Our First Amendment rights are no guarantee. In 2001, shortly after the September 11th attacks, polls indicated that 50% of the U.S. population agreed with the statement "The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees." This dramatic climate change has a huge impact on art, how it is made, exhibited, and discussed. Now, when works by certain artists or of an indefinable political nature are exhibited, we can virtually guarantee the Secret Service will show up.

Since September 11th, the media has reported a number of cases of the Secret Service visiting art exhibitions based on citizens' reports that artworks posed threats to the president and national security. Steve Kurtz, a member of the artist collaborative Critical Art Ensemble, was brought to trial on charges of bioterrorism (now lessened to mail and wire fraud) after he called the police when he woke to find his wife had died of a heart attack.

But often, no legal action is actually taken. Censorship operates effectively at the level of a threat. Artists can feel the threat of prosecution without knowing what they would possibly be prosecuted for.

Now while this is certainly a frightening development, it does afford the possibility of an exhibition that raises public awareness of the current retreat of our most basic rights. A Knock at the Door is this exhibition. Anchored with works and artists already targeted by the Secret Service, the show expands to show how, with no accountability required of the federal government, any cultural activity could come under investigation. A Knock at the Door challenges the assumption that there is a clear line defining so-called "threatening" or "Un-American" art and activity, and that all art is an expression of the most basic foundation of a democratic society - the free expression and exchange of ideas.