I can understand it. It’s only natural.

When the surreal video of the World Trade Center collapse gets replayed on CNN, I feel the same way. When reporters interview families torn apart by the attacks, nothing else seems to matter. When there are deadly illnesses lurking in letters, and emerging threats every other day, and conspirators in the largest mass murder in U.S. history still unknown and unaccounted for, I can understand why few people care about civil liberties.

For most, civil liberties aren’t real; they are just some abstract concept, somehow connected to freedom and Americanism. Everyone knows they are important, that they are worth preserving and fighting for, but they are not tangible. They make no direct and forceful appeal to the senses.

But New York is real. Washington is real. Anthrax is real. More than 6,000 shattered families are real. And, more pervasive than anything else, the fear is real.

It is real for the American public, and it is certainly real for the United States Congress. This group of elected officials overwhelmingly passed anti-terrorism legislation one month after the initial attacks, legislation that traded civil liberties for assurance that such attacks will not happen again. No one can provide this assurance, of course, but it does help to soften the fear.

Almost two months have passed since the bill became law, and life has not changed for most Americans. No skyscrapers have been reduced to rubble from the loss of certain civil liberties; no one has physically died from a direct lack a freedom. Almost no one even recognizes these new restrictions in their daily lives.

But civil liberties do matter. They are the leash that tames great power, that keeps it working for its ultimate master — the people themselves. Loosen that leash too much to let the beast fight physical threats, and maybe it will still remain loyal for awhile. But once this beast realizes it need not serve the people in order to lead them, only maintain the semblance of serving them, the tables are turned — the beast becomes the master because its raw power and instincts are not tightly controlled.

This argument is still highly abstract, however, so perhaps a more concrete argument grounded in this anti-terrorism bill is in order. The bill was lauded as a safeguard against terrorists, but it does much more than that; it essentially gives the FBI free rein to spy upon its own citizens who are deemed potentially dangerous.

This definition is so vague that anyone could fall under government surveillance. The FBI could be watching me because I have written columns that question the government’s wisdom in current foreign policy, without a search warrant. They could be looking at my student records, legally. They could be monitoring every keystroke I make on my computer, legally. They could have already searched my apartment, my drawers and my computer files, without my notification, legally.

I do not pretend the FBI has not undertaken such actions before they were legalized by Congress, and I cannot blame them for this — it is the bureau’s job to protect America, and it is our job as citizens to protect ourselves by urging our representatives in Congress to check its abuses. But if the FBI always goes a few steps beyond the law to protect America, this bill will only inspire the bureau to find new ways to control citizens.

I am also not self-important enough to really believe the government is monitoring my communications or searching my home and computer. But I do not really know for sure — no one does — and that is the problem. If people are afraid to write certain things, to buy certain books or engage in certain legal activities, then this country has lost some of its fundamental freedoms.

There are those who say that this monitoring is unimportant to them, that “they have nothing to hide” because they are not terrorists or criminals. But without the benefit of context, anyone can be made to wear the clothing of a traitor. Writing that the country is falling apart, buying a book about Islam or terrorism, visiting a Web site with an extreme political leaning, renting a movie with a plot centered around terrorism, taking a Middle Eastern Studies class, befriending someone of Middle Eastern descent, attending a protest rally — none of these actions are threatening in themselves, but taken without context they provide the grounds for a terrorist label from the FBI.

Perhaps these would not be grounds for conviction (unless you are a non-citizen, since Bush has rearranged the justice system to deal with them in secret military courts), but given the current state of public fear, anything is possible. This prospect is certainly enough to make people think twice about taking full advantage of their constitutional rights.

Some may say this is a good thing, a necessary evil to protect America in the face of genuine terrorist threats. But in chilling the freedom of expression that defines the true greatness of living in America, in greatly loosening the leash on the government, we have only stumbled into new threats — threats that may soon turn from intangible to very, very real.

Matt Lynch is a junior majoring in English and political science.