In times of war, as this probing film notes, civil liberties inevitably lose ground to national security. To demonstrate just how much ground since 9/11, Liz Garbus examines several recent legal cases in which the First Amendment has come under attack: the firing of a University of Colorado professor for his inflammatory remarks following the attack on the Twin Towers; the removal of the principal of an Arabic-English dual-language public school in New York for her interpretation of the word intifada; and the banning of a handmade T-shirt, quoting the Bible and proclaiming that “Homosexuality is Shameful,” at Poway High School in California. How free is free speech? For context, Garbus weaves in First Amendment issues from the past—McCarthyism, the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the neo-Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois. Guiding us through the thicket of free speech in America, and providing us with illuminating illustrations from his own career, is the ever-engaging Martin Garbus, famous First Amendment lawyer and father of the filmmaker.  EM