Hady Hassan Omar was held without charges for 73 days in the wake of September 11. He is suing the Federal Government. .

"No one knows exactly how many young Muslim men were rounded up in the aftermath of 9/11. As of November of last year, when federal authorities stopped issuing information on the subject, the tally was 1,147. What is known is that thus far, of those initial 1,147 arrests, only 3 have resulted in terrorism-related indictments, and more than 400 people have been deported following lengthy internment periods and closed hearings. At issue is the key question lawmakers have been grappling with since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: just how far can America go to protect itself, both at home and abroad?"

"...as time passes since the trauma of Sept. 11, the cost to individual rights is beginning to come into focus. David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor, argues that ''the policy of keeping people in jail until the F.B.I. clears them is essentially 'guilty until proven innocent.' Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, agrees. ''It's fundamentally un-American,'' he says. ''What's most troubling is that the American public is being kept in the dark about what is being done in the name of the war on terror.'' The A.C.L.U. has sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the names of some of the detainees."

"In New York, a class-action suit filed in April on behalf of at least 87 detainees, separate from the A.C.L.U. suit, accuses the Justice Department of wholesale violations of the constitutional rights to which both American citizens and noncitizens in the United States are entitled. Several rulings by federal judges over the past few months indicate that the detainees could get a sympathetic hearing."

This is a long article in today's New York Times Magazine with an in-depth look at the issue, using the case of Omar as an example. It's well worth reading.