After Sept. 11, a Legal Battle Over Limits of Civil Liberty
The detention issues also carry an emotional punch. Many of the Arabs and Muslims caught in the government dragnet were cabdrivers, construction workers or other types of laborers, and some spent up to seven months in jail before being cleared of terrorism ties and deported or released.

Last month, at a conference held by a federal appeals court, Warren Christopher, the secretary of state in the Clinton administration, snapped at Viet Dinh, an assistant attorney general under President Bush, saying that the administration's refusal to identify the people it had detained reminded him of the "disappeareds" in Argentina.

"I'll never forget going to Argentina and seeing the mothers marching in the streets asking for the names of those being held by the government," Mr. Christopher said. "We must be very careful in this country about taking people into custody without revealing their names."

According to the Justice Department, 752 of the more than 1,200 people detained since Sept. 11 were held on immigration charges. Officials said recently that 81 remained in detention. Court papers indicate there were about two dozen material witnesses, while most of the other detainees were held on various state and federal criminal charges.

President Bush also has announced plans to try suspected foreign terrorists before military tribunals, though no such charges have been brought yet.

Last month, William G. Young, the federal judge presiding in Boston over the criminal case against Richard C. Reid, a British citizen accused of trying to detonate a bomb in his shoe on a trans-Atlantic flight, noted that the very establishment of those tribunals "has the effect of diminishing the American jury, once the central feature of American justice."

Judge Young, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, added: "This is the most profound shift in our legal institutions in my lifetime and — most remarkable of all — it has taken place without engaging any broad public interest whatsoever."

Ten days after last September's attacks, Michael J. Creppy, the nation's chief immigration judge, quietly issued sweeping instructions to hundreds of judges for what would turn out to be more than 600 "special interest" immigration cases.

"Each of these cases is to be heard separately from all other cases on the docket," Judge Creppy wrote. "The courtroom must be closed for these cases — no visitors, no family, and no press."

"This restriction," he continued, "includes confirming or denying whether such a case is on the docket."

The government has never formally explained how it decided which visa violators would be singled out for this extraordinary process, and it has insisted that the designations could not be reviewed by the courts.

But as it turns out, most of these cases involved Arab and Muslim men who were detained in fairly haphazard ways, for example at traffic stops or through tips from suspicious neighbors. Law enforcement officials have acknowledged that only a few of these detainees had any significant information about possible terrorists.

As the ruling on Friday in Washington suggests, a series of legal challenges to this secrecy has resulted in striking legal setbacks for the administration. Several courts have ordered the proceedings opened and have voiced considerable skepticism about the government's justifications for its detention policies generally.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the secrecy of the proceedings exacerbated the hardships faced by people who disappeared from sight on violations that in the past would not have resulted in incarceration.

"Preventive detention," he said, "is such a radical departure from constitutional traditions that we certainly shouldn't be undertaking it solely on the Justice Department's say-so."
After Sept. 11, a Legal Battle Over Limits of Civil Liberty