For six months, we have been presented with pages of news stories and dozens of hours of network broadcasting, all of it premised on the claim that civil liberties are being threatened by post 9/11 over-reactions. The Guantanamo story suggests that this reporting is itself an over-reaction: That even now, two years and more after 9/11, the U.S. government is still hesitant to acknowledge and act against its enemy. It is absolutely astonishing that the government would appoint an Islamic chaplain for Guantanamo without rigorously investigating his background and loyalties -- and yet that seems to be just what happened, and it seems to astonish no-one.