This film begins in a classroom with a professor asking his students if it was acceptable to give up your rights for 1 day if the government could guarantee that it could get rid of terrorism. He then proceeds to ask the same question, but extending the time period from 1 day to 10 years.<br /><br />The director then examines two identical situations differing only in their location. The first scenario is of an American woman being hooded, and then abducted by Chinese security forces and then taken to an unknown location where she is asked some uncomfortable questions. The second scenario is of the same thing happening to an Arab man (they never really say which country he's from) being hooded and abducted and taken to an FBI building where he's questioned.<br /><br />This film is effective in asking the viewer whether the US wishes to fight any war in a manner similar to how Communist China (with no supposed civil freedoms) fights a War on Terror. Additionally, the viewer is asked whether civil liberties which have taken many decades of struggle to obtain and keep are so worthless that they can be discarded for any period of time. One of the most ironic parts of the movie is that the quote by Thomash Jefferson "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." is used by the Arab suspect in his political science thesis and then the FBI agent questioning him asks whether the use of this statement is a call to violent dissent.<br /><br />The problem with this film is that both scenarios use precisely the same dialog and this while initially effective gets pretty boring at the end. Also in pre-Abu Ghraib world people could be happy at the realism of the level of abuse that both parties experience, but we now know that a lot worse can and does happen.<br /><br />I can understand why this film isn't shown more in the US, no-one wants our country compared to Communist China, and certainly not at this time. Whether this is a valid point for not showing the film is debatable.