Jumah Dossari has been imprisoned at Guantánamo for nearly four years without charges or access to his family, in nearly complete isolation. On October 15, he tried to hang himself in his cell, timing the attempt so that an outsider might see him dangling in a makeshift noose, his last message to the world. Dossari has more or less survived. (Military officials confirm that in the last few months, there have been at least 36 suicide attempts.)

While he was being revived, other prisoners at Guantánamo, who are being force-fed because they are on a hunger strike in desperation, like Dossari's, had their cases heard against "George W. Bush, et al.," in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

I have seen many stories on the hunger strikers in the national and international press; but the clearest account I know, vividly detailing what George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld keep describing as the "humane" treatment of prisoners at Gitmo, is in Judge Gladys Kessler's decision on these cases in the D.C. District Court.

The prisoners are asking for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the government to prove the legality of their being held at the U.S. naval base. There have been hunger strikes at Guantánamo before; and this most recent one�according to the petitioners' lawyers�included between 131 to 210 "detainees" of the 500 in prison. The Defense Department's statistics are reluctant and changeable, so that count may be larger.

At least 20 of the "detainees" claim they are being "forcibly subjected to involuntary medical intervention via the introduction of intravenous fluids or nasocentric (nasal) tube feeding."

In her memorandum opinion, Judge Kessler quoted a declaration by Julia Tarver, the counsel for three of the petitioners. It was submitted to the court after she had visited her clients at Guantánamo from September 30 to October 2 of this year.

Julia Tarver wrote that during the forced feeding of Yousef Al Shehri, as the tubes were inserted "through [his] nose, down the throat, and into the stomach, Al Shehri was given no sedative for the procedure; instead, two soldiers restrained him�one holding his chin while the other held him back by his hair and a medical staff member forcefully inserted the tube in his nose and down his throat. . . . He could not speak for two days [and] he could not sleep because of the severe pain." Judge Kessler wrote that "the procedure caused him and other detainees to vomit 'substantial amounts of blood.' "

In a different prison location, where there was a hole in the floor in which to urinate, thicker tubes were inserted into prisoners' noses; and when one was removed from Al Shehri's nose, Julia Tarver wrote (in another passage quoted by Judge Kessler), "blood came gushing out of him. He fainted, and several of the other detainees almost lost consciousness."

Further indicating that the "humane treatment" the president continually pledges is mandated in the cells at Guantánamo, Yousef Al Shehri also said, according to Julia Tarver's account, that "in front of Guantánamo physicians�including the head of the detainees hospital�the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitation whatsoever , re-inserted it into the nose of a different detainee." (Emphasis in original.) The passage continued: "The detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes."

Judge Kessler then wrote: "Petitioners assert that because of this needlessly cruel and painful treatment, Al Shehri 'can no longer walk.' " The judge further quoted from Tarver's account: "He lost some of his vision, and he is vomiting every day. . . . He has severe headaches and great pain in his ear. He is only able to urinate once every few days. . . . He has given his last will and testament, as he fully anticipates that he is going to die."

Some years ago, I was in Judge Gladys Kessler's courtroom and admired the crisp decisiveness of her judicial temperament. Therefore, I was not surprised that in her ruling on these cases, she noted that the government, in its response to these charges, "pointed out that thus far, 'no one has died.' "

Said Judge Kessler: "It goes without saying that this Court need not wait to issue injunctive relief until a detainee has died."

She went on: "The court concludes that Petitioners have provided sufficient facts . . . to establish that the threat of death or serious physical deterioration is real and imminent, and that Petitioners have satisfied the requirement of facing irreparable harm unless injunctive relief is granted."

Kessler's conclusion was that these prisoners have a right to challenge their detentions, as the Supreme Court ruled; and to have meaningful access to their lawyers and the Court.

Moreover, from now on, the government must inform the prisoners' lawyers "within 24 hours of the commencement of any forced feeding." And the government must provide "medical records spanning the period beginning one week prior to the date forced feeding commenced," and must also continue providing medical records, "at a minimum, on a weekly basis until forced feeding concludes."

