Life in code orange casts a wide net of contradictions. We’re not to worry, America’s homeland security chief tells us. Just be alert. Report what might look suspicious.

Like everything?

Meanwhile, government budgets across the country are code red, as in dripping-in-red-ink broke, as in overtime for police and firefighters who have had to work overtime off and on since The Reckoning of 9-11. All those calls from alert citizens spotting “suspicious” duds are costing us plenty.

Not to stay alert is not an option.

Sacrifice we must, in terms of money, to protect our nation. It’s the government’s tactics, not the laudable goal of protecting us from terrorism, that are trampling our most basic rights as Americans.

When we cast the net so wide and yet so tailored to a specific group that all we do is fence in innocent people because they practice a particular religion or dress a certain way or have names like Omar, Mali or Mohammad, then hysteria replaces prudent protection. And when it is our government that takes it upon itself to check out every Muslim mosque, and by extension most every upstanding U.S. citizen of Middle Eastern descent, then we have lost all sense of what this war against terrorism is supposed to be about.

We are supposed to be defending American values of justice, individual liberty, freedom of religion, democracy — our whole way of life. Remember?

So what’s just or fair about ethnic or religious profiling of millions of Arab-Americans when this country has experienced other terrorist acts that never involved a single Arab or Muslim?

To target all mosques, as the FBI now has undertaken, would not be tolerated by this nation’s Christians. Imagine if the FBI had decided to check out every church after homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh, a supposed Christian, blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Did our government investigate every white male who had been in the U.S. military to see if McVeigh, a disgruntled veteran, might have started a trend? Of course not. Why target mosques without specific allegations or any proof that they are involved in anything sinister?

As fourth-grade teacher Areej Zufari, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Central Florida, points out, such profiling has become a “fact of life” for Muslims in this country. The Bill of Rights — a citizen’s right to be secure from unfair government searches and seizures, to be innocent unless the government proves otherwise — no longer stands as a testament to this country’s greatness.

The Center for Public Integrity, a government watchdog group, contends John Ashcroft’s InJustice Department is about to expand the already massive attack on our civil liberties in the 2001 Patriot Act. U.S. government officials say nothing has been decided as yet. If the nonprofit watchdog group is right, though, the government’s proposal should frighten anyone who values America’s freedom.

The still-in-the-works “Domestic Security Enhancement Act,” the center reports, would allow the government to detain terrorist suspects indefinitely and keep their names secret. It would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from letting the public know a chemical company’s worst-case scenario information. That should provide solace to people living near such plants — not! And to turn our justice system on its head, terrorism suspects would have to prove why they should be released on bail when the burden of proof in our system of justice always has been on the prosecution to prove why such bail should be denied.

The Patriot Act already has extracted a huge chunk of our liberties. It gave the government broad new powers to wiretap and eavesdrop without any check or balance from a judge. Those powers extend to certain government searches, too.

Better to be safe than sorry, right?

That’s the excuse dictators use to keep people in line. Today it’s the government after most any Arab-American, just because. Tomorrow, it might be after any one of us. Color-code it one of America’s darkest moments.

Myriam Marquez is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Her e-mail address is mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com.