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?

• Author: Vilbig, Peter

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...