Meanwhile, Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on torture, has asked Donald Rumsfeld for permission to bring a team of U.N. human rights investigators to Guantánamo to interview the prisoners. Rumsfeld said they could come, but could not see the "detainees" privately. Nowak, refusing to come, said mordantly, "He said they have nothing to hide." Ah, but Rumsfeld is allowing an International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to have private meetings with the prisoners. That, said Nowak, is because Red Cross investigators cannot declare their findings publicly. The U.N. team can.

Rumsfeld says of the hunger strike that these "detainees" are merely "fasting" for brief periods in rotation with each other.

"U.S. officials who take part in torture, authorize it, or even close their eyes to it, can be prosecuted by courts anywhere in the world [under international law]."
Kenneth Roth, executive director, Human Rights Watch, Dec. 27, 2002

"U.S. Navy documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union reveal that abuse and even torture of detainees by U.S. Marines in Iraq was widespread. ... ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero [said] "this kind of widespread abuse could not have taken place without a leadership failure of the highest order."
American Civil Liberties Union, Dec. 14, 2004

The president insists that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will remain in office, and on Dec. 19, Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card Jr., said on ABC News' "This Week" that "Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a spectacular job and the president has great confidence in him."

However, on Dec. 9, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, wrote Rumsfeld to express his "deep concern over issues related to detainees being held in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Recent reports indicate that not only were detainees mishandled and interrogated in a manner inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions, but that subsequent internal reports of abuse appear to have been suppressed. ..."

"While the abuse of detainees is unacceptable under any circumstance, reports of the suppression of evidence regarding abuse are extremely disturbing. ... Please inform me of the actions you intend to take." As of this writing, there has been no response.

For two years�in this column, as well as from human rights groups and the press, particularly the reporting of Dana Priest in The Washington Post�there has been mounting evidence of torture of prisoners by American forces, including "ghost prisoners" in secret CIA interrogation centers.

These reports include stories of "extreme interrogation techniques" used by Special Operation Forces (Navy SEALs, Delta Force, et al.) under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld and his close associates in the Defense Department. Rumsfeld has long encouraged the use of Special Operation Forces.

But now, with the release by the ACLU of actual government documents not intended for the public to see, the president is confronted with irrefutable evidence of continued violations of not only the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, but also our own torture statute forbidding such practices.

As for the suppression of evidence, there is this Dec. 8 report in The New York Sun by Paisley Dodds of the Associated Press on the documents released by the ACLU:

"[U.S.] Special Forces [accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq] ... monitored e-mail messages sent by [troubled Defense personnel in the field] and ordered them 'not to talk to anyone' in America about what they saw."

U.S. Navy documents released by the ACLU include "interviews with Navy personnel [about] routine abusive treatment of detainees by U.S. Marines in Iraq. ... In one interview, a Navy medical officer described the regular process by which Iraqis classified as Enemy Prisoners of War would be taken to an empty swimming pool, handcuffed, leg-cuffed, and have a burlap bag placed over their head.

"They would then remain in kneeling position for up to 24 hours awaiting interrogation. Despite this description, the [navy medical] officer stated that he 'never saw any instances of physical abuse' towards the detainees."

And from Richard Serrano in the Dec. 15 Los Angeles Times:

"Marines in Iraq conducted mock executions of juvenile prisoners last year, burned and tortured other detainees with electrical shocks, and warned a Navy corpsman they would kill him if he treated any injured Iraqis."

That was one of the stories based on documents released by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that was joined by Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, Veterans for Peace and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The latter organization has compiled a massively documented indictment of Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, and other U.S. officials and military personnel for war crimes perpetuated against Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.

The charges have been filed at the German federal prosecutor's office at the Karlsruhe Court in Karlsruhe, Germany, where, "under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, suspected war criminals may be prosecuted irrespective of where they are located." (Also see James Ridgeway's "'War Crimes' Murmurs," Mondo Washington, Dec. 22-28, 2004.)

After the photographs of the repellent Abu Ghraib abuses were circulated around the world, the president attributed those atrocities to "a few bad apples" in the lower ranks of the military.

