Voters, come November 2, will be given a rare opportunity to decide the course of their United States.

In the meantime, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry will campaign on a number of very important issues, but it could be time for Americans to consider one above the rest.

The next president will lead the war on terrorism at home and abroad. Though Bush and Kerry agree that government must address the terrorist threat, the candidates clearly differ on how they would prevent another attack.

The Bush Administration has rolled back civil liberties to deal with the national crisis and expanded government power through legislation such as the Patriot Act, to give law enforcement more tools to root out the enemy. Kerry supports the tools that the Patriot Act and other legislation gives government to fight terrorism, but says there should be safeguards to ensure Constitutional rights do not suffer because of them.

With the public outcry that has surrounded the Patriot Act this election year, voters have an unprecedented chance to examine the issue and choose the direction of the country. Their vote could decide if the balance between liberty and security should swing toward their security, or whether safety can be maintained without abandoning core freedoms.

Historically, war has been a catalyst for expanding government power and limiting civil liberties.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended writs of habeas corpus to hold seditious Americans without charge and prevent them from harming the union. The action worked, but temporarily removing habeas corpus was an action constitutionally granted to Congress, not the president.

Soon after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor forcing the United States into World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, fearful of potential espionage, ordered resident aliens from enemy nations and American citizens with Japanese heritage to be arrested and moved to “relocation camps.” The action violated the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, which requires the government to uphold every citizen’s right to “life, liberty and property” until after they have been found guilty of a crime in court. The government must press charges against alleged criminals, give them access to a lawyer and a trial by an impartial jury, and impose no cruel or unusual punishments if the accused are found guilty. The government would have violated these citizens’ rights even if they were found guilty of a crime, but these people did not face charges.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan apologized for the illegal internment and signed legislation paying reparations.

Complementing the apology was a 1987 speech by Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, who observed that the United States had repeatedly failed to preserve civil liberties during times of national crisis, only later to “remorsefully” recognize “that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary.”

The nation’s founders realized that such challenges to the Constitution’s Bill of Rights lay ahead. While serving as a U.S. Congressman, James Madison warned, “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

Once again, the United States is fighting a foreign enemy and Americans are giving up their liberties.

In response to the 9/11 attacks, President Bush declared war on terrorism and all the countries that harbor terrorists. Working with the Justice Department and others on domestic measures to combat what was known as the “new threat,” he created the Department of Homeland Security with an Oct. 8 executive order. Then, on Oct. 26, he signed the USA Patriot Act into law.

“We’ve seen the enemy and the murder of thousands of innocent, unsuspecting people,” the President said in a statement after signing the law. “They recognize no barrier of morality. They have no conscience. The terrorists cannot be reasoned with…. One thing is for certain: these terrorists must be pursued; they must be defeated; and they must be brought to justice. And that is the purpose of this legislation.”

The USA Patriot Act, which has an Orwellian name standing for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism,” incorporated expansions of power originally pushed by the Clinton Administration for the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, according to Jim Dempsey, executive director at the libertarian Center for Democracy and Technology.

While the Act is mostly harmless and does help fight terrorism by giving FBI and CIA agents more freedom to share information, giving law enforcement tools to fight terrorism similar to those it had to fight drug trafficking and other crimes, defining new terrorism crimes, and extending the amount of time in which terrorists can be prosecuted and punished, it has a few controversial provisions that have been the center of debate.

Among them, the Act extends the government’s ability to search Americans’ homes, offices, or personal records held by a company or even a local library without telling them; it removes a judge’s supervision over law enforcement actions in some circumstances; it prohibits those served with certain court orders to tell anyone about it; and with the addition of follow-up legislation, it allows the government to wiretap an unnamed person at an unnamed place. Moreover, a number of the Act’s definitions are vague, which creates a greater possibility for the abuse or erosion of civil liberties, critics say.

Many of the controversial provisions were debated and rejected by Congress in 1996, but not so in 2001, Dempsey said in a Cato Institute speech about the Act. The law was pushed forward with only one hearing in the House, he continued, and Attorney General John Ashcroft as the only witness.

