The new shape of civil liberties: in the post-9/11 world, Americans are under more scrutiny and surveillance than ever before. How far should civil-liberties protections be bent to prevent terrorism?

At a bus stop in Greensboro, North Carolina, the authorities arrest a man suspected of directing a terrorist "sleeper" cell. In Lackawanna, New York, five men are accused of having trained in Afghanistan with terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden. In Portland, Oregon, FBI agents and local police raid an apartment before dawn and charge three native-born Americans with attempting to join Al Qaeda.

Many Americans find comfort in the arrests, which came within weeks of one another, as signs that the war on terrorism is being fought aggressively on the home front. Prosecutors and law-enforcement officials are using new laws that have vastly expanded some areas of government power, allowing broader wiretapping and computer surveillance without evidence of a crime; detaining suspects without disclosing who is being held; and holding some suspects without charges or access to lawyers. The new laws are so far-reaching that even library records can be checked by the government.

People concerned with civil liberties--the guarantees in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights--say the laws undercut freedoms as basic as the right to a lawyer, the right to trial, and protection against government intrusion. But the public is divided, according to a poll by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University:

* 47 percent say it is more important to find every potential terrorist, even if some innocent people are seriously hurt.

* 44 percent say it is more important to insure people's constitutional rights, even if it means that some suspected terrorists are never found.

The new Department of Homeland Security, a federal superagency responsible for protecting against terrorism, will expand government power further. The Pentagon is working on a giant computer system that would trace possible terrorist activities by sifting a vast array of Americans' business and personal transactions, ranging from e-mails to bank deposits. (See "You Are a Suspect," page 10.)

Administration officials say the new powers are needed to prevent another devastating attack. For instance, the new computer system, says Jan Walker, the spokeswoman for the Pentagon agency planning it, will "enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully pre-empt and defeat terrorist acts." Civil libertarians warn that such a system could dangerously undermine basic freedoms. "This could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in America," says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy and policy group in Washington. "The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public."

SECRET COURTS, SPECIAL COURTS

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush authorized the government to try some terrorism suspects, designated as "enemy combatants," in special military courts, where they would have fewer procedural rights, such as the right to seek testimony from witnesses. Government officials argue that conventional trials would likely disclose important secret information that could help terrorists launch new attacks.

Two American citizens are currently being held as enemy combatants. Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member accused of plotting to explode a radioactive bomb in the United States, is jailed in a Navy brig in South Carolina. The government argues that granting him the rights accorded in typical criminal cases "would jeopardize the two core purposes of detaining enemy combatants--gathering intelligence about the enemy, and preventing the detainee from aiding in any further attacks against America." Likewise, Yaser Essam Hamdi, a Saudi Arabian citizen who was born in the U.S. (and, therefore, has the privileges of U.S. citizenship), was captured in Afghanistan by U.S. forces last spring, and is now held in a U.S. Navy jail in Virginia. He has been confined since April without formal charges or access to a lawyer. Supporters of both men are challenging the government, and either or both cases could eventually end up before the Supreme Court.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the government also rounded up more than 1,200 people, many on immigration charges or various state and federal criminal charges. President Bush authorized the secret deportation hearings--no family, no visitors, no press--for more than 700 detainees. Most of the cases involve being in the United States as illegal visitors or immigrants. About 80 people are believed to remain in custody, but the government has refused to release any names, again citing secrecy needs.

The treatment of the detainees, many of whom were held in solitary confinement in jail cells where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day, sparked protests from human rights groups. Two federal appeals courts have disagreed about whether the deportation hearings should be open, with one ruling for and the other against. Legal experts suspect the Supreme Court will be asked to decide, perhaps in the next few months.

Civil libertarians say that basic rights beyond the courtroom are also being eroded in the post-Sept. 11 environment. Last year's USA Patriot Act gave law enforcement new powers to pursue domestic terrorists. Among other things, the law now requires Internet service providers, libraries, grocery stores, and businesses to turn over customer records to the government in terrorism investigations. The law allows the government to obtain a warrant to check private records of individuals, even when they aren't suspects in the case.

THE NEXT BATTLE

Supporters say the government needs those expanded powers to go after terrorists in the U.S. and won't use them against average citizens. But such assurances were battered when a secret judicial panel, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, criticized the government's record in asking for wiretap and search approvals. The court said that in nearly 100 cases going back to the Clinton administration, federal law-enforcement officers had used misleading information to obtain approval for search warrants. Officials say they have changed procedures to put an end to such problems.