One of those "bad apples" is Lynndie England, the soldier smiling, pointing to the genitals of a prisoner at Abu Ghraib, and holding a naked prisoner by a leash. She could face a prison term of up to 38 years. But how long will Donald Rumsfeld and other august officials in the Defense Department, along with administration lawyers who have provided contorted permission to these crimes, avoid accountability?

How many members of Congress will join Sen. Jeff Bingaman in his attempt to open the Defense and Justice departments to the rule of American law? Will we hear from New York Senators Schumer and Clinton, who have been silent on the question of torture? Or will a judgment on Rumsfeld et al. be made only in Germany?

Will the president speak about an FBI agent's account, released by the ACLU on Dec. 20, of interrogations at Guantánamo in which detainees were shackled hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor and kept in that position for 18 to 24 hours at a time until most had "urinated or defacated [sic]" on themselves?

The problem with Gonzales is that he has been deeply involved in developing some of the most sweeping claims of near-dictatorial presidential power in our nation's history. These claims put President George W. Bush literally above the law, allowing him to imprison and even (at least in theory) torture anyone in the world, at any time, for any reason that Bush associates with national security ...

� Stuart Taylor Jr., former New York Times Supreme Court reporter, "America's Best Choice?," Legal Times, Nov. 15, 2004

Bush's re-election ensures that he and John Ashcroft's designated successor, Alberto Gonzales, will press Congress hard to retain the Patriot Act in its entirety, and enact a Patriot Act II that will further disable the Constitution.

There are two primary roadblocks to further assaults on our liberties. Despite continued Republican control of Congress, there is still a firm alliance there between civil-liberties Democrats and conservative Republican libertarians, especially in the Senate. That coalition will continue to oppose Bush's determination to fight the Patriot Act's "sunset clause," which permits reconsideration of parts of the act by December 2005.

During the presidential campaign, Bush repeatedly urged Congress to ignore the "sunset clause" and enshrine the Patriot Act permanently. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee resolutions in nearly 400 cities and towns, and four state legislatures, will keep the pressure on Congress to resist this expansion of executive powers.

Our second hope is the awakening lower federal courts, which are now challenging sections of the Patriot Act. But even if these judicial curbs on Bush and Ashcroft grow, any such victories can be overturned by the Supreme Court, to which Bush is going to make at least one appointment, and possibly more, by the end of his second term.

These are obviously perilous times for constitutional freedoms. But attention should be paid to the strongest blow yet against Bush and the Patriot Act – the September 28, 2004, decision by Federal District Judge Victor Marrero in New York in John Doe, American Civil Liberties Union v. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Judge Marrero struck down as unconstitutional on Fourth and First Amendment grounds section 505 of the Patriot Act that had greatly increased the government's capacity to secretly get large amounts of personal information by sending out National Security Letters, which do not require a judge's approval.

During one of the presidential debates, Bush flatly told an untruth – as Ashcroft often has on this subject – when he said that any action taken under the Patriot Act requires a judicial order. No judge is involved in National Security Letters under the Patriot Act.

The ACLU, which brought this lawsuit, explains that before the Patriot Act, a 1986 law allowed the FBI to issue these National Security Letters "only where it had reason to believe that the subject of the letter was a foreign agent." Section 505 of the Patriot Act, however, removed the individualized suspicion requirement and authorizes the FBI to use National Security Letters to obtain information about groups or individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing.

"The FBI need only certify – without court review – that the records are 'relevant' to an intelligence or terrorism investigation." (Emphasis added.)

Who decides what "relevant" means? The FBI, all by itself. That's why its headquarters are still named after J. Edgar Hoover. You can trust the FBI.

Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the ACLU involved in this case, told me both why the National Security Letters are so dangerous, and what the effect of Judge Marrero's ruling will be – if it is upheld by the appellate courts all the way up.

"The provision we challenged [that the judge struck down]," says Jaffer, "allows the FBI to issue NSLs against 'wire or electronic service communication providers.' Telephone companies and Internet service providers [are included.]" As Judge Marrero noted, the FBI could also use an NSL "to discern the identity of someone whose anonymous web log, or 'blog,' is critical of the Government."