“There are good ways to make laws and there are bad ways to make laws,” said Tim Lynch, director for the libertarian Cato Institute’s project on criminal justice. “The Patriot Act is a textbook example of how not to make law.”

Originally, Ashcroft demanded that Congress pass the “phonebook-sized” law in three days, said Lynch at an April 2003 Cato meeting on the Act. It was passed in two weeks with the bipartisan support of 98 of 99 Senators, including the presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), and 357 of 423 Representatives.

The Justice Department touts the Act’s support from Congress on its Web page, www.lifeandliberty.gov, which it set up to defend the law against the criticism of civil liberties organizations. Ironically, the site’s privacy policy explains that the department records visitors’ numerical Internet protocol addresses that identify their computers, as well as the date and time of their visits.

Many in and out of government say criticism of the Act is unwarranted.

“There’s been a targeted political campaign by the far left and far right who have either a financial stake or a political stake in attacking this legislation; it’s a very small but vocal minority,” said Mark Corallo, director of public affairs for the Justice Department. “Most of the criticisms are leveled at a very few provisions; 90 percent [of the law] is non-controversial. What you get from people who oppose the Act is bumper sticker slogans. They never have a real answer.”

“I think it's a massive mistake to let the Patriot Act be the center of attention in regard to civil liberties,” said Philip B. Heymann, a Harvard Law Professor who wrote the book “Terrorism, Freedom and Security” and served under President Clinton as deputy attorney general.

Heymann said parts of the Act unjustly remove judicial oversight over criminal investigations, but most of it was helpful as a means to fight terrorism. Other actions of the Bush Administration deserve more scrutiny, he said.

In general, Americans seem to support the Administration’s anti-terrorism program, but still worry that their civil liberties are being eroded.

In a February 2004 Harris Interactive poll, only 14 percent of adults surveyed felt the government’s anti-terrorist program had violated “quite a lot or a great deal” of their own personal privacy and 70 percent rated the program as effective. But, 78 percent were worried that judges who authorize investigations would not look closely enough at the justification of that surveillance, and 75 percent said Congress would not include adequate safeguards for civil liberties when authorizing increased powers.

Russ Feingold (D –Wis.), the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act, agreed that most of the legislation did “contain provisions that were necessary and appropriate to help protect our nation against terrorism,” but worried that “the Patriot Act went too far, that it threatened our citizens’ Constitutional rights and liberties,” he said during a Senate floor speech in October 2002.

Among his concerns was the Act’s use of unclear language that could not be “rationalized away.” Under one section of the Act, law enforcement could avoid the “longstanding practice under the Fourth Amendment of serving a warrant prior to executing a search,” in “virtually every case,” he said during a prepared speech at the University of Virginia’s “Symposium on Wartime Politics” in April 2002

“Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists,” Feingold said during the speech. “If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. That would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.”

Thus, with the advent of the Patriot Act and subsequent executive orders and legislation that added to the law’s scope, Americans now face a struggle between liberty and security. But unlike in previous struggles, President Bush may have inadvertently given Americans the courtesy to think this one through.

During his January 2004 State of the Union Address, the president told Congress, “Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year,” referring to a Dec. 31, 2005 sunset for major sections of the law. “The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule,” he said. “Our law enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our citizens. You need to renew the Patriot Act,” he pleaded. In April 2004, the President went on a tour to promote the Act and made the law the subject of his weekly radio address.

Opponents find it suspect that the President would ask for the Act’s renewal nearly two years before key sections expire.

“Rather than comply with the sunset provision specifically written into the Patriot Act itself, President Bush has sought to make an election-year issue out of it by calling on Congress to reauthorize the Act now,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in a April 2004 statement. “In the House, Chairman [F. James] Sensenbrenner [Jr.] has rejected calls for reauthorizing the Patriot Act this year, and we should do the same in the Senate.”

“As far as any legislative extensions or provisions [are concerned], consideration of those would ensue closer to the sunset in 2005,” said Jeff Lungren, spokesman for F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “If [the chairman] does nothing, the powers of the Patriot Act will go away, so the burden is on the Department of Justice to prove it needs these powers.”

