A debate on the Patriot Act's Effect on Civil Liberties pitting ACLU President, Nadine Strossen and ex-FBI agent, Christopher Witcomb before a crowd of 200 was part of the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium at Johns Hopkins University at Shriver Hall on November 7th.

The debate over the Patriot Act between ex-FBI agent, Christoper Witcomb and President of the ACLU, Nadine Strossen resembled nothing so much as a mismatched fight between a well-armed warrior and a defenseless lamb; Nadine Strossen being the warrior, and Christopher Witcomb, the unwitting lamb.

STROSSEN LEADS WITH WIT AND FACTS

After a brief introduction highlighting the speakers' careers, Nadine Strossen stepped to the podium. In her first remark she declared that she had bought Christopher Witcomb's new book Cold Zero, but hadn't had time to read it, because John Ashcroft had been keeping her too busy. "I think you should, as an author, ask him to lighten up on civil liberties, so we have time to read your book."

Strossen asserted that changes to rights have to adhere to "basic constitutional common sense test." That is, "the Supreme Court recognizes that before government restricts any right, it bears the burden of proof. The government must show that any restrictive measure is actually effective in promoting national security and that it's necessary to do so. That is, no alternative measures which are less restrictive of our rights would suffice to promote our security."

Examples of what she felt to be measures that conform to this test are fortifying cockpit doors and having sky marshals on planes. However, she said, "too often in post-9/11 the measures violate our rights, but do not demonstrably enhance our safety." Indicative of such measures are secret military tribunals, secret arrests, and secret deportation based on secret evidence. Other examples are the new FBI regulations allowing spying on "all of us" on the basis of political beliefs or religious associations.

Strossen pointed out that with this new ability, the FBI can collect vast amounts of information that it could ever even analyze. She cited the example of Coleen Rowley, the FBI whistle blower who testified before Congress and criticized the FBI's "failure to act on information it had before 9/11." According to Strossen, this was acknowledged by FBI Director Robert Muller who admitted that the terrorist actions on September 11th might have been averted. But Strossen noted, "that didn't suppress the government's insatiable appetite for even more power." One day after Muller's admissions, John Ashcroft announced even more sweeping FBI surveillance guidelines.

Throughout her remarks, Srossen chose quotes from right wing politicians, intelligence experts, and those not usually noted for their liberal stances, such as William Saffire, who criticized new FBI guidelines as, "a posterior covering pretense." By employing the right-wing's critical remarks, Strossen effectively undermined any arguments to come.

In conclusion, she said she was "proud" to be working through the ACLU to win several "stunning victories" against the "power grabs" by the administration. She quoted a ruling by Federal Appellate Judge, Damon Keith. In backing open deportation hearings he said, "The executive branch seeks to uproot people's lives outside the public eye and behind a closed door. Democracies die behind closed doors."

Strossen completed the first 15-minute incisive refutation of the Patriot Act and was followed with a rebuttal by Christopher Witcomb.

WITCOMB DISGARDS FACTS, PLAYS TO EMOTION

Sounding like an old friend schmoozing at a frat party, Christopher Witcomb stood up and began a rambling speech that stressed that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to worry about when it comes to the Patriot Act.

His first step was to relate to skeptics in the audience by confessing that when he was young, he hadn't aspired to join the FBI. Rather, he had listened to people like Abbey Hoffman. "I believed every word he said." Witcomb didn't run off to "join the Young Republicans" when he got out of college, instead, he went to San Francisco to play guitar, "I guess, to be a rock star." According to Christopher Witcomb, his conversion came during Ronald Reagan's inauguration when he sat in the room and watched that "sense of civics, of celebration, of representation and demonstration of the freedoms we held so dear...I decided that I was going to do something other than write speeches about it...and for whatever reasons, I found myself in the FBI." Witcomb reassured the audience that he "didn't come here tonight to represent an organization... [I] certainly don't represent John Ashcroft with whom I disagree with on as many things as Nadine does from time to time."

Rather, he stated he would balance Strossen's critique by passing along his personal experiences. Specifically, he talked about his trip as an agent to Aden, Yemen, investigating the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole. He interviewed surviving sailors in Germany, and one of them was injured so badly, according to Witcomb, he could barely speak. Witcomb quoted the sailor as saying how he had been "watching on a beautiful morning, an October morning, watching this boat..speed out to the ship, and looking down thinking it was an absolutely normal occurrence...looking down at the men coming...looking up at him...waving and smiling" and then moments later the sailor had felt the "huge, deafening, explosion."