Jaffer adds that by requiring information from telephone companies and Internet providers, "The FBI could . . . effectively obtain a political organization's membership list, like the NAACP or the ACLU, [and could] obtain the names of people with whom a journalist has communicated over the Internet."

Furthermore – dig this – every National Security Letter comes with a gag order. The recipients are forbidden to tell any other person that the FBI has demanded this information, and can't even tell their lawyers that the long hand of the government is scooping up their data.

As Judge Marrero said in his decision, this omnivorous invasion of privacy is so broad that it mandates this gag rule "in every case, to every person, in perpetuity, with no vehicle for the ban to ever be lifted from the recipient."

The scope of this court's setback to Big Brothers Bush, Mueller, and Ashcroft is underlined by Jaffer's point that if Judge Marrero's decision is upheld, it could "apply with equal force" to other dimensions of National Security Letters that allow the FBI to get personal information from financial institutions, including credit card companies and banks.

Furthermore, the much publicized and dreaded section 215 of the Patriot Act, which gives the FBI authority to search your personal data from your visits to libraries, bookstores, and other sources of information, could also be overturned.

In striking down the noxious National Security Letters section 505 of the Patriot Act, Marrero wrote: "Under the mantle of secrecy, the self-preservation that ordinarily impels our government to censorship and secrecy may potentially be turned on ourselves as a weapon of self-destruction . . . "

Marrero then emphasized a truth that ought to be kept in mind as George W. Bush, having won the popular vote, unlike in 2000, uses national security even more forcefully against the Constitution. Judge Marrero warns:

"Sometimes a right, once extinguished, may be gone for good."

But for now, as Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News Channel's resident – and admirable – constitutional analyst, says of the Marrero decision: "This stops the FBI from writing their own warrants."

During the campaign, John Kerry said nary a word about National Security Letters.

"The person who is locked up, doesn't he have a right to bring before some tribunal . . . his own words?" --- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, during oral arguments in the Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi cases, April 28, 2004


After two years during which Jose Padilla has been imprisoned in a windowless cell in a navy brig on American soil without charges--and in the final days of the Supreme Court's arriving at a decision in his case--Deputy Attorney General James Comey suddenly hurled a list of detailed accusations against this "enemy combatant" as designated by George W. Bush.

Comey was not speaking in a court-room but rather in a nationally televised press conference. Padilla could not reply to those denunciations in his own defense. Nor could his lawyers. The government had at last allowed them to speak to their client twice after the Supreme Court had surprised the Bush team by taking Hamdi's case. But their meetings with their client were listened to and videotaped by the government.

Moreover, one of Padilla's lawyers, Andrew Patel, tells me that the government has ruled that Padilla's attorneys cannot tell anyone what Padilla would say in answer to any government accusations because everything he told his lawyers is classified. Nor could his lawyers ask him about what he said in his interrogations.

James Comey, therefore, was free to say anything he wanted as he claimed that during the two years of interrogation Padilla "admitted" to certain assignments from Al Qaeda. Also, said Comey, those "admissions" were corroborated by a number of high-level Al Qaeda terrorists who have been interrogated about Padilla while in United States custody. But some of those sources told conflicting stories.

Was there any coercion to get those admissions? Keep in mind how information was extracted from our prisoners in Iraq, Guantanamo, and the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Are there any photographs of Padilla--or his alleged co-conspirators--before and during their "admissions"?

Comey insists Padilla was not mistreated. Trust your government! Accepting Comey's stories of plots to blow up apartment buildings in New York, Florida, and Washington, among other plans, the Daily News--which trusts the government--titled its June 2 editorial headline "American Traitor."

But even the government's documents, to which Comey referred, concede in a footnote, as The New York Sun reported, that "Padilla tried to downplay or deny this commitment to Al Qaeda and the apartment building mission. He said he never pledged an oath of loyalty and was not part of the Al Qaeda. He said he and his accomplice proposed the dirty bomb plot [for which he was first arrested at O'Hare Airport] only as a way to get out of Pakistan and to avoid combat in Afghanistan. He said he returned to America with no intention of carrying out the apartment building operation."

