Liberty Under Siege is an extraordinary book. Here, finally, is a reveille for reality, a call to stop this long intoxication with illusion and look at what has been happening to our republic. Walter Karp combines the passion of Tom Paine with the urgency of Paul Revere to sound a patriot's alarm for his country.

The authors address the hard questions of individual freedom versus national security that are on the minds of Americans of all political stripes. They bring together the pivotal events, leaders, policies, and fateful decisions—often path-breaking, more often ending in folly—that have subverted our constitutional government from its founding. You reach the inescapable conclusion, the authors write, that the United States is a warrior nation, has been addicted to war from the start, and is able to sustain its warfare habit only by mugging American taxpayers, and believing in its mission as God's chosen. FDR's Four Freedoms—Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear—were presented to the American people in his 1941 State of the Union address, and they became the inspiration for a second bill of rights, extending the New Deal and guaranteeing work, housing, medical care, and education. Although the bill never was adopted in a legal sense in this country, its principles pervaded the political landscape for an entire generation, including the War on Poverty and the Great Society reforms of the 1960s. Furthermore, the ideas expressed in the Four Freedoms speech inspired the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But since the late 1970s and early 1980s, these freedoms have been under assault, from presidential administrations of both parties, economic pressures, and finally, the alleged requirements of national security. After 9/11, this process accelerated even more rapidly.

Writing from the perspective of a student of life, history, law, politics, and theology, Don Hutchinson draws on all of these areas in Under Siege to offer perceptive insight into the Christian Church of today’s Canada. The reader will receive the benefit of his thirty years of church leadership, Christian witness, constitutional law, and public policy experience to gain a practical understanding of how we, the Church, may cast the deciding votes on the future of Christianity in our constitutionally guaranteed “free and democratic society.” How did we get here? What happened to “Christian” Canada? Do we not have Charter rights like everyone else? What does the Bible say? Many Christians sense that an advancing secularism is trying to force upon Canadians a culture in which faith is meant to be private. Hutchinson presents historic, legal, and theological grounds for us not to hide our faith in stained-glass closets, but instead to enter Canada’s contested public space with confidence. Together as individual Christians, congregations, denominations, and para-congregational ministries, we are the Church in Canada. And together we have the capacity to impact the nation for God’s good, the good of our neighbours, and the good of ourselves. Will we?

In the harrowing days after September 11, 2001, the President of the United States reached out to one man to help guide the nation in its quest to shore up domestic security. In this candid and compelling memoir, Tom Ridge describes the whirlwind series of events that took him from the state capital of Pennsylvania, into the fray of Washington, D.C., and onto the world stage as a new leader in the fight against international terrorism. A Washington outsider, Ridge went above and beyond in his new post, identifying the need to integrate response teams on a wide-reaching scale and leading the nation's ambitious initiative of establishing a new Cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. The author recounts how the new department's unsung heroes, brought together under great duress, succeeded against difficult odds and navigated the politics of terrorism. Perhaps most importantly, Ridge offers a prescriptive look to the future with provocative ideas such as a national ID card and the use of biometrics to track not just who enters the United States but also how long they are here. Tom Ridge simply tells it like it is, offering a refreshingly honest assessment of the state of homeland security today—and what it needs to be tomorrow.