This week the Cato Institute features the best of Cato Daily Podcasts previously aired episodes.

Enjoy the reruns. Welcome, this is Anastasia Yuglova for Cato Daily Podcast, Wednesday, June 6th.

An important book form at the Cato Institute yesterday presented a new book from American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero.

In defense of our America, the fight for civil liberties in the Age of Terror goes behind the scenes of some of the what the ACLU stands for and how the organization is working with Americans to help

defend the liberties that are vital to a free society.

Your book weaves together numerous instances when American civil liberties have been at stake.

Why now?

Why this book?

Well, this is such a critical moment in our democracy, where some of the basic rights that many of

us took for granted and we thought that can never happen in America.

The repeal of habeas corpus, the idea that the president considers himself above the law

and can bypass Congress in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The fact that we now engage in explicit policies of

torture and rendition, that there's infiltration of peace groups and dissident groups by

the FBI and the Joint terrorism task forces.

All of these points are very critical issues that are the heart of what America is all

about, what defines us as a people, what makes us a great and proud nation.

And so much that has been rolled back in the aftermath of 9-11 that it was critical to talk

about these civil liberties issues in a way that would become compelling to the American

people.

Not a policy want book.

It's not a book of laws or policies although we talk about

...