The resurgence of the Patriot Act had a panel of diverse experts hurling opinions around as if the act had been freshly passed.
Claire Ebel was there to "scare the hell out of" the audience. Mark Zuckerman begged to differ. Leila Paje-Manalo and Eoin Reilly wanted to make a few things very clear. The audience gasped, nodded, pursed their lips and shook their heads.
A heated debate fueled the stage Tuesday night as the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs' "Understanding the Patriot Act," the first presentation of its "The More You Know" series, commenced with a lively start.
The USA Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act), enacted directly after Sept. 11, continues to be a highly controversial issue.
Many of its provisions have been said to strip people of several of the most basic civil liberties, such as privacy and the pursuit of happiness.
Four panelists, each with varying experiences with the Patriot Act, took the stage Tuesday before a group of about 35 students and faculty members in the Strafford Room of the MUB.
Each speaker began the evening by giving a brief overview of some aspect of the Patriot Act, pertaining respectively to his or her particular field.
Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire Mark Zuckerman spoke about the ways in which he is able to work with the Patriot Act as a federal prosecutor for the state.
He said that though there has been some gross misuse of the Patriot Act, many of its provisions are sound.
"The Patriot Act does not throw the Bill of Rights out," he said. "It does not erode previous rights; instead, it rides on top and adopts them."
Leila Paje-Manalo, the director of the Office of International Students and Scholars at UNH, dealt directly with the National Electronic Database System, which is a specific provision to further the monitoring of international students.
She stated that prior to Sept. 11, all schools accepting international students were required to maintain and collect certain information, such as academic records, declared majors, college applications and a list of dependents to prove that they could support their studies abroad.
With the Patriot Act, this has changed. Now information must be entered into a government-controlled database, which will control the students' visa issuance and social security, among other things.
She also said that in her experience, she has seen students "absolutely terrified." They dread any type of government intervention, "even routine traffic stops" in which the students' records may be threatened or their ability to stay in the country to continue their education is jeopardized.
Next to speak was Eoin Reilly, an immigration lawyer who was horrified by many of the Patriot Act's provisions. He called it "just another example of several acts created to take the rights away from immigrants."
His approach was to tell several anecdotal stories about some of his clients whose lives have been affected by this act. Many audience members gasped as he related several stories about the unfair treatment of many immigrants. Some were held for charges without even knowing what they were, then released still ignorant as to why they had even been detained.
One story was of a family of Lebanese Christians who fled Lebanon in 1975 because of the civil war. They had been living in the United States for nearly 30 years, when one morning the door was broken down, the 80-year-old parents awoke with guns to their heads and the fully-grown children were deported back to a country in which they had not even lived.
He also commented on the several thousand complaints of gross misconduct on the part of government officials in charge of "detainees" after Sept. 11, citing examples of beatings, force-feeding pork to Muslims and the denial of medical access, just to name a few. In one documented case, a doctor stated to the prisoners, "If I was in charge, I would have executed every one of you."
Last to take the microphone was Claire Ebel, who is executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.
"[The Patriot Act] has been the source of my nightmares for the past two years and four months," she said. "My job here is to scare the hell out of you."
And she seemed to.
The audience responded passionately with gasps, shaken heads and ironic chuckles as Ebel spouted off on just what the Patriot Act meant to her. She gave an extensive history of the ways in which she believed we have acted against our ideals in the past.
"We as a young nation have done some extraordinarily stupid things," she said, citing the alien and sedition acts, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the Japanese internment, to name a few.
She said that on Sept. 12, like so many times before, the country responded "like frightened children." According to Ebel, the Patriot Act was so premature and desperate in its enactment, that it wasn't even printed until after it was passed.
Back and forth the panelists went. The most heated debate was between Zuckerman and Ebel, who at one point removed her glasses, closed her eyes, smiled and thrust her arm out to receive the microphone before responding. The panelists, however, were not disrespectful of one another and allowed each to give his or her full opinion before stating their own.
A small group discussion marked the conclusion of the presentation as friendly debate broke out among those audience members who chose to stay. Audience member Nate Dargie was shocked.
"She [Ebel] set out to scare us," he said. "Well, that she did."
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