I look for the best in people, and do what I can to promote peace and justice in the world, but I can never forget that my mom and her Japanese American family were placed in barbed wire-enclosed concentration camps during World War II. Mom tried to be 110% American, joining the church, Girl Reserves, and the high school band in the 1930s, but it was not enough. War hysteria, racial prejudice, economic greed, and a failure of political leadership led to the forced uprooting, removal, and confinement of Mom and over 110,000 other Japanese Americans. Their crime? We were at war with Japan, so Americans of Japanese ancestry were suspect, even the 77,000 who were American citizens by birth on American soil.

President Roosevelt and his advisors said in 1942 that a "military necessity," which included details they could not make public at the time, made the wartime confinement of Japanese Americans necessary. Babies, seniors, invalids, teenagers like my mom, and all others had to live behind barbed wire for an average of almost three years.

When government records from the 1940s were made public in the 1970s, we found that there had not, in fact, been a military necessity. Members of the military and the Roosevelt Administration had duped the public, and the Supreme Court had upheld their actions in the case of Korematsu v. United States.

To remedy this injustice, Japanese Americans and their allies fought for and won redress payments for each surviving former prisoner in 1988. Federal courts in the 1980s agreed that there had been no basis for the "military necessity" claim in the 1940s. But the damage already had been done. A wall had been breached. Martial law had been selectively enforced against one group of Americans, and almost everyone else in America (with a few notable exceptions) had stood by passively and accepted the "military necessity" claim.

As we enter 2006, you don't have to view life through a Japanese American perspective to see that something is seriously wrong with our country. Under the Bush Administration, torture is accepted as a legitimate instrument of warfare, people who are not charged with a crime can be held behind barbed wire for an indefinite period, wiretaps of American citizens can be done without court approval, and the supposedly-free press can be manipulated with payments to journalists, false stories, and by leaking classified information to smear political opponents.

These and other police state practices are bad enough when they exist side-by-side with the remnants of a free press, civil liberties, and vibrant democracy. What frightens me, as a person whose family has seen some of the worst American democracy can offer, is that a single precipitating event like a Pearl Harbor or a Reichstag fire will allow the Bush Administration to arrogate complete control to themselves.

How do freedom-loving Americans work to prevent this cataclysmic possibility? First, stop pretending that it cannot happen. Americans love to chant the mantra that we are the "greatest nation" with the "strongest democracy," but such false pride prevents our seeing obvious ways that wiretaps and lies already have weakened our Constitutional guarantees.

Second, raise your voices when you see something objectionable, whether it is torture or secret wiretaps on American citizens. President Bush lately has taken to saying that he is "responsible" for the many errors made in Iraq and New Orleans, but simply saying "I am responsible" and not doing anything to be truly accountable is meaningless. If CIA, military, or civilian leaders made mistakes, fire them or demote them. If, as many military analysts already have acknowledged, policies such as the war in Iraq have failed, admit that, and stop the carnage that has not only devastated Iraq but also made Americans more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Third, 2006 must be the year that we affirmatively reclaim our democracy. The two party winner-take-all system of elections has failed, with leading Republicans favoring a corrupt one-party government and Democrats unable to mount a viable alternative. We need proportional representation, Instant Runoff Voting, viable third parties, serious campaign finance reform, and a voting process that is not prone to fraud and manipulation. Given the opposition of those who benefit from the status quo, this transition to a form of democracy already enjoyed by most other industrialized democracies will take time and effort, but is essential to our future as a free nation.

Finally and most importantly, we must demand accountability from our Members of Congress so that an honest inquiry can determine whether or not President Bush and members of his Administration have committed crimes or impeachable offenses. Willingness to convene such an inquiry should be demanded of every candidate for Congress in 2006.

Phil Tajitsu Nash is CEO of CampaignAdvantage.com and co-author of "Winning Campaigns Online."

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