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JULY-04-2016
The law is not as simple as people may think. There is de jure law and de facto law, there is legislative law and there is case law. There is civil law and there is criminal law. There is administrative law and there is due process.
The judicial branch is mostly appointed under the Constitution and empowered to decide cases by the Constitution. The SCOTUS decisions, treaties, and the Constitution are the supreme law of the US.
The administrative branch administers and enforces legislated law as modified by case law and de facto practice. Once the Supreme Court has spoken, it is the law to be enforced until Congress legislates a change that the President signs or Congress overrides his veto.
Appointed judges have the same authority as elected ones. Judges don't make laws, they decide cases which result in clearer meaning and understanding of who can do what.
Unlike the old USSR, where "if it wasn't expressly permitted, it was prohibited", the USA is based on the principle "if it isn't expressly prohibited, it is permitted".
We in the USA, starting with the Declaration of Independence, have a long history of de jure and de facto law involving a right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances" including to sue the government, "peaceably to assemble", to speak freely, to engage in civil disobedience, and to challenge unjust laws through test cases initiated by ignoring the laws in question.
De facto law includes the notion that statutes regularly not enforced are effectively nullified. Consequently, common practices, declared prohibited by de jure statutes, may be labeled 'illegal', but by de facto practice and lack of enforcement become de facto 'legal'.
As our USA society has matured, over the now centuries, many originally de jure statutes have undergone reversal through the process of all the aforementioned methods of change. It should also be noted that the common law holds that these rights and privileges, as noted in the Declaration of Independence, applies to everyone, a point that SCOTUS has explicitly made with regard to non citizens.
Having freedom and rights entails that everybody has a duty not to interfere with other people's freedom and rights.
See the policy of the rights envisioned by the founding fathers and Problems of United States Democracy.