Perilous TimesIt's the holidays. Hanukkah is just about over and Christmas is just a few more shopping days away. So what do we decide to talk about? Sedition and liberty during wartime, that's what.

Joel and I had the great pleasure of interviewing University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone about civil liberties and dissent for the latest podcast. Stone takes us on a brief history of seditious libel law and wartime dissent. He compares and contrasts earlier efforts by the government to bend the Constitution in service of war fighting with recent policies by the Bush and Obama administrations. Stone is author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism, War and Liberty: An American Dilemma, and Top Secret: When Our Government Keeps Us in the Dark.

Among the questions we discuss:

• Is it fair to say Fox News is guilty of sedition?
• Is there a difference between seditious speech and seditious action?
• How does Barack Obama's record on civil liberties compare to George W. Bush's?
• Should John Yoo go to jail?
• Should Yoo be fired from Berkeley?
• What does the War on Terrorism have in common with McCarthyism?
• Which is better: Jailing dissenters or wiretapping phones?
• Is the right to privacy doomed?

Music heard in this podcast:

• "Tradition" - Fiddler on the Roof OST
• "For Beginners" - M. Ward
• "Gut Feeling" - Devo
• "I'm Free" - The Rolling Stones
• "Every Breath You Take" - The Bad Plus
• "Freedom of Speech (Watch What You Say)" - Ice T

The Ben and Joel Podcast makes its third (or is it fourth?) triumphant return for Constitution Day. Returning to the podcast is University of Chicago Law professor Geoffrey Stone, who will appear on a National Constitution Center panel on September 20 to discuss the upcoming Supreme Court term. Stone, who is the former dean of U. of Chicago's Law School, may have the distinction of being the man in United States history to have hired a future U.S. president and the future associate Supreme Court justice the same president appointed.

Among the questions we discuss:

• Could Elena Kagan move the Supreme Court to the right?
• What do Obama's judicial nominees tell us about his judicial philosophy?
• How ideological is Elena Kagan?
• Will the Supreme Court let states restrict minors' access to violent video games?
• What's wrong with an absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment?
• Does the "fighting words" doctrine apply to book burning?
• Does the "fighting words" doctrine apply to protests at military funerals?
• What do the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Rev. Fred Phelps have in common?
• If the Supreme Court found state sodomy laws unconstitutional, there is no way the justices would find bans on same-sex marriage constitutional? Right? Right?!?
• Could the government forbid preachers from condemning homosexuality?
• When are the courts "political" and when are they political?
•...and more!

Music heard in this podcast:

• "Take the Time," Dream Theater
• "Mystery Boogie," Fleetwood Mac
• "The Fighting Side of Me," Merle Haggard
• "Burn the Flag," The Starkweathers
• "Ramble Tamble," Creedence Clearwater Revival
• "My Cup Runneth Over," Ed Ames