does that make it less likely you think for this type

of thinking to be overturned?

There's no question that the court's decision in Wickard and even more recently and tragically in

Rache radically expanded the reach of federal authority and it made it possible

for the federal government to get involved in the most local of activities because

what they've recognized is that it doesn't even have to be commerce, it doesn't have to be interstate.

It can be completely within a state.

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