How many Americans who heard or read Comey's extrajudicial public indictment of Padilla know about that footnote, to which Comey only barely referred? But Comey did admit that all of Padilla's connections to Al Qaeda that were "admitted" by Padilla could not be entered as evidence in an American courtroom because they took place without the presence of one of Padilla's lawyers. Again, trust your government!

In his statement, Comey insisted that the release of this "information" was in no way intended to influence the Supreme Court's decision as to whether American citizen Padilla should be entitled to the basic due process of appearing for himself in an American courtroom. The government, said Comey, just wanted to clarify for the public the reason for George W. Bush's most controversial unilateral decision, to take away from this American citizen the right to habeas corpus. This is the oldest act in the English-speaking world, to have a judge decide whether someone is being lawfully detained. Had he been actually tried, said Comey, his lawyer would have told him to be silent.

I do not believe Mr. Comey. I believe this last-minute Hail Mary plea was in fact aimed at the most powerful woman in the country. During Supreme Court oral arguments in the Padilla and Hamdi cases, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor seemed likely, as often happens, to be the fifth and deciding vote, and of all the justices, she was the most conflicted as to how to rule. Will the government strategy backfire because the sudden fusillade against Padilla was so transparently an attempt to manipulate the Supreme Court?

I'm not so sure. O'Connor, unlike Ruth Bader Ginsburg, can be swayed. However, the essential question before the court--which will decide whether future presidents have the authority to follow Bush into creating legal black holes for "enemy combatants"--was made clear during the oral arguments in this exchange between Justice John Paul Stevens and Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement.

Stevens: "Are there any cases in the international field, or the law anywhere, explaining that the interest in detaining a person incommunicado for a long period of time for the purpose of obtaining information from them is a legitimate justification?"

Clement: "I don't know that there are any authorities that I'm aware of that address exactly what you're talking about."

This definition of "enemy combatants" was a totally lawless act by George W. Bush. And as for Comey's devotion to the rule of law in this case, James Gordon Meek of the Daily News reported that during the Comey press conference, Comey, when asked about Padilla's future, said:

"We could care less about a criminal case [for Padilla] when right before us is the need to protect American citizens and to save lives. We'll figure out down the road what we do with Jose Padilla."

Where is that place "down the road," Mr. Comey, in the Constitution of the United States?

In the April 1, 1971, Village Voice ("Investigating the FBI"), I wrote of having received copies of files on private citizens that had been stolen from the Media, Pennsylvania, office of the FBI. So far as I know, the identities of those who "liberated" these documents have never been discovered by the FBI. There were no names or other clues on the papers I received.

There was, however, a statement of purpose by the people who, earlier that year, had broken into the FBI office. They called themselves "The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI" and said: "We believe that citizens have the right to scrutinize and control their own government...The FBI has betrayed its democratic trust, and we wish to present evidence for this claim to the open and public judgment of our fellow citizens."

I was not the only recipient of these files in 1971. Although Attorney General John Mitchell, on March 23, urgently asked the press not to publish any of these purloined documents, the next day the Washington Post printed a front-page story on the Media, Pennsylvania, operation.

The Washington Post said it was running the substance of the stolen files "in the public interest...We believe the American public...needs to think long and hard about whether internal security rests essentially upon official surveillance and the suppression of dissent or upon the traditional freedom of every citizen to speak his mind on any subject, whether others consider what he says wise or foolish, patriotic or subversive."

Having read all the files, and there were many, I wrote in the Voice that "none of these people are under surveillance because they have broken any laws."

For example, an FBI memorandum said of a college senior under surveillance that she "is known to be an inverterate [sic] Marxist revolutionist, and a type of person that should be watched, as she will probably be very active in revolutionary activities."

However, the files also revealed that an FBI informer had talked to this probably dangerous young woman "and received no indication that she was anything other than the average liberal-minded student that is common" among those being watched by the FBI. Nonetheless, she was to be kept under surveillance to see whether, in time, she might qualify for insertion into the FBI's Security Index.

The FBI was also very interested in a professor who, along with his wife and children, lived in a "house that numerous college students visit frequently"; the same professor had been inviting "controversial speakers" to his prestigious liberal arts college before "clearing with others." That tip came from the college's chief switchboard operator ("conceal identity due to position at the school").