On the Justice Department’s Web site, Preserving Life and Liberty, the administration attempts to do exactly that: The Patriot Act allows investigator’s to use tools already available since 1986 to survey drug traffickers and the mafia, such as roving wire taps and so-called “sneak and peek searches,” on terrorists; it allows government foreign intelligence agencies to share information with domestic law enforcement departments so they can better “connect the dots” in investigations; it allows the government to obtain a potential terrorist’s financial records after an institution has flagged a transaction, then allows the government to freeze that person’s or group’s assets; and it defines new terrorist crimes, increases penalties for existing terrorist crimes and lengthens the amount of time after a crime that terrorists can be prosecuted.

Moreover, Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo says, “There is not a single part of the Patriot Act that we wouldn’t want another Administration to have.”

Yet Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who could be the head of “another Administration,” wants to do away with parts of the law, even though he voted for it.

“He's never called for the repeal of it,” Kerry campaign spokeswoman Kathy Roeder said.

“The Patriot Act had some elements that we've learned ought to be revisited,” said another Kerry advisor who would not be named.

Those “elements” were listed on Kerry’s presidential campaign Web site on a page called "End the Era of Ashcroft," but Kerry's team removed this page in the days surrounding the Democratic National Convention in July.

• There needs to be judicial oversight for “sneak and peek” searches, where an agent, without notice to the warrantee, can break into his home or business to take photos, seize physical property, examine and copy computer files, load a secret keystroke detector on a computer or download the information from a previously loaded keystroke detector. These searches should only occur when absolutely necessary to protect lives, evidence or prevent a person from fleeing and should be limited to seven days.

• To seize library or business records, Kerry would require a warrant issued by a judge that shows specific reasons why a person is “an agent of a foreign power.” A provision in the Patriot Act allows the FBI to conduct “fishing expeditions” even if it doesn’t suspect someone specifically. Kerry argues that the authority to scrutinize the subjects of library patrons’ interests is a threat to free speech and free thought.

• Stop unchecked “roving wiretaps.” The Act currently threatens personal privacy and increases the likelihood that the conversations of innocent people wholly unrelated to a wiretap target will be intercepted. Kerry would require law enforcement to identify the place or the target to be wiretapped and require that surveillance be conducted only when the presence of the target is ascertained.

Kerry’s first point refers to Section 213 of the Patriot Act, a provision that does not expire in 2005 (meaning it would require additional legislation to change). The section allows secret searches where notifying the subject of a search would have a broadly defined “adverse affect” on the search, though the law does require similar checks to those Kerry urges. Additionally, the section requires law enforcement to notify a person whose property has been searched only after “a reasonable period,” according to a Congressional Research Service report on the Act (CRS Report Number RL31200). Kerry would have this period defined as “seven days.”

Andrew P. Napolitano, senior judicial analyst for Fox News and a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge, said Kerry’s point “sounds nice,” but “There’s a little wiggle room there…. There’s no basis for sneak and peek searches,” he said.

King George III’s soldiers performed “sneak and peek searches” by writing themselves Writs of Assistance, Napolitano continued. The soldiers searched through colonial homes and barns looking for untaxed goods that an American colonist might have bought from an illegal trading partner. When goods were found, the colonist was arrested. This is one reason the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment was written, to prevent “unreasonable searches and seizures” without “probable cause.”

What makes a “sneak and peek” search unreasonable, argues Robert A. Levy, senior fellow for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, is the idea that “No knowledge means no opportunity to contest the validity of the search, including such obvious infractions as rummaging through office drawers when the warrant authorizes a garage search, or even searching the wrong address,” Levy wrote in Chapter 12 of the Cato Institute handbook for Congress.

“You'll be hard pressed to find people to talk about the violation of their rights, because the targets of these investigations don't even know they've been investigated unless they're already behind bars,” Napolitano said.

But the Justice Department objects to any attempt to modify the provision.

“We don’t want to tip off the bad guys,” said Justice spokesman Corallo, “because the bad guys are going to do things that affect national security.”

Moreover, the government must notify the subject of a search after a “reasonable period,” Corallo said.

