To hold onto the support of the American people for this dictatorial power, the Bush administration has engaged in its own form of terrorism by exposing domestic “plots” involving small rag-tag groups allegedly bent on, among other things, attacking Fort Dix and blowing up fuel tanks and pipelines near JFK International Airport. The pipeline plot, U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said, “could have resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths and destruction.” Yet people who actually understand these things say this is far-fetched.

It looks as though we are being terrorized by the government. To be sure, there must be a few people in the country who, for whatever reason, talk about blowing something up. But skepticism about these supposed threats is in order: the alleged plotters were exposed by FBI informants trying to get their own criminal sentences reduced. There is a fine line between an informant desperate to cooperate with law enforcement and an agent provocateur — the facts are easily concealed.

The government’s past conduct justifies suspicion. Remember Jose Padilla. He first came to our attention in 2002 when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft interrupted a visit to Russia to make a dramatic television announcement that Padilla, an American citizen, had been seized in Chicago for allegedly planning to detonate a dirty (radiation) bomb in the United States. For years Padilla, a former gang leader who talked big, was held — uncharged — in solitary confinement (tortured and drugged, he says) by the military as an unlawful enemy combatant. When he asked the courts to review his detention, the Bush administration objected on grounds that Padilla was entitled to no protections accorded criminal defendants. He eventually got his case into court, but an initially favorable decision was reversed on appeal. Before the Supreme Court could hear the case, the government moved it to the civilian courts, and Padilla is now standing trial. But he was not charged with plotting to set off a dirty bomb in the United States. Instead, he was charged with planning to commit terrorism in other countries. The U.S. government is the world’s policeman.

Avoiding the Supreme Court by taking Padilla to criminal trial enabled the administration to protect its power to hold “enemy combatants” without charge indefinitely, but now the al-Marri ruling makes it a virtual certainty the issue will go to the Supreme Court. If the administration prevails, Padilla’s acquittal wouldn’t guarantee his freedom.

Presidential power grabs and unlikely plots: if this doesn’t add up to tyranny, what would?