Because ATA, the Hatch-Feinstein measure, and other proposals have been drafted so hastily, groups such as the ACLU, EFF, and EPIC have been forced to react more quickly than they normally would, issuing broad statements of principle with details still to come. On Monday, for example, EFF issued a statement that said in part, " We fully support legitimate government efforts to bring the perpetrators of these attacks to justice. Yet as a watchdog for civil liberties, we are skeptical of claims that the only way we can increase our security is giving up our freedoms. "

If only ATA were the worst of it. Time magazine reports that the Bush administration " is considering the establishment of special military tribunals " so that suspected terrorists " could be tried without the ordinary legal constraints of American justice. " This is in addition to a policy change Ashcroft has already announced that expands the government’s power to detain immigrants suspected of crimes. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on how Europe deals with terrorism raised a cafeteria full of repressive possibilities: issuing national identification cards, placing closed-circuit television in public places, and holding suspects without charge for days on end. " Biometrics " technology could be used to identify people through the unique characteristics of their eyes or other facial features.

Other proposals are lurking in the bushes. Just last month, Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) withdrew what critics have called the " Official Secrets Act " — a bill that would make it a felony for government officials to leak virtually any classified information. (Never mind that it’s already a crime to leak information that would compromise national security.) Former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has spoken often of government’s excessive zeal in classifying information, as much to cover up official bungling as to protect the public. Last year Moynihan testified that the government has " enough classified material to stack up as high as 441 Washington Monuments. " The Shelby legislation would only worsen this situation. As the New York Times editorialized, the bill would make it difficult to debate such important issues as the US-backed drug war in Colombia; it might even have hindered efforts to expose the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980s. Perhaps the most important example of a righteous leak concerns the aforementioned Pentagon Papers, which revealed the secret bureaucratic history of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, Shelby has promised to introduce his miserable bill again when the time is right. And he is nothing if not persistent, having persuaded Congress to pass it last year, when it died only as a result of Bill Clinton’s veto.

Certain elements in Washington have been trying for years to ban the use of encryption technology unless the government could be guaranteed a way to crack the code. Never mind that there is no evidence the New York and Washington terrorists used encryption, and that freedom fighters in other parts of the world have used it to safeguard their communications from tyrants such as Slobodan Milosevic.

Now Senator Judd Gregg (R–New Hampshire) is going to try again, even though nearly unbreakable encryption technology is freely available on the Internet. Gregg, in other words, is proposing to act after the horse has gotten away and the barn has long since burned to the ground.

When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will use encryption. Maybe making common cause with gun owners makes sense after all.

AT THE root of these proposals to take away some of our liberties is this terrible thing that happened to us, and the very real threat that it — or something like it — is going to happen again. " We’re sort of in this desperate search for security, and we want everybody to be on the same page. And that is a scary thing, " says Paul McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum. " We have the right to private speech, to engage in public discussion, and to do so anonymously if we wish. Those are very important First Amendment freedoms. The danger is that we’re possibly devolving into a society that is run by the tyranny of conformity. "

If this is war, we have to preserve our right to express our opinions about it. Some will demonstrate in favor of peace; some already are doing so. Others — probably most of us — will favor military action, but will understand that, as a self-governing people, we need to do our utmost to understand what is going on and to criticize as well as support our government.

Brock Meeks brings an unusual perspective to the table. He covered the Soviets’ war in Afghanistan for the San Francisco Chronicle. His pioneering online journal, CyberWire Dispatch, railed against (among other things) government attempts to curtail free speech on the Internet. Now, as chief Washington correspondent for MSNBC.com, Meeks is worrying about a war that may well affect two of his sons, both of whom serve in the Army.

" I face the prospect of going back to Afghanistan and covering my own sons’ deaths, " Meeks says. " I think people should not be afraid to question the motives and operations of this government in anything that puts people in harm’s way. People have to not go quietly into the night. The lessons of Vietnam aren’t that far removed. People more than ever are going to have to dust off those ‘Question Authority’ buttons and bumper stickers and put them on. "

Voluntary, heartfelt unity is one thing, and it’s encouraging to see after the devastation of September 11. Conformity built on social stigmatization or even threats, combined with repressive new laws, is something else entirely.

Part of the job we all have to do in order to win this war is to prevent the barbarians who seek to exterminate the Western notion of individual liberty from causing us to do a good part of the job ourselves. In American constitutional law, virtually no liberties are absolute. After all, as Supreme Court justice Arthur Goldberg once said, " The Constitution is not a suicide pact. " Nevertheless, freedom would be drastically diminished if the Bill of Rights, targeted as the result of a siege mentality, were substantially weakened. The big danger that lies ahead — as big a danger, at least in a larger historical context, as terrorism itself — is that we’ll turn our backs on the Enlightenment.

At this time of national crisis, many Americans take some comfort in waving the flag, and rightly so. But the flag is not the only symbol of our culture of liberty.

So, too, is the Constitution.

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com Harvey Silverglate is the co-author of The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses (HarperPerennial) and a partner in the law firm of Silverglate & Good.