Lying, exaggerating, or just being stupid is not new. These sins existed before the internet, and they will always exist. No one deemed them a national security threat until recently.

As a point of comparison, 9/11 was the deadliest attack in the history of our country, exceeding the death toll of Pearl Harbor. Nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives. The event led to a mobilization of military and government power that rivaled the Cold War buildup.

Public opinion largely supported a campaign of retaliation, but there were some disagreements and dissenters.

No One Censored the 9/11 Truthers

Among the critics, there was an enormous proliferation of “9/11 Truthers.” These were generally conspiracy theorists of middling intelligence who opined about structural engineering and other things they didn’t understand. They said it was an inside job or was known in advance, and some denied that commercial airliners were used in the attacks at all, even though there were millions of eyewitnesses and hours of footage showing exactly that.