Wars are seldom good for civil rights, free expression in all of its myriad forms, or liberty and World War I demonstrated this very point, through the creation of private groups of like-minded people, who became the American Protective League (APL) in 1917. At its peak the APL had approximately 300,000 members who essentially worked as an adjunct to policing and governmental authorities on behalf of the military and Executive branch to assure that every American was in lockstep with the Ally cause, and thereby in opposition to the Central powers, which notably included Germany. These private citizens, grouped together under the aegis of the APL, specifically targeted Americans of German extraction as enemies of the State, as well as any and everybody that expressed either neutrality towards the war, or viewpoints that weren't favorable to the war, or were or advocated conscientious objection to the war. Not too surprisingly, the APL often took justice into its own hands, dealing their form of "justice" to those that they considered to be disloyal to the State, or not properly sympathetic enough, and the State, being involved in a war, aided and abetted the APL efforts, or effectively turned their collective head the other way.
When the rule of law is thrown out the window, when civil disobedience is met with gun fire, vigilante justice and/or incarceration, the government has in many cases, but not all, effectively enforced a form of martial law. The dangerous combination of private citizens, police, military, and the justice arms of the State actively working against any or all people that are presumed guilty simply based on their country of origin, or guilty simply because they wish to question the State and its actions, or guilty because they simply believe in the Constitution and the government's oath to uphold that Constitution, is inimical to what this Republic actually stands for.
At any time, a country gravitates to the belief, that only one thought is the only correct thought, and thereby eradicating dissent of voice, or of peaceful assembly, and so forth, it is in danger, extreme danger, of becoming not a government of the people and by the people, but a government that supports only certain people, a certain specific mindset, and thereby suppresses all others. While war, has its own distinctive reasons for often times having to set aside certain rules, regulations, and laws, quite frequently it is guilty of extreme overreach, overreaction, and an inability ultimately to fully retract its claws, when the danger has passed.
We now live in an era in which America is constantly at war, constitutionally undeclared war, but war nevertheless, both internationally, as well as domestically in which the government has turned its spy masters and spy apparatus inward and onto its own sovereign citizens. As invasive as all the various domestic government agencies and policing forces are, the government still expresses a need for citizen foot soldiers on literally a block by block basis, to help target those citizens who have viewpoints, or religious beliefs, or are asymmetricalin their actions, to be tracked, targeted, and analyzed. These citizens follow the Homeland Security footprint of "if you see something, say something," to which, it is only a matter of time, if it has not already occurred, before these "loyal" citizens of the State, are expressly formed into a new American Protective League.