“Nonsense! Nonsense!” snorted Tasbrough. “That couldn’t happen here in America, not possibly! We’re a country of freedom.”

So exclaimed a character in Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel about a president who makes himself dictator by offering quick and easy solutions, including war, to a society racked with insecurity.

But it can happen here. It is happening right now. Our government is developing a domestic spying capability more extensive than J. Edgar Hoover (or even the KGB) could possibly have imagined. It has rounded up thousands of people in dragnet fashion and detained them indefinitely without charges or trial, under harsh conditions, and denied them access to lawyers, family and friends.

By the simple expedient of labeling people “enemy combatants,” this administration has taken alleged criminals out of the constitutional courts and turned them over to the military, ostensibly for trial, but mainly for interrogation under frightening conditions, until they tell all they know, make up something interesting, or go insane.

The first victims of this emerging military-police state are, not surprisingly, unsympathetic characters. The most recent is Ali Saleh Kahlah a-Marri, a college student from Qatar, who is accused of aiding al Qaeda’s terrorist organization. At first the Bush administration did the right thing — it brought criminal charges against al-Marri in a federal (civilian) court in Illinois. Then it changed its mind and spirited him away to a Navy brig in South Carolina, claiming that it has the power to try him instead before an ad hoc military tribunal — a pseudo-court specifically designed to convict alleged terrorists on less evidence (and less reliable evidence) than a federal, state or regular military court would require.

This has happened before. The night before Jose Padilla, an American citizen, was to appear before a civilian federal court in New York to answer charges of plotting to make a radioactive “dirty bomb,” the Justice Department spirited him out of the court’s jurisdiction and stashed him away, incommunicado, in the same South Carolina navy brig to which al-Marri has been sent.

Padilla, the American, and al-Marri, the foreigner, are both entitled to the full protections of the Bill of Rights. Like anyone charged with a crime, they are entitled to be brought before a judge promptly, informed of the charges and their rights, and provided with a lawyer if they cannot afford one.

But the Bush administration claims the power to make exceptions. Simply by labeling these men “enemy combatants,” it claims it can strip them of the Constitution’s protection.

Padilla and al-Marri have something else in common. They have never served in a military or paramilitary unit. They have never seen combat. They are not charged with any acts of violence. They are merely accused of communicating with, and perhaps plotting with, al Qaeda, a criminal organization. If so, they are criminals, but whether they are is for an independent civilian judiciary, not an ad hoc military tribunal, to decide.

Through the so-called Patriot Act and other means, the Bush administration is bringing about a “regime change” in the United States. Under this new regime, the Bill of Rights has been suspended by executive fiat. The presumption of innocent until proven guilty and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt no longer apply. The right to counsel has been denied and defense attorneys have been spied upon. The constitutional right to be tried within the district where the crime was allegedly committed no longer applies. Due process of law, under uniform rules of evidence, is not necessary. The statutory ban on military involvement in civilian law enforcement is ignored.

Contrary to what the Constitution says (in two places), the president claims the power to create any kind of court system he wants to, including one in which soldiers try civilians, and in which the uniformity of judgment fostered by a system of precedent does not apply. He can order its “judges” to ignore the most basic principles of law, including the military’s own uniform code of justice. Indeed, he can order them to make up the rules of evidence as they go along, and assure them that their death sentences cannot be overturned by anyone but their commander in chief.

This is our new American regime, and all it takes to become a victim of it is for the Justice Department to label you an enemy of the state.

Prof. Christopher H. Pyle teaches constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College. He will be speaking about the Patriot Act to the Madison Institute at the Wisconsin Historical Society Saturday, Oct. 11, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.