Constitutional Agency and the Predator's Hour

The article analyzes the phenomenon of temporal asymmetry, namely the difference between the speed at which powerful actors make decisions and the pace at which they are held accountable by democratic institutions. The author defines the 'predator's hour' as a period of misalignment between legal structures and the dynamics of contemporary technologies and AI. The key problem is not speed itself, but the temporal arbitrage of power, where advantage stems from the ability to operate in a shorter time cycle than oversight bodies. The proposed solution is institutional optimization: eliminating idle friction (bureaucracy) while maintaining productive friction, which serves a protective and epistemic function. The goal is to create a system of reversible agency, in which control mechanisms are designed to match the pace of modern threats.