With the threat of Asian bird flu apparently growing by the day, and the possibility of bio-terror no longer only the stuff of potboiler novels, it is the duty of all public health officials to have all the tools in their toolbox clean and sharp.

When possible pandemics are the threat, those tools include more than needles, drugs and oxygen tents. They include the laws, regulations and procedures that not only allow officials to do their job containing any suspected or real infection but also provide those quarantined with all possible due process of law.

Respect for civil liberties, placing the burden of proof on the government, is not only in keeping with American values, it also makes it less likely that public health officials will waste their time rounding up anyone who isn't genuinely at risk, or a risk.

While civil rights advocates have yet to weigh in, the draft bill made public last week appears to be a scrupulous effort to balance the needs of the many with the rights of the one, or the few, who may be caught in any anti-flu dragnet.

The bill would instruct the health department to lay out rules ahead of any threatened or actual epidemic. Those rules would allow the state or local health departments to order people held for examination, observation and treatment for up to 24 hours on a snap order - and longer with written authorization - based on scientific or medical evidence of need. Law enforcement officers could be called upon to enforce any such order.

But the rules would also lay out the rights of those quarantined to know why they are being restricted, what disease or biological agent is suspected and how they can appeal their quarantine administratively or in court.

Most people, when informed by medical personnel of the risk they may face, will be only too glad to be quarantined, for their own benefit as well as that of their families and the larger community.

Still, the whole point of any law is to do our thinking in times of calm before all heck breaks loose. Which, someday, it will.