A front-page story by USA Today reporting that US special forces had already been covertly operating in Afghanistan for two weeks has stirred up controversy for journalists. At issue is whether USA Today's story, which was picked up by AP and CNN, may have endanger US military forces. The Boston Globe writes, "with the administration stressing the need for secrecy and stealth, some of the public reaction [to the USA Today story] accused journalists of unpatriotically divulging covert military action.

As the world focuses on efforts to stop terrorism, some governments are cynically taking advantage of this struggle to justify or intensify their own crackdowns on political opponents or religious groups. Human Rights Watch has begun to compile reports on government statements or actions which use the anti-terrorism campaign as a cover for their own human rights violations.

An editorial in the Dawn, a Pakistan newspaper, notes with approval that U.S. "official utterances and media commentaries to depict the 'war against terrorism' as a clash between western values and Islam or the Muslim countries" have been replaced by "strenuous efforts to correct that impression." However, the United States still has a long way to go if it wants to avoid turning the campaign against terrorism into a wider, religious war.