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But what will it take to get more? What happens to the innocent when authorities veer toward the fringes of the Constitution in order to find the bad guys? For the past three weeks, TIME has investigated both the detainees and their keepers to answer that question. Government documents and interviews with those on both sides of the detention cells offer a rare glimpse inside the biggest--and at times most confusing--criminal probe in American history.
Take the puzzling case of Mohammed Refai. Until Sept. 18, Refai, 40, whose brother says he was a civil engineer in Syria, managed the Gas O Clean in Akron, Ohio. On that day, the Immigration and Naturalization Service detained him on the charge that he had married an American only to get a green card. According to documents reviewed by TIME that were written by federal investigators in early October, Refai "showed deception" on a lie-detector test. Agents wrote that they had unearthed financial information linking hijacker Saeed Alghamdi to an Akron apartment complex where Refai lived. A search of Refai's residence and business turned up cigarette lighters with concealed knives--perfect for a hijacking--and videos of "buildings, bridges and power plants" in Chicago; Niagara Falls, N.Y.; and Washington. Agents learned that he had talked about naming his son Osama.
For a time, all this evidence might have convinced some agents that they had found a "player"--FBI-speak for a solid terrorist prospect. Detectives always look for patterns among criminals, and Refai's factitious marriage was similar to that of some suspected al-Qaeda operatives in Germany, who married German women only to gain immigration rights. But last week a law-enforcement official in Ohio said flatly that Refai is not a terrorist. The official said there was no known connection between Refai and the hijackers, Osama bin Laden or any other terrorists.
Refai and his defenders have offered some plausible explanations for the evidence. Despite documents that allegedly link him and one hijacker to the same building--documents the government has never produced--Refai says he never knew Alghamdi. The videos of Niagara Falls and other cities? Tourist shots, Refai claims--and not a power plant among them. Refai, who spoke to TIME from an INS detention center in Batavia, N.Y., admits he sold the lighters with knives at his gas station, but so do many others. He did suggest Osama as a name for the child, but not because he was sympathetic to bin Laden. "[The historical figure] Osama was close to the Prophet," Refai explains. "I worked 15, 16 hours a day...I didn't have time to plot."
Susan Refai, 42, said she believes her ex-husband is innocent but now realizes that their marriage was a sham. It came about after a hasty courtship that started in January 1998 because "I felt sorry for him. He didn't speak English very well, and he was all alone." Well, not all alone. Mohammed apparently has another wife in Syria plus a new girlfriend here. "Oh, he was a bad boy," says his friend Ramzi Shalash. "But he didn't have anything to do with terrorists. We'd never even heard of al-Qaeda," Refai's brother Ayman says Mohammed's legal bills are mounting; many friends are afraid to help. Ayman says that even though his brother's rent has been paid, his landlord has evicted him from the apartment.