Corallo referred to the department’s Web site citation of Dalia vs. U.S. (1979): “The Supreme Court has held the Fourth Amendment does not require law enforcement to give immediate notice of the execution of a search warrant.” The Court emphasized “that covert entries are Constitutional in some circumstances, at least if they are made pursuant to a warrant,” and an argument to the contrary is “frivolous.”

Through May 2003, the Department of Justice had requested Section 213 “sneak and peek” warrants 47 times and the courts granted every request, a Justice Department report to the House Judiciary Committee said.

Kerry’s second suggestion – limiting searches of business or library records – concerns Section 215 of the Patriot Act, and his viewpoint is shared by many librarians. But the Justice Department argues that its expanded powers under this provision are necessary and protect civil liberties by outlawing investigations based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment. It also says that the provision, which expires on Dec. 31, 2005, has never been used. But Boston-area librarians contacted for this story do not believe the Administration, since people served with a Section 215 subpoena are under court order to keep quiet. Civil liberties groups argue the section’s First Amendment protections are too vague, and Senators drafting new laws to counter the Patriot Act say the provisions are unnecessary if they have not yet been used in this time of “great national peril.”

Before the Patriot Act, Congress passed and president Jimmy Carter signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which created a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Senior FBI officials could request orders from the Court so they could gather enough evidence to deport a foreign spy from the United States. That court order could potentially contain requests for a foreign suspect’s library record.

Section 215 rewrites those provisions, the Congressional Research Service report to Congress says. Now, assistant special agents in charge of FBI field offices can apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order, which extends to any tangible object held by anyone. “Items sought need not relate to an identified foreign agent or foreign power as was once the case, but they may only be sought as part of an investigation to protect the United States from international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities,” the report says.

“No longer does the government have to come forward and give any reason at all why it thinks that these records or those records are relevant,” said Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, in a 2003 Cato speech. “It no longer has to ask for the records on a particular person, it can now under this language ask for entire databases of records…. And then anyone who gets an order is prohibited from telling anyone they’ve been asked to give such an order (this has librarians worried). We don’t know fully how this has been applied, but what’s lacking again, is the concept of checks and balances.”

Librarians in Brookline, Mass. weren’t too worried. Even before 9/11, the “Minuteman Library Network” had a policy of deleting patrons’ records after they return library property.

“Our main strategy for dealing with the Patriot Act and search warrants in general is to avoid keeping information that would be of interest to investigators,” said Michael Wofsey, assistant director for technology at the Brookline Public Library, in a December 2003 speech. “This is not out of a desire to be unpatriotic, or to help terrorists pursue their horrible goals, but simply an outgrowth of the way we have always done business.”

“People need information, and when they come to the library they ask for information on a wide variety of subjects,” said Chuck Flaherty, director of the Brookline Public Library. “If they feel that what they read or what they research is going to become public knowledge, it would seriously compromise the services that we provide.''

Other libraries around the country have either had a similar policy in place or do now to counter Section 215 provisions.

The Justice Department strongly discourages these concerns and the Attorney General has even called them “baseless hysteria.”

“Historically, terrorists and spies have used libraries to plan and carry out activities that threaten our national security,” the department says on its Web site. “If terrorists or spies use libraries, we should not allow them to become safe havens for their terrorist or clandestine activities. Examining business records often provides the key that investigators are looking for to solve a wide range of crimes.”

Beyond this, Justice Department officials said that the accompanying “gag order” for those served with a Section 215 order “has no teeth.” The worst that could happen is that person can be held in contempt of court if they talk, the officials said.

“The only way someone has to be worried about their library records being looked at is if they are involved with a foreign power or with terrorism,” said Justice spokesman Corallo. Besides, “As far as I know, [the provision] has never been used.”

“Whether there is or is not evidence to prove that violations of this sort have happened, if the law allows it to happen, then no one is safe,” said Hasan Mansori, governmental affairs coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization concerned that Patriot Act definitions could be used to pursue racial profiling. “Perhaps a future Administration may enforce these laws in a different way.”

