War on terror hits crime shows.

• Position: Entertainment

In television's portrayal of law and justice, civil liberties have become public enemy number one, maintains Elayne Rapping, professor of media study, University at Buffalo (N.Y.), and author of Law and Justice as Seen on TV. Crime, criminals, and terrorists are being bunched together on the small screen as the enemy against whom Americans can unite most passionately at a time when fear, alienation, and social fragmentation increasingly are imposing threats to the national spirit.

Moreover, some television programming strongly implies that those who threaten our security deserve no rights or liberties and need only be stopped in their tracks, violently, by all-American heroes. "Television has taken on the more serious task of convincing us that the extension of government and judicial powers, at the expense of civil liberties, is necessary if we are to save ourselves from the terrifying creatures pushing at our gates or already hiding inside our porous borders. We are living in an age when people are more and more fearful of crime, and we are seeing harsher penalties for criminals. People want vengeance, not rehabilitation."

While law and crime stories have aired for as...