The men who wrote our Constitution labored to ensure that government’s reach into our personal affairs would be strictly designated and severely limited. I think it’s fair to say that our country was founded on the principle of personal freedom.

However, there have been times when we have felt threatened by forces that seek to do us harm when we have drifted away from the principles of personal liberty and limited government power established in our Constitution. In 1798, for example, when fear of a coming war with France sent Congress into a state of panic, a series of acts were handed down that gave the federal government increasing authority to arrest and deport non-citizens who they felt presented a threat to national security.

Eventually, fear and suspicion led that Congress to turn on U.S. citizens as well the Sedition Act gave them the right to imprison citizens who maligned the government in any way. A number of newspaper editors were arrested (including Ben Franklin’s grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache) and their papers forced to shut down before public outcry led to the eventual repeal of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Today it seems that we may be on the cusp of a similar period of surrendering our constitutional rights in the name of security. And again, although it started out with a clamping down on the rights of non-citizens, the process appears to be progressing rather rapidly towards a rolling back of the rights of citizens as well.

Almost immediately after the twin towers fell, a number of illegal aliens were seized and held for questioning (many are still in custody today) without being charged with a specific crime. Proposals are also now in the works to have visitors from certain countries that are known to be terrorist hotbeds to be fingerprinted and tracked while they are visiting our country.

The outcry over these actions by our government has been muted. Observers point out that these people are not citizens and are therefore not entitled to the due-process guarantees delineated in our Constitution. It’s hard to argue with that position from a legal standpoint, although one might question whether we would feel the same way if U.S. citizens who were visiting another country were rounded up and held indefinitely for “questioning” in a similar manner.

But this week the situation took on a whole new dimension when Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who is suspected of conspiring with al-Qaida operatives to detonate a radioactive-laced “dirty” bomb somewhere in America, was captured and is being held for questioning in a naval brig in Charleston, S.C. Padilla has not been charged with a crime and is being denied legal counsel. According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield, he may never be charged with a crime but is being held primarily so that the government can extract valuable information from him regarding his dealings with al-Qaida.

Let me be clear if the accusations against Padillo are true, he is a traitor, a criminal, and he should be indicted, tried and punished if convicted. Or, if he does have valuable information, the government can always offer him some amount of leniency in exchange for cooperation with their investigations.

However, the government does not have the authority to seize and hold U.S. citizens who are merely suspected of criminal behavior. Remember, there is always a chance that someone the authorities suspect of a crime is actually innocent. It does happen. People are mistaken for other people, people get set up by their enemies, and sometimes police even make mistakes.

That’s why we have a criminal justice system to determine who is innocent and who is guilty. In America, we do not leave it to the federal government to unilaterally make those decisions in private. At least that’s what they taught me in civics class.

America came to its senses two centuries ago when Ben Franklin’s grandson got thrown into jail for writing unpopular editorials. Although the world has changed a lot since then, the Constitution has not. It is hoped the Padillo case will prod us into asking some hard questions about how much respect the people in Washington have for the document from which they derive their power.

Otherwise yours truly might end up in the slammer one day for writing opinions like this one.

Bill Ferguson is a columnist for the Warner Robins (Ga.) Daily Sun.