Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge (September 2003): Against the backdrop of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, the renowned criminal defense and civil liberties attorney argues forcefully that the attacks of September 11 were largely of our own doing the international community, Dershowitz says, repeatedly rewards terrorists with appeasement and legitimization, refusing to take the necessary steps to curtail attacks. While the broad scope of this argument is inadequately supported, as it draws evidence almost exclusively from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Dershowitz, like many others, views September 11 as a turning point and aptly advocates such measures as national identification cards, increased border security, improved coordination among federal agencies and refusal to give an ear to terrorists' demands. More controversially, he devotes a full chapter to the use of torture against terrorists to obtain information about imminent attacks.

America Declares Independence (March 2003): These are dire times for the Declaration of Independence, Dershowitz believes. The religious right has hijacked the document for its own wily purposes, holding that phrases such as "Nature's God," "Creator" and "Divine Providence" are proof that the Founding Fathers intended America to be an explicitly Christian nation. Not so, cries the noted Harvard Law School professor and prolific author (Supreme Injustice, etc.). To prove his case, Dershowitz focuses mainly on Thomas Jefferson, showing that the Declaration's principal author thought most of the Bible was superstitious drivel: he did not believe in miracles, the devil or anything in the Gospels except that certain words were spoken by Jesus. Rather, Jefferson believed in a deistic God, who set the world in motion and then went on vacation. Jefferson didn't think religion should have anything to do with politics. Thus, Dershowitz says, when Jefferson used the phrases "Nature's God" and "Divine Providence," his contemporaries-most of whom were also deists -understood and approved of his intent.