Two summers ago, I was visiting Israel and Egypt with Paul, my best friend from high school. Our El-Al flight from London disembarked in Jerusalem at 4 a.m. local time, and most of the passengers filtered through the line for Israeli nationals. We entered the foreign passport line along with 50 others. When the immigration agent saw a visa stamp in my U.S. passport, she asked me dryly, "You were in Pakistan?"

"Visiting family," I replied.

"Your parents live there?"

My hand started shaking. "Just my grandparents and some cousins. There was a wedding."

She stamped my passport and handed it back to me. She must have also pressed a hidden "panic" button, because soon, a stern man from Airport Security approached me. "May I see your passport, please?"

Thoughts of screwball comedy mix-ups flashed through my head: my Harvard ID picture was whisked off the Eliot House Web facebook and somehow landed in the Mossad terrorist files. Those thoughts, however, didn't amuse me. So I gave it to him.

"Why are you here?"

"I won this trip as a prize on a game show. On MTV. In America."

He started at me. "How long will you be here? Where are you staying? Do you know anybody in the country? What do you do for a living?"

I'm a student. At Harvard. In America."

"Are you traveling alone?"

I was glad I could finally answer "No" and show him Paul, my half-Jewish, half-Italian, all-American friend. But Paul was nowhere to be found, scouring through the baggage claim. I just stood there, scared.

Eventually, I found Paul and everything was straightened out. But as an American, coming from our culture of individual rights, I was offended by the fact that I, one among dozens of passengers, was pulled aside simply because of my last name and the way I looked. And for the first time in my life, someone saw me first and foremost as a Muslim, and doubted my legitimacy as a person because of it.

This August, following U.S. missile strikes in retaliation for the bombings of our embassies in Africa, cement barriers were placed around the Washington Monument to thwart potential carbombers. The gesture was lamented by many as the first step towards a much more guarded society. In such a society, whose rights would suffer most?

SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY?