If Sami Al-Arian were an underworld kingpin and his seven associates bagmen and enforcers, the 50-count indictment for conspiracy to commit murder, money laundering and racketeering handed down in Tampa by the U.S. Department of Justice Thursday would be news of only local interest, just another skirmish in the ongoing battle between law and the lawless.

Mr. Al-Arian is not a crime boss, however. He is a college professor (though under suspension by the University of South Florida since 2001) and an intellectual. His associates are not thugs. They are scholarly colleagues and students. The crimes of which they are accused are not related to drugs, gambling or prostitution, but to terrorism – the direct financial support of terrorism, the recruitment of terrorists and the identification of targets. Though the terrorist attacks were carried out in Israel, the U.S. government’s interests are that the planning and fund raising allegedly were done in this country and that two of the 100 victims for which Mr. Al-Arian and associates are allegedly responsible were Americans.

The importance of this case is heightened by its status as the first major test of the USA Patriot Act passed by Congress in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Although Mr. Al-Arian had been under surveillance since the early 90s and his group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was designated a terrorist organization in 1995, legal barriers prevented bringing information gathered in classified national security investigations into the criminal courts.

The Patriot Act removed those barriers. Now it is time for a law that has many law-abiding and thoughtful Americans, liberals and conservatives alike, worried with good reason about the toll the war on terrorism will take upon civil liberties, to prove itself. The Kuwaiti-born Mr. Al-Arian may be, as his defenders claim, a law-abiding permanent resident of this country who is being persecuted for expressing unpopular political views about Israel and America’s role in the Mideast. He may be a cold-blooded killer who has used the freedoms offered by this country to shield his heinous activities. The trial of Mr. Al-Arian and associates – the strength of the evidence against them and the extent to which their rights are protected -will tell Americans much about this law and the Justice Department that wields it.