In the near future, there has been a series of terrorist attacks. With the War on Terror now a global conflict, the distinction between the war front and the home front has blurred. With the Homeland at war, the old rules of law and of war no longer apply. New enemies call for new tactics. Drone and satellite surveillance, warrantless search, universal electronic monitoring, internal passports, and abusive checkpoints and strip searches have become routine in the emerging National Security State. New enabling laws authorize secret courts and indefinite detention without charge or trial. Plunged headlong into a nightmarish world of "ghost" detainees in black-site prisons is Tom Benson, a banking executive and U.S. Army veteran. Growing distant from his wife, and with his son facing conscription, his troubles start when he is mysteriously unable to cash a check. Arrested and declared an Unlawful Enemy Combatant, he endures progressively harsher "enhanced" interrogation as he struggles to regain his freedom and strike back. State of Terror explores Benjamin Franklin's timeless warning: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."