More than 30 years later, after September 11, 2001, the FBI once again encouraged the citizenry to be watchful -- to join the war on terrorism through the Web site of the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC). As reported in the November 15 Washington Post, the hypertext link near the top of the IFCC's home page (www.ifccfbi.gov) reads: "If you have any information regarding the terrorist attack on September 11, please click here." The tips have been streaming in.

On January 8, the front page of the Christian Science Monitor featured a story by Kris Axtman of its Houston bureau: "Political Dissent Can Bring Federal Agents to Door." Her report showed that even though J. Edgar Hoover -- whose name graces the FBI building -- has departed for the great beyond, the FBI has not lost its zeal.

Indeed, Attorney General John Ashcroft is showing at least as much mettle as Attorney General John Mitchell did when he and Hoover were diligently revising the Constitution. Kris Axtman notes that as the calls mount about various un-Americans, "John Ashcroft's post-September policy is that each tip be looked into."

So it came to pass that, in San Francisco, when 60-year-old retired phone company worker Barry Reingold answered the intercom at his residence, two FBI agents announced they were coming up. Earlier, at the gym where Reingold works out, the talk had been about the dread Osama bin Laden, and one of Reingold's fellow gym members had told the FBI about a suspicious turn the conversation had taken.

As Reingold recalled his part of the dialogue at the gym, he had said of the notorious fugitive, "Yeah, he's horrible and did a horrible thing, but Bush has nothing to be proud of. He is a servant of the big oil companies, and his only interest in the Middle East is oil."

After questioning George W. Bush's critic, the FBI agents appeared to clear Reingold of any likely terrorist predilections; but then, after the door closed, Reingold heard one of the agents say, in the corridor, "But we still need to do a report." Mr. Reingold is now a person under suspicion in the FBI's files.

The Christian Science Monitor also told of A.J. Brown, a student at Durham Technical Community College in North Carolina. Two Secret Service agents and a Raleigh police officer knocked at her door, telling her they had a tip she had "un-American activity" in her apartment. Knowing her Constitutional rights, she found out they didn't have a search warrant and refused to let them in. But she answered their questions for 40 minutes outside her door.

From the doorway, which was open, her vigilant visitors, as reported by Kris Axtman, saw "a poster of George W. Bush holding a noose. It read: 'We hang on your every word.' " The message was a reminder of Texas governor Bush's proud record as the nation's chief executioner. The noose was not around his neck.

Since, under Ashcroft's USA Patriot Act, the various intelligence agencies are encouraged to exchange information with one another, I expect A.J. Brown and the noose in her apartment are now in the files of the FBI and the CIA.

Ashcroft has further expanded the FBI's powers by reviving the disgraced COINTELPRO operation that, from 1957 to 1971, monitored, infiltrated, and disrupted many "suspicious" religious and political groups. After COINTELPRO was denounced by Congress, certain restrictions were placed on such FBI initiatives. Ashcroft has lifted those restrictions. The December 3 Wall Street Journal noted that Justice Department regulations no longer "require agents to show probable cause that a crime was afoot before spying on political or religious organizations." Or individuals.

Before you answer the door, check what's on your walls.

Nat Hentoff is a columnist for the Village Voice, NEA Newspapers Syndicate, Legal Times, and Editor&Publisher. His most recent books are "Living the Bill of Rights" (University of California, 1999) and "The Nat Hentoff Reader" (Da Capo Press, 2001).

Congress has overwhelmingly passed, and the president has enthusiastically signed, an anti-terrorism bill that, as the ACLU says, gives "enormous, unwarranted power to the executive branch unchecked by meaningful judicial review." Moreover, "most of the new powers could be used against American citizens in counterterrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations completely unrelated to terrorism." (Emphasis added.) Also likely to be subject to this law: "those whose First Amendment activities are deemed to be threats to national security by the attorney general."

That many details of this new law are in contempt of the Bill of Rights is unknown to most Americans because, with few exceptions, the press -- particularly its television and radio divisions -- has not been paying enough attention. Even in the usually dependable New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin blithely writes that these changes in the law "do not represent a wholesale retreat from civil liberties."

