The set of events that I just described to you is actually fictional, of course, except the part about Governor Kathleen Sebelius. She really is headed to D.C. in June to talk about this.

Bunker Hill (story line summarized above) is the new, politically-charged independent film from director Kevin Willmott that will be screened next month in the nation's capitol. Most viewers of this film will inevitably be left to wonder if a chain of events like the one portrayed here is possible in modern America.

How does our society tend to react to crisis and fear?

I recall the urban (criminal) youth gangs that self-organized at the Convention Center in New Orleans, in the trying and desolate days following Hurricane Katrina. These were posses in an absence of law and order. Many citizens in that forsaken storm shelter were grateful to those gangs for looting nearby stores and bringing back water for the elderly and diapers for the babies. Katrina survivors have given numerous accounts of how the gang members got organized, spread out, took responsibility for helping people and performed effective triage - freely offering water and food to the weakest first, and then to everyone else according to level of need.

Watching reports on televisions in their warm and dry living rooms, well-fed citizens elsewhere in America scorned the lawlessness in New Orleans - even though much of the illegally appropriated supplies provided life-saving sustenance for a suffering mass of neglected and endangered people.

Does our concept of right and wrong change in different circumstances? Isn't it OK to break the law in order to prevent innocent people from dying of thirst or starvation?

Where do we draw the line?

Do we think that it's OK for the government to break our laws during a crisis, but not OK for citizens to break laws during that same crisis? Or, the other way around?

Which of our rules are "up for grabs" if a community (or nation) is living in terror (including real, perceived, fabricated or imagined terror)? Which rules should be untouchable and unchangeable?

Could a "wild west" posse take hold in your town? Is shoot-from-the-hip mass hysteria possible? Could you trust its ad hoc decision-making? Will you or your neighbors allow vigilantes or bullies to establish power over people while all of you are living in either forced or natural isolation?

Is it possible to take this microcosmic example and compare it (on a more macro level) to the Bush administration's response to September 11th? Have we allowed the NSA, FBI and CIA to administer ad hoc violations of our constitutional rights?

Are we already allowing bullies to establish unconstitutional power over us while we increasingly live in greater isolation - and fear?

Questions like the ones I've posed here are likely (I hope) to be discussed after an exclusive screening of the film hosted at the University of the District of Columbia's campus on June 12, 2008 in Washington D.C.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius will introduce the screening, which will be followed by a panel discussion on civil liberties impacted (or threatened) by our own responses to fear. The panel topic is titled: "Civil Liberties in Post-9/11 America."

I applaud Kevin Willmott for encouraging citizens to use his work of art as a vehicle for discussion.

"This is not just the stuff of fiction," Willmott says, but "a component of the new, post-9/11 reality in the United States." Willmott, an associate professor of theater and film at Kansas University, shot all of his latest feature, Bunker Hill, entirely within the Kansas towns of Lawrence, West Mineral, Nortonville, Sedan and, of course, Bunker Hill.

“During a time when security, the mantle of a nation, is tested — like in the situation we deal with in Bunker, where you’ve got this fear going on that is unanswered — what will you turn to?” Willmott asks. “Will you turn to democracy, or will you turn to fascism? That’s really the question that the film tries to raise. Some people would say that we’ve turned to fascism.”

Through the central character, Salem, Willmott brings in an African-American viewpoint of the 9/11 attacks. Throughout history, he points out, African Americans have been terrorized by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. So to some blacks — or anyone else who has experienced domestic terrorism, such as victims of the Oklahoma City bombing — the 9/11 attacks may not have been greeted with as high a level of shock, he says.

"The America we live in today is very different from the America we lived in on September 11, 2001. The differences I speak of are the things Americans are doing to themselves, not the terrible things done by those wanting to do harm to this Country. We can rebuild the icons of democracy - the Twin Towers are being reconstructed; the Pentagon has been restored; the grass on the side of that Hill in Pennsylvania has grown back - yet, democracy itself is far more fragile. It is not easily rebuilt and restored. Democracy and freedom must not become casualties in the 'War on Terror.' This great film reminds us of that," said Johnny Barnes, executive director of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.

“When writing fiction, you always hope that you’re on to something that reflects what is actually going on in the world,” says Willmott. “Bunker Hill tells a pretty wild story that is amazingly close to what has really happened to us since 9/11, right up to the current presidential election campaign.”

In the United States, we continue to experience devastation from fires, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. We've lived through the losses and shock of domestic and foreign terrorist attacks. As the cost of food rises, we now envision food shortages. An energy crisis isn't hard to picture, is it?

How do we want to respond in the future to these threats? As a society and a nation, we need to know what we will tolerate from government - and what we refuse to allow. These issues need sorting out!

Will we allow our leaders to justify to us that "in times of crisis" the government can make up all new rules?

Will our U.S. Constitution still protect us from violations of our liberties if transgressions are perpetrated by our own government?

Is our Constitution protecting us right now?

If anybody will be in Washington D.C. on June 12th and wishes to attend this screening and the panel discussion, admission is free, but seating is limited. To confirm your attendance, please contact Johnny.Barnes@aclu-nca.org or Outreach Director Beverly Miller, Beverly@aclu-nca.org or either at (202) 457-0800.

Willmott directed Bunker Hill from a script he wrote with Greg Hurd. Matt Jacobson (CSA, Bukowski: Born To This) is the Director of Photography. Willmott also produced the film, along with Matt Cullen, Greg Hurd and Scott Richardson. Thomas L. Carmody is the Executive Producer. This Kansas-made film previously premiered in March 2008 in Lawrence, Kansas.