The next phase in the battle over civil liberties will unfold over the next few months as the government begins to set up the new Department of Homeland Security. The congressional act creating the new department includes a broad expansion of the government's power to monitor Internet traffic and limits on how much information journalists and others can get about the new department's activities. But it also requires that the new department set up a "privacy office" to monitor its own activities and guard against abuses.

Muslim Americans, who are feeling much of the heat from the new laws, say all Americans should understand the changes, because they could be affected too. "Believe it or not, it affects every one of us," says Imad Hamad, the regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "The showcase happens to be Muslim Americans right now--but it's all of us. It's everybody."

RELATED ARTICLE: You are a suspect.

By William Safire

Analysis

WASHINGTON--Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend--all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense DePartment describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database," under the new Homeland Security Act.

To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you--passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the FBI, your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance--and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.

John Poindexter heads the "Information Awareness Office" in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans.

Even the hastily passed USA Patriot Act, which weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight.

The Latin motto over Poindexter's Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia Knowledge Is Power. Exactly: The government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.

THE NEW SHAPE OF CIVIL LIBERTIES > NATIONAL

The Growing Debate: Do Anti-Terrorist Laws Violate Americans' Constitutional Rights?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Would you object to a personal search or surveillance of your neighborhood as part of an anti-terrorism program?

* What kind of suspicious behavior would so concern you that you Would report a person to authorities?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand the growing debate over civil liberties, specifiCally whether, in its pursuit of terrorists, government should be permitted to violate constitutional rights normally enjoyed by Americans.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

BEFORE READING: Make copies of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and distribute to students.

CRITICAL THINKING/DISCUSSION: After students finish the article, ask whether they believe the new anti-terrorism policy violates the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment. However students respond, ask them why they believe the Founding Fathers incorporated this protection into the Constitution. Is the protection from government searches simply a matter of protecting individual privacy or do limits on government power guard against the erosion of democracy?

COURT HEARING: Break the class into three groups of "lawyers." Group A represents the U.S. Attorney's Office, Group B represents Amnesty International. Both groups are appearing before Group C, federal judges.

Group A must explain why, in the interest of national security, government must have the ability to secretly arrest terrorist suspects and expand its surveillance of Americans.

Questions to Consider:

* Is it sometimes necessary to violate the rights of a few in order to protect the safety of the many? Is Imad Hamad exaggerating the threat? If the surveillance policy had been in force long before September 11, 2001, might the terrorists have been uncovered?

Group B must explain why granting such authority to government will, in the long nm, erode Americans' constitutional rights.

* Questions to Consider:

* Do innocent people have a right to be concerned about the new surveillance laws? If the surveillance policy had been in force long before September 11, 2001, might there have been cases where government violated Americans' constitutional rights?

Group C must vote and explain why they agree with Group A or Group B.

Upfront QUIZ 1

FILL IN THE BLANK > NATIONAL

DIRECTIONS: Write the correct answer on the line provided.

1. Attorney General John--asked for additional powers to fight terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks against the U.S.

2. Critics charge that some of the arrests of suspected terrorists violate the Constitution's Bill of--which protects citizens against government intrusion.

3. Jose Padilla, a former gang member accused of plotting to explode a bomb, is being held in South Carolina. Padilla is denied access to a--.

4. A key part of President Bush's War on terrorism is the new Department of --, a federal superagency. (two words)

5. The Defense Department is planning to identify possible terrorist activity by setting up a giant--system to trace Americans' business and personal transactions, ranging from e-mails to bank deposits.

6. Most Americans report no government harassment, but some immigrants say they are targeted. For example,--Americans say they are feeling much of the heat of the new laws.

7. After the September 11 attacks, President Bush authorized secret-- hearings for people suspected of being illegal visitors or immigrants.

8. The secret U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court says that in nearly 100 cases, going back to the administration of President--, federal officers used misleading information to obtain search warrants.

9. There are plans to expand government's authority to obtain records from the--, the computer-driven electronic communications network.

10. The newly created Information Awareness Office is headquartered in the --, the seat of American military power.

ANSWER KEY

1. Ashcroft

2. Rights

3. lawyer

4. Homeland Security

5. computer

6. Muslim

7. deportation

8. Clinton

9. Internet

10. Pentagon

William Safire is a columnist for The New York Times