“Any law can be abused, but it is highly unlikely, particularly in this climate with so much scrutiny,” Corallo said. “And I hope it stays that way.”

The third area where Kerry sees potential for abuse is with the “roving wiretaps” permitted by Sections 206 and 220 of the Patriot Act, which both expire at the end of 2005. The first section allows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to force third parties into helping investigators follow a criminal suspect electronically, without revealing who that suspect is, the Congressional Research Service report to Congress said. The second section allows courts in one jurisdiction to issue warrants forcing companies in another jurisdiction to give up a customer’s unopened e-mail. This reduces the amount of time it might take law enforcement officers to coordinate efforts with courts across the country, the report said.

“International terrorists and foreign intelligence officers are trained to thwart surveillance by changing hotels, cell phones, Internet accounts, etc. just prior to important meetings or communications,” the CRS report reads. Before the Patriot Act, the government would return to the Court each time this happened for a new order. Section 206 “permits the Court to issue a generic order that can be presented to the new carrier, landlord or custodian directing their assistance to assure that the surveillance may be undertaken as soon as technically feasible,” it says.

In December 2003, the President slipped Patriot Act expansions into a must-pass spending bill, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004. Among other things, the Act allowed the FBI to get “John Doe” roving wiretaps for intelligence purposes, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said in an early April 2004 presentation to Congress.

“So, if you read the FISA Act as it’s been amended [under the Patriot Act and the Intelligence Authorization Act], it says the government can apply for a wiretap on an unknown person, for an unknown location,” said Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, in his Cato speech. “Which to me has no limits on it at all.”

What makes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s role change after the Patriot Act most problematic, writes Levy in his Cato Institute handbook for Congress, is that “foreign intelligence need only be a ‘significant’ purpose of an investigation. That sounds like a trivial change, but it isn’t. Because the standard for FISA approval is lower than ‘probable cause,’ and because FISA now applies to ordinary criminal matters if they are dressed up as national security inquiries, the new rules could open the door to circumvention of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements. The result: rubber-stamp judicial consent to phone and Internet surveillance, even in regular criminal cases.”

But the Justice Department disagrees despite the initial criticism of civil liberties groups and the growing concern and outrage of Congressmen.

“Under FISA it says that upon meeting a standard, the court shall issue [a roving wiretap warrant],” Justice spokesman Corallo said. This means, “If you meet the standard, the court shall issue [the warrant]. The judges on the FISA Court would take great umbrage at being called a rubber stamp. They are especially appointed by the Supreme Court; specially trained in national security issues,” he said.

“The FISA judges monitor the investigation,” Corallo continued. “At any time they can ask for an update. Because of the secrecy, the judges are very skeptical…. The Court is [telling the FBI] ‘we have got to be convinced that you’ve met the standard.’ The FISA judge will say ‘you haven’t met the standard, you have to do more regular investigative work, then come back and we’ll talk.’”

According to the same May 2003 Justice Department report to the House Judiciary Committee, between 1978 and 9/11, Attorneys General issued 47 “emergency authorizations for electronic surveillance and/or physical searches under FISA.” Between 9/11 and Sept. 19, 2002, John Ashcroft’s Justice Department issued 113 such authorizations.

In the pursuit of his planned changes to the Patriot Act, Kerry supports the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (S. 1709), Kerry’s and Kennedy’s advisors said. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Larry E. Craig (R- Idaho) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), aims to “retain the expanded powers created by the Patriot Act, while placing important checks on these powers,” Durbin said in an April 2004 Senate speech.

While the President has threatened to veto the bill, it has the best chance of becoming law among legislation that would roll back post-9/11 expansions of government power, Kerry’s and Kennedy’s advisors said.

The bill, called the Safe Act for short, specifically addresses Kerry’s key points listed on his Web site:

• "It would require more judicial oversight for sneak and peek searches, impose a seven-day limit for a secret warrant, and force Congress to reexamine the Patriot Act provision that allows secret searches before allowing it to become permanent law.

• It would restrict business-record searches to specific suspects’ records in terrorism-related cases.

