by Viet D. Dinh

About the author: Viet D. Dinh is assistant attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice. Before government service, Dinh was a professor and the deputy director of Asian Law and Policy Studies at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The core meaning of . . . [the] concept [of ordered liberty] is profoundly relevant to our current war against terror. Some have suggested that the actions we have taken to prosecute that war are a threat to liberty; others defend those actions as vital to the preservation of our liberty. I seek today to mediate these opposing viewpoints by exploring the meaning of ordered liberty. This return to first principles may seem pedantic to this audience, well versed in law and jurisprudence. With your indulgence, I think it...