To understand how this subversion of the Constitution took place, it's first necessary to explore one of the most undemocratic breakdowns in the history of our legislative process. Attorney General John Ashcroft had pressed for passage of his anti-terrorism legislation within a week. But on the House Judiciary Committee, an unusual bipartisan coalition -- Barney Frank and Maxine Waters in collaboration with Bob Barr and Majority Leader Dick Armey -- put some elements of the Bill of Rights back in the bill. And in the Senate, Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy at first resisted the intense pressure from Ashcroft and the White House to ram the bill through. Leahy later went with the crowd.

By a 36-to-0 vote, the House Judiciary Committee did pass a somewhat improved version of the bill; but late at night, behind closed doors, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, other Republican leaders, and operatives from the White House scuttled that legislation and crafted a new bill.

On October 12, right after that coup, the House voted, 337 to 79, for a 175-page bill that most of its members hadn't even had time to read. Democratic congressman John Conyers said on C-Span that only two copies of the bill were available to his side of the aisle.

Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin reacted mordantly to what he described as "a backroom quick fix" before the vote. "Why should we care?" he said. "It's only the Constitution."

Barney Frank said it plainly: "This was the least democratic process for debating questions fundamental to democracy I have ever seen. A bill drafted by a handful of people in secret, subject to no committee process, comes before us immune from amendment."

Another sneak attack on the democratic process had put a quick fix on the Senate Judiciary Committee's anti-terrorism bill. Present at that closed-door session were Senate leaders and emissaries from the administration.

Swiftly, the Senate passed that much harsher legislation by a vote of 96 to 1 on October 11. Again, most members of the "world's greatest deliberative body" did not have time to read the entire 243-page bill.

The only senator with the honesty and courage to vote against this attack on due process, the Fourth and First Amendments, and others of "our cherished liberties," as the attorney general had called them, was Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. On the floor of the Senate, Feingold had tried to rouse his colleagues to repel this attack on the Constitution:

"It is crucial that civil liberties in this country be preserved. Otherwise, I'm afraid terror will win this battle without firing a shot."

There were some differences between the House and Senate bills. The hope of the ACLU and other civil libertarians was that in the traditional conference between the two legislative bodies to negotiate an agreement, at least some of the excesses of Ashcroft's proposals could be removed.

But despite the importance of this legislation to all of us, there was no conference. Leaders of the House and Senate papered over the differences in "a pre-conference," also held behind closed doors.

As a result, when sections of this new law are challenged in court, the judges -- not having a formal conference report -- will not know the clear intent of this legislation. So the judiciary, too, has been rushed past in this war against terrorism that has also terrorized our Bill of Rights.

The full name of this raid on our fundamental liberties is "the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act." It is also known, without irony, as the "USA PATRIOT Act."

Among those voting against the bill in the House were Barney Frank, John Conyers, David Bonior, Barbara Lee, Cynthia McKinney, John Dingell, Jesse Jackson Jr., Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, and I am pleased to add, as a Villager, my congressman, Jerrold Nadler. Charlie Rangel and Chris Shays were among those voting for the bill.

For me, the most disappointing surprise in the Senate tally was the Paul Wellstone vote. He is one of the few authentic liberals left in Congress. As reported on National Public Radio, Wellstone, while troubled by the bill, felt reassured because of its "sunset" provision -- the law will be reviewed by Congress in four years to see if it went too far.

This "sunset" is illusory. In the long-term war against terrorism and its largely invisible soldiers, some of them among us, can you imagine legislators tempering this assault on the Constitution four years after it overwhelmingly passed the bill? They want to keep being reelected.

In taking this dodge, Wellstone went on to say to his colleagues fearful of having their patriotism questioned: "It is critically important that each and every one, every senator and representative, monitor the use of new authorities provided to the law enforcement agents to conduct surveillance. We're going to have to monitor this very closely." I do not think there was any applause.

Russell Feingold, left alone, said that the new law "goes into a lot of areas that have nothing to do with terrorism and have a lot to do with the government and the FBI having a wish list of things they want to do, whether it be getting into people's computer use," medical records, or other areas not related to terrorism. Next week: what some of these dangerous areas are.