For decades, the world-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky has been a quiet but steadfast critic of United States foreign policy. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, his profile took a quantum leap, as he provided much-demanded analysis and historical perspective to concerned citizens throughout the world. Chomsky, who will turn 74 this year, continues his studies in linguistics as an emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His linguistic theories have revolutionized the field and won countless academic honors, including Japan’s Kyoto Prize. At the same time, since the Vietnam War, he has maintained an active political opposition and published prolific criticism of the exercise and abuse of US power overseas. After September 11, no one has been as pointed and relentless in calling the US to task for its own support and responsibility for countless acts and campaigns of terrorist aggression, both historically and in the present. Chomsky's voice may be unpopular--he is totally ignored by the mainstream American press--but his incisive arguments, based on decades of research and analysis, deserve to be heard and considered. "Power and Terror" presents the latest in Noam Chomsky's thinking, through a lengthy interview and a number of public talks given on the West and East coasts of the US during the spring of 2002. What emerges from the footage is a portrait of the activist intellectual, who has been called a “rebel without a pause” by Bono, the lead singer of the band U2. He is the most important voice of dissent in the United States today. “Power and Terror” is directed by John Junkerman, whose portrait of the atomic-bomb artists Maruki Iri and Toshi was nominated for an Academy Award. It is his second film done in cooperation with Siglo, an independent Japanese company that has been producing socially-engaged films for over 15 years. Junkerman’s first film with Siglo, “Uminchu: The Old Man and the East China Sea,” featured a marlin fisherman on the island of Yonaguni; it was released theatrically in Japan in 1990.