With thousands of people dead in attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and others dead as an apparently hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania, the U.S. desire to take action to improve security is understandable.

Still the sweeping anti-terror legislation that President Bush signed into law Oct. 26 raises serious questions and the specter that threats to America�s cherished freedoms could come from law enforcement, with these new laws. There has to be a better way for government to respond to security needs and respect civil liberties.

Under the new legislation, law enforcement agencies get broad, new investigative surveillance power, reduced need for subpoenas and court-orders to perform searches, more authority to detain and deport suspects, along with greater ability to eavesdrop on Internet communication, monitor financial transactions and obtain electronic records on individuals.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which supported some aspects of the "USA Patriot Act of 2001," noted that senators weren�t given a real opportunity to review the bill. It complains that senators were forced to view the bill in a take it or leave it manner. The ACLU noted that with closures on Capitol Hill, it feared congressional staffers were not be able to provide senators with enough information to make a truly informed decision.

In addition, the ACLU warns the USA Patriot Act creates a new and unnecessary definition of "domestic terrorism" that could be used to prosecute dissenters. It is possible that political protests could be prosecuted, if those protests are "dangerous to human life," the ALCU warns, noting that under that definition World Trade Organization, Environmental Liberation Front and some anti-abortion protests could be labeled as prosecutable terrorist activities.

"The ACLU does not oppose the criminal prosecution of people who commit acts of civil disobedience if those acts result in property damage or place people in danger. That type of behavior is already illegal and perpetrators of these crimes can be prosecuted and subjected to serious penalties. However, such crimes are not �terrorism,� " the civil liberties group said.

The other reason that the legislation is worrisome is that signs of possible abuse and potential targeting of Arab Americans and Muslims had arisen before this new legislation, which allows detention of terrorism suspects for up to a week without charges.

Already some 1,000 people have been detained, with fewer than 10 of them thought to have demonstrable ties to any terrorist attacks, according to the Council on American Islamic Affairs.

Though a few have been released, there is little information about who these Muslims and Arabs are. There is also little or no information on the reasons or circumstances for their detention or arrests, whether those detained have lawyers, the location of courts where orders to seal information about detained persons are located and the legal basis that government authorities are using to get secrecy orders invoked.

A coalition of human rights and civil liberties groups has asked the government to break its silence and filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get some questions answered.

Since passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been able to arrest, detain and deport non-citizens without the source or substance of allegations being revealed. Before the U.S. "went to war" against terrorism, the vast majority of those who were held under secret evidence laws were Arab or Muslims.

Is it a far leap to expect that such abuses will rise with new laws and a "war" climate in which Arabs, Muslims, or those thought to be Arabs or Muslims, are quickly seen as potential enemies?