On Nov. 6, Donald J. Trump Sr. won election to a second term as president of the United States. With this development, the work of those who value democracy in this country has entered a new phase.

In a Sept. 30 letter to the Gazette, I wrestled with the book, “Not a Suicide Pact,” by Richard A. Posner. There is more here, much more, in the way of controversy that Americans will do well to entertain and discuss.

So far as Posner is concerned, mid-20th-century rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court were not about justice and not about the Constitution, but were only glorified exercises in policy-making from the bench. And Posner then proceeds to become an apologist for efforts to twist the Bill of Rights into pretzels to achieve an overall goal of national security.

I make particular reference to Posner’s discussions of the Fourth Amendment, of due process and of privacy. So far as the author is concerned, there are no civil rights to “solitude” or “secrecy,” but only a civil right to obtain birth control without being prosecuted for doing so. He slices and dices the wording of the Fourth Amendment so as to render it effectively meaningless.

Posner is fully on the side of Supreme Court rulings our national security establishment has been using to deny citizens the freedom to think for ourselves without having the government examine every minute element of our brain processes. And, y’know what, folks? National security law is secret, such that none of us can challenge its rulings in court, so as to improve upon them.

Americans need to understand that, under current law, the government is allowed to undertake unreasonable searches and seizures of our papers or property, so long as it does so without a warrant. And, since the government will want to avoid the pesky procedure of producing a warrant, the government assumes the right to search and seize what belongs to any of us without admitting to having done so. And, the subject of such searching and seizing may have done nothing wrong.

Mary Hall

South Hadley