In the wake of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the U.S. government is preparing for a new war. The Center for Public Integrity asks us to recall U.S. military actions of the 80s and 90s when the U.S. government imposed restrictions on news media. CPI examined the consequences of those impositions in a 1991 report, "Under Fire: U.S. Military Restrictions on the Media from Grenada to the Persian Gulf." The report concluded that "information about Defense Department activities . . .

The New York Times today reports that "in interviews with two dozen New Yorkers, most people said the desire for peace outweighed any impulse for vengeance, even among those directly affected" by the September 11 terrorist attack. Across the U.S. tens of thousands of Americans are already participating in peace rallies calling for military restraint and criticizing the U.S. media for poor reporting of U.S. military and foreign policies leading up to the terrorist attack. How will the news media cover and depict this unfolding peace movement and its views?

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were so calamitous that they threaten to shake us loose from our constitutional mooring. A civil liberties catastrophe looms as citizens surrender to fear, fury and frustration and as lawmakers throw money and shards of the Bill of Rights at the specter of terrorism.