Witcomb then recounted a story of how he and a team of 75 armed FBI agents and investigators arrived in Yemen, but ended up being held as virtual "captives" in a hotel. He felt that it was extraordinary that, sent on this important mission that the group was surrounded by the Yemen military, their guns pointed at him and his fellow agents, while admitting that the "armed" investigators may have "exacerbated the situation." His story of the USS Cole tragedy ended on a somewhat happier note; however, as US intelligence agencies discovered and foiled a plot to blow up his team in the hotel in Aden.

Christopher Witcomb's stories went on, illustrating what he felt to be the difficulties that the FBI and CIA have had in sharing information that could lead to the trial and incarceration of dangerous terrorists. His main points were that cell phones couldn't be tapped before the Patriot Act and that the internet had changed the rules of the game. Finally, he came to the conclusion that the laws enacted by the Patriot Act had prevented any further terrorist attacks on American soil in the last year, although he presented no substantiation of his claim.

In Strossen's alotted five minute response to Witcomb, she said that his argument about the USS Cole attack with the subsequent saving of the hotel and its occupants by US intelligence proved her point because it occurred in 2000, before the Patriot Act had even been enacted. At the same time, she was ready to concede that Witcomb's idea that the sharing of information between the FBI and CIA, as well as roving wire taps, were reasonable changes to the law. But again, Strossen stressed that the Patriot Act goes well beyond "surgical fixes." For example, the entire legal system regulating information collection used to be based on probable cause. That has all changed with the Patriot Act. If the FBI claims that "someone may be using a computer in a computer lab that may yield evidence relevant to an investigation," they can have access to all communications that flow through all computers in that lab. Further, a "gag order" keeps the University from informing people of such surveillance, completely erasing the "right to know" (you won't know).

In his final remarks, Witcomb said that if a book signing deal on Cold Zero had been two days later he would have been at the Barnes and Noble at the World Trade Center and would be dead now. He gave a description of a friend who had died in the South Tower. In conclusion Witcomb said, "I don't want people listening to [my]telephone, e-mail. But is it forgivable in order to protect me? Yes it is."

MOST QUESTIONS MISS THE POINT

The question and answer period commencing after polite applause revealed abstract questions, such as, a young man asking if the speakers thought George Bush just liked to snoop on people, and another, "Isn't this a philosophical or moral debate?"

However, a non-Muslim student of Middle Eastern appearance challenged Witcomb's assertions that if you're innocent, you have nothing to hide. He spoke about having been interviewed for two hours by two FBI agents after September 11. He recounted that he answered all their questions, and even let them look at his computer. Later, he found out from a friend that his student files had been turned over to the agents. He felt this was going too far and was unnecessary. He stated that these actions alienate the community that the FBI "should be trying to get on good terms with."

Witcomb's answer to the student was that he wished that every FBI agent was "smart," but he wouldn't have treated the student in that way. He would have known right away that the student was okay. He said he would apologize for the agents. Witcomb also claimed that schools routinely turn down requests for student files.

Strossen argued that University administrators are now required to turn over records (it's not a choice) and these requests are not based on probable cause, but simple assertions of suspicion. She said that Witcomb's view that you have nothing to worry about if you are innocent was exactly the point made by George Orwell's 1984. Orwell posited a society in which all thoughts, actions, and relations were spied upon. She pointed out that without torture, threat or punishment, people were cowed into submission by the mere "knowledge that you have no privacy."

WHO WON?

Witcomb was clearly inept as a debater, his speaking style resembling that of George Bush, whose famous misstatements include "Is our children learning?" At one point, Witcomb accidently called the Patriot Act the Patriot "Attack." Overall his bumbling anti-intellectual "I wouldn't hurt a flea" facade was just plain scary.

Either Witcomb is remarkably poorly informed or he just doesn't want to say what he knows. Either he's a complete air-head, or he wants you to believe that all this intelligence stuff is harmless and knows it's quite the opposite. While his wandering narration attempted to paint the US as hapless victims in a world populated by vicious terrorists, it wasn't convincing.

But who won the debate? Judging by the "applause-meter" The Hopkin's audience chose Strossen, but only by a slight margin. Nevertheless, Strossen encouraged the audience to become activists in defense of civil liberties. She made it clear that without people speaking out, civil liberties could soon be a romantic artifact of the past.