• It would require more judicial oversight for roving wiretaps, forcing law enforcement agents to identify either the presence of a terrorist suspect at a place to be wiretapped or – more rarely – the location where such a person would be.

Beyond what Kerry specifically mentioned on his Web site, the Safe bill would alter a Patriot Act provision (Section 505) that allows the FBI to issue a “National Security Letter” to obtain financial, credit or other personal information about an individual through a third party, such as a library or a credit card company.

These letters are issued in cases where there is no time to bring a case before a court, so there is no judicial oversight before an investigation. Before the Patriot Act, the FBI could issue the letters only if the records are about a person who is a terrorist or a spy. Now the FBI can issue a National Security Letter if the records are “sought for” a terrorism or intelligence investigation, “regardless of whether if the target is a suspect,” the Senators said in their letter to the Committee on the Judiciary requesting hearings for the bill.

Corallo, the Justice Department spokesman, said National Security Letters allow the government to go after a known terrorist if it gets a tip about his location. “This is something we need quickly, and we don’t want the guy to know that we’re following him,” he said.

There isn’t enough time in these situations to go through the regular procedures, Corallo continued. “We don’t want the guy getting on a plane before we can get him,” especially if we learn he’s planning a terrorist act, he said.

The proposed law would allow the FBI to continue writing National Security Letters, Sens. Durbin and Craig write, but it would clarify that a library is not a “wire or communication service provider” that can be probed using one of these things. Moreover, it would force Congress to take a closer look at the need for the letters before allowing them to become a permanent tool of law enforcement.

Besides opposing the Safe bill, the Administration has been trying to expand the Patriot Act further. It was already partially successful when it snuck new definitions for searchable financial institutions into the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004. Among other powers, the Patriot Act allows the government to search these newly defined “financial institutions,” such as travel agencies or car rental companies, for consumers’ records using National Security Letters. The Administration was also able to add the “John Doe” searches into the “roving wiretap” provision so it could listen to and watch anyone at any place.

But the Administration wants more.

“There is no law for pretrial detention of someone accused of a terrorism offense,” said Corallo. “That’s not in the Patriot Act. It should be. We missed that…. If someone is charged on a terrorist offense, there ought to be a law [allowing us to hold] people until their trial.”

In addition, the Administration wants to be able to revoke the American citizenship of people not born in the United States by labeling them “enemy combatants,” a term it has already used to detain people at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without due process.

“Even persons convinced that President Bush cherishes civil liberties and understands that the Constitution is not mere scrap paper must be unsettled by the prospect that an unknown and less honorable successor could exploit some of the dangerous precedents that the Bush Administration is attempting to put in place,” said Robert A. Levy in the 12th Chapter of his Cato Institute Handbook for Congress.

One final precedent the Patriot Act creates, which Kerry said he opposes, is the new crime, called “domestic terrorism.”

As defined in Section 802 of the Patriot Act, which doesn’t have a sunset provision nor a hint of one in the Safe bill, “The term ‘domestic terrorism’ means activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

“Every group that has political purposes could be included [in this definition], it's extremely vague,” said Mansori, governmental affairs coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“Now when you think about it, there are various kinds of civil disobedience and activities [that fall under this definition],” said Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, in his Cato speech. “For example, at abortion clinics – you can support or not support abortion,” he said – “but calling antiabortion demonstrating ‘terrorism,’ and then having consequences flow from that definition of terrorism,” he continued, “is taking the concept of terrorism and using it more broadly than even this grave risk that we face would demand.”

One instance that could foreshadow how the definition could go awry was when U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a “terrorist organization” in February 2004. He apologized, but many groups later called for his resignation.

An advisor for the Attorney General said “Paige shouldn’t have said it,” but “he was very frustrated with the way the teachers’ union treated him.”

On his Web site, Kerry said the Attorney General has searched for domestic terrorists by granting “permission to FBI agents to attend church meetings, anti-war protests, rallies and other political organizing simply on their own initiative without requiring approval from a supervisor or showing that the meeting is connected to any type of investigation.”

