Instead of turning against the U.S. government, Mineta threw himself into serving it and improving it. As a 10-term congressman from San Jose, Calif., he was known for his high-tech acumen. But he was also a driving force behind the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, which won an apology and $20,000 for each internee from the U.S. government. He became the first Asian-American to hold a cabinet post, as Bill Clinton’s secretary of Commerce. Now he is the only Democrat in Bush’s cabinet, where he is known for his measured, calm demeanor. In these times, he has been a vocal critic of attacks on Muslim-Americans, a steady voice for an airline industry grappling with new security measures and a living reminder for President Bush of our government’s past mistakes as the government weighs how to balance fighting terrorism and civil liberties. NEWSWEEK’s Martha Brant spoke with Mineta. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: On Sept. 11 did you think about your own experience during Pearl Harbor?

Norman Mineta: Some have referred to Sept. 11 as the new Pearl Harbor because here was all of a sudden an attack without warning, an attack with no mercy being shown at all. When I think about Pearl Harbor, we had just come on home from being at a church service at the Japanese Methodist Church in San Jose, Calif. I heard the news reports about the Japanese attacking the U.S. naval facility. I’ve seen my dad cry three times. Once on the 7th of December. He was an immigrant, as was my mother, from Japan. He couldn’t understand how the land of his birth was attacking the land of his heart. The second was on the 29th of May, 1942, the day we boarded the trains under military guard as we were being shipped off to camp. The third time was when my mother died.

With the attacks on Muslim-Americans, do you think we’re reliving the aftermath of Pearl Harbor?

What happened was that Americans, as well as the U.S. government in 1941, 1942, could not make the distinction between those Japanese flying the bombers and fighter planes and attacking Pearl Harbor and those of us who were living in Washington, Oregon and California and were American. I think what’s happening is just as they couldn’t make that distinction in 1942, now the people who look like the 22 [suspects on the FBI “Most Wanted Terrorists” list] are looked upon with suspicion. I think that we are seeing shades of what we experienced in 1942. The big difference this time is that the political leadership is responding differently, and I think that President George W. Bush has just been terrific on this issue.

What can the president do to stop these attacks?

About 10 days after the Sept. 11 cowardly attacks by terrorists, President Bush had Arab-American and Muslim-American leaders in, he went to the Islamic Center here in Washington, D.C. Then after the Sikh in Arizona who owned a gas station was killed in a drive-by shooting the president invited Sikh leaders to come to the White House.

What’s different now?

This time we have a president that has spoken out on the issue. I believe it was the 12th of September, we were having a cabinet meeting with House leadership. Rep. David Bonior of Michigan raised concerns of Arab-Americans, Muslim-American and Southeast Asians. After he talked about his fear of the kind of acts of discrimination that might be directed at them, the president said: “David you’re absolutely correct. We don’t want to have happen today what happened to Norm Mineta’s family.”

Have you spoken with the president about what happened to your family?

On the 2nd of January, when he interviewed me for the position of Transportation secretary, he knew about my background and we talked about it quite a bit. He is very well aware of it. He was talking about the concerns he had about some of the criminal acts. Not just someone looking at you cross-eyed, but people being intimidated, harassed and verbally abused, having their properties damaged, signs painted on their homes, bricks through their front windows. These kinds of stories we all see in the press right now. He was very mindful of those incidents and has been decrying them. We had a conversation just before the speech on the 20th. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if President Roosevelt had said those things. But we’ll never know.

Have you spoken with Attorney General John Ashcroft about concerns about civil liberties in the crack down on terrorism?

I haven’t specifically spoken with the attorney general. What we have done from our general counsel’s office at the Department of Transportation is we sent an advisory to all the airlines reminding them that discrimination on the basis of race, origin, ancestry and religion are barred by federal law. Some of the airlines have responded very favorably. Delta Air Lines sent a letter to all their employees world wide requesting tolerance of all people and cultures and explaining to their employees that they must fully comply with civil rights.

What else are you doing to prevent discrimination?

In everything that we do … for instance there is a method by which people become selectees for security-screening points or at the gate. Everything we have put out is not in reference to any race or religious faith or how people dress or anything else. What we’re looking at is other patterns. So that we look at, Is it a one-way ticket? Did you pay for this ticket in cash or with a credit card? Even if it’s a round-trip ticket, if you paid $2,700 in cash, that’s going to set off an alarm bell. We are trying to make these as objective as possible.

Could what happened to your family happen again?

The possibility is always there, and that’s why we have to be vigilant. We don’t have to be vigilantes, but vigilant so that what happened to a group of Americans back in the 1940s does not happen again. There was a recent Gallup poll indicating that close to 50 percent of people felt that Arab-Americans should carry special ID.

Is there anything else the government can do?

Use all remedies available under law in acts of physical violence. The perpetrators should be brought to trial for those things. When [punishment] becomes visible then I think it does have an effect on the behavior of some people. There was a case of a man named Vincent Chin in Detroit. This case goes back to 1984. There was a rising unemployment in the auto industry because of the influx of Japanese imported cars. Vincent Chin was in a bar having drinks with some buddies on a Wednesday or Thursday before the Saturday he was going to be getting married. He and the friends left this bar and two people pursued them. They beat Vincent Chin to death. Those two men got $2,700 fines. Some people had a group called Asian-Americans for Civil Justice and they came to see me about this, and I then took that case to the Department of Justice during the Reagan years. We convinced them to bring a case that Chin had his civil rights violated. So finally that did take place and they ended up in jail with 20-year sentences.

Do you see a need for civil rights suits in the current cases?

If the facts warrant it.