The Constitution's first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, are the source of most of our fundamental rights, such as the freedoms of speech and religion, the right to a jury trial, and the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The amendments were written by the framers of the Constitution specifically to safeguard against the federal government interfering too much in the lives of individuals. And over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a number of rights are also protected from actions by state governments. State constitutions establish the structure of a state's government and may also establish individual rights greater than those found in the U.S. constitution.
Statutes are the laws passed by elected federal, state, and local legislatures.
Administrative rules and regulations are the rules issued by regulatory agencies. For example, the Internal Revenue Service develops the rules that specify how people should comply with the tax laws passed by the U.S. Congress. Case law, also known as common law, is the law created by judges when deciding individual disputes or cases. Though each judicial opinion is intended to resolve only the particular case before the court, the way judges interpret and the apply the law in each case serves as a precedent for courts facing similar cases in the future and is usually considered binding on that court and all lower courts in the same jurisdiction. Courts sometimes do, however, overrule their own precedents.