The Justice Department’s May 2003 answers to questions posed by the House Judiciary Committee confirmed: “The [Attorney General’s] Guidelines specifically provide that ‘for the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities, the FBI is authorized to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public.” The guidelines continue: no information can be retained unless it relates to “criminal or terrorist activity,” and it cannot depend solely on activity protected by the First Amendment.

Since the Justice Department is not allowed to keep records of legal activity, it doesn’t keep records of how many times FBI agents have attended public events, but the report to the Committee does say that “fewer than 10” of 45 field offices have attended such events.

“You have to have ties to terrorism,” Justice spokesman Corallo said. “If a group advocates destroying or killing, that would be grounds for [law enforcement] to open an investigation.” In the congressional hearings after an attack, the Justice Department would receive flak if it didn’t check out a threat like this, he added.

But anti-Patriot Act groups think the Administration has gone too far with its anti-terrorism rhetoric.

“I would like just to say that that's the attitude we're getting from the Justice Department. It's a ‘trust us’ attitude,” noted Mansori from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“Most Americans don’t want the government to know of their personal behavior; not because we have anything to hide, but because we don’t live in former East Germany or the old Soviet Union,” Napolitano, the Fox News analyst, wrote in an unpublished manuscript. “Because government in a free society is supposed to serve the people, not spy on them; because without probable cause, without some demonstrable evidence of some criminal behavior, the Constitution declares that our personal lives are none of the federal government’s business.”

Furthermore, “I think Kerry’s an opportunist [in opposing parts of this Act],” Napolitano said in a phone interview. “I don’t believe a John Kerry administration would fight terrorism any differently than Bush. The law enforcement bureaucracy is so entrenched that even the most enlightened attorneys general would not turn their back on additional powers. And once the government gets powers it’s very difficult to take it back.

“Not too many Americans are concerned about freedom right now because the targets of civil liberties violations are Arab-Americans,” he continued. “This is a NIMBY, not my back yard, [phenomenon]. If the targets were assimilated – Jews, Irish or etc. – there would be riots in the streets.”

Administration officials and others supporting the increased power of government given by the Patriot Act, however, continue to insist, “September 11 changed everything!”

For people who incorrectly or unjustly end up under government surveillance or on a terrorist watch list, Justice spokesman Corallo said: “It’s an inconvenience; a miserable inconvenience. It’s the same thing as taking your shoes off at the airport. It’s an inconvenience.”

He asked rhetorically: “Do you want [terror suspects or sleeper cells] on the street living in your neighborhood? We don’t know that [they’re not going to do anything]. They can say that because it makes them sound better.”

Remember, he added, “The first law that any of the [9/11] hijackers broke was when they broke into the cockpit.”

But, groups opposing the Patriot Act and similar legislation insist, as Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology did during his Cato speech: “Respect for civil liberties, a concept of checks and balances, which is at the core of our system … are the things that help us develop an effective counter-terrorism program. I think we can only win this war against terrorism consistent with the Constitution, with privacy, with civil liberties and with checks and balances.”

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld voiced similar beliefs just two and a half weeks after the 9/11 attacks.

“If we're so intimidated and so frightened that we have to alter our way of life and we're not capable of going out of the house and going where we want and thinking what we want, saying what we want, knowing our children will come home from school, they've won. And we can't let that happen,” said Rumsfeld on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“He was right about that,” said Lynch, director of the project on criminal justice at the Cato Institute, during an event last year on the Patriot Act. “It is a serious mistake to think of our dilemma as one of liberty versus security…. We have to make sure that other options have been exhausted before we turn on our civil liberties.”

Napolitano, the Fox News consultant, went even further, saying, “Terrorists want to strike at the root of democratic values. The Patriot Act did this for them.”

When I hear people say we have to balance liberty and security, “I cringe,” he said. “The Constitution does not allow a balance between civil liberties and security. There’s always a bias on the side of civil liberties. To say there’s a balance is Stalinist.”

As of June 26, 2004, resolutions opposing sections of the Patriot Act have passed in 335 communities in 41 states (including New York City and Washington D.C., where the 9/11 attacks hit home), and in four states – Maine, Vermont, Alaska and Hawaii, the ACLU reports on its Web site. These communities represent approximately 52.6 million people.