The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington immediately changed the public lives of millions of Americans.

        They stood in longer lines at airports. They consented to searches at baseball games. They passed by bomb-sniffing dogs at federal buildings.

        For the most part, Americans have welcomed those measures as a small price to pay to fight terrorism.

        But soon that fight could change their private lives, too.

        Already, Congress is considering laws that will give authorities broader power to conduct searches, eavesdrop on conversations and monitor bank transactions.

LIMITED LIBERTIES

In times of crisis, America has sometimes given up civil liberties in exchange for greater security. Some examples:     1798 — Congress enacts the Alien and Sedition Acts in response to fears about hostility from the French revolutionary government. The acts allow the president to imprison or deport aliens suspected of activities posing a threat to the national government. The sedition acts permitted the government to jail dissidents.     1863 — During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspends the rights of defendants to have a trial in civilian courts. Instead, some are tried by military tribunals. Later overturned by the Supreme Court.     1942 — Fears about an attack on the mainland from Japan prompt the U.S. to place 110,000 Japanese-Americans in relocation centers. Most of the people held at the centers are American citizens. The government apologized for the action in 1988.     1960s — Federal authorities investigate and wiretap activists who oppose U.S. policy in Southeast Asia.

        The moves promise to change, perhaps substantially, America's delicate balance between freedom and security.

        “Terrorism and civil liberties always co-exist very poorly,” said Abraham Miller, a University of Cincinnati professor who specializes in the study of terrorism. “A democratic society pushed to the brink will become very undemocratic.”

        And that, Mr. Miller said, creates an unfortunate irony: To protect itself from terrorists, a free society must make itself less free.

        Some civil liberties are sacrificed in public and relatively benign ways, such as more extensive searches at airports, Post Offices and train stations.

        Other sacrifices are less obvious and more intrusive. They include everything from the monitoring of phone conversations to video surveillance of someone's home.

        Some countries, including Great Britain and Italy, allow authorities to seize records without court orders and to detain suspects without charging them with crimes.

        Law enforcement in the United States will soon have some of those same powers if Congress approves the anti-terrorism legislation.

        “We will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home,” President Bush vowed last week.

        With images of the burning Pentagon and World Trade Center fresh in everyone's mind, the president's proposal for broader security measures has won widespread support.

        People are scared, and they want the government to protect them. “They want to be able to walk out of the house without being blown to bits,” Mr. Miller said.

        But even now, some question whether the new security measures will rob Americans of the very civil liberties that the terrorists want to destroy.

        “Freedom is the foundation of our nation,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, chairman of a House subcommittee on the Constitution. “We don't want to let the terrorists win this battle by curbing the freedoms that American citizens enjoy.”
       

Trade-offs in crises

        In times of crisis, Americans typically have been willing to trade some civil liberties for greater security.

        The Civil War prompted the suspension of some basic legal rights, and the Cold War led to heightened monitoring of anyone regarded as a communist sympathizer.

        But tolerance for those actions waned when Americans concluded the crisis had ended or the government had become too intrusive into private lives.

        Terrorism is the latest crisis to stir debate about the balance between freedom and security.

        At the heart of the debate is the president's proposal to give federal agents far more latitude in their war on terrorism. Under the proposal, the government would be allowed to:

        • Access suspicious business records without a court order.

        • Prosecute Americans based on evidence gathered by foreign governments, even if the methods used to get that evidence violate U.S. law.

        • Obtain a single wiretap order to trace suspects across the country instead of applying for orders in separate jurisdictions, allowing agents to work with less court oversight.

        • Wiretap foreign suspects without showing evidence that those suspects had tried to contact a foreign power about terrorism or spying.

        Attorney General John Ashcroft has said the changes are needed to put American agents on a more even footing with terrorists.

        Up to now, terrorists have used America's freedoms and openness to their advantage. They have lived, worked and attended schools in this country while secretly plotting acts of violence.

        The Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington revealed just how much damage those terrorists could do.

        So far, the president's plan to combat them has met with little resistance. “Tonight, there is no opposition party,” Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott said after Mr. Bush outlined his plan last week.

        But an unusual alliance of right-wing and left-wing groups is beginning to raise concerns about trading civil liberties for security.

        The alliance, In Defense of Freedom, includes groups ranging from anti-tax organizations to the American Civil Liberties Union.

        “There has been a rush to change our nation's laws without any meaningful opportunity for deliberation or debate,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU.

        A similar coalition won a battle in 1996 to limit the scope of a counter-terrorism bill approved by President Clinton. A provision that would have expanded wiretap powers was among those removed from the bill.
       

The rules changed

        In the wake of the recent attacks, even critics see the need for some changes in the way America combats terrorism.

        Terrorists changed the rules of engagement. They target civilians and they travel in a murky underworld that stretches across borders. To beat them, America must change, too.

        How far the change goes may depend on how long Americans feel personally threatened by terrorists.

        If the threat persists, Mr. Miller said, “people will adjust to the idea that order is better than liberty.”

        “Our children,” he said, “will not live in as free a society as we have.”

        Paul Knitter, a theology professor at Xavier University, is wary of more government scrutiny. In the 1980s, the FBI reportedly investigated him for his opposition to American policy in Central America.

        The FBI denied that Mr. Knitter was the target of an investigation, but his colleagues and a U.S. senator confirmed the agency had asked questions about his politics.

        Mr. Knitter said the experience “scared the hell out of me.”

        “We've got to enable our security people to function and function well,” he said. “But there is a very delicate and dangerous balance between security and our individual rights.”

        Congress is expected to begin debating the president's anti-terrorism measures in the coming weeks.

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