1. Restricting Fundamental Rights Requires Extraordinary Reasons To protect fundamental rights, Americans are usually willing to tolerate all kinds of serious drawbacks. Even during wartime, newspapers are allowed to criticize the government. Even when guilt is evident, a perpetrator may escape a prison term if prosecutors acquired the necessary evidence in an illegitimate manner. And even though forcing people to stay at home would save thousands of lives during flu season every year, Americans may go about their business freely. Last year, the threat posed by COVID-19 was sufficiently extreme to justify a time-limited restriction of basic liberties. Averting a breakdown of the country’s medical system, in particular, did qualify as what constitutional scholars call “a compelling state interest” in suspending some fundamental rights for a brief period. But that brief period is now over. The compelling interest that motivated those restrictions—a breakdown of the medical system—is no longer valid. Restrictions on fundamental freedoms, such as the right to worship or assemble, are no longer justifiable.