"Just like everyone after September 11th, I was shaken … and caught up in the patriotism ... However, I was disappointed in the wake of the PATRIOT Act," Stout said at the forum. "Anyone who spoke against the party line was shouted down. I wanted to get into the spirit of discussion."
Umphrey provided a summary of the most contentious provisions of the act and reasons why civil libertarians might oppose them. The 326-page PATRIOT Act was passed six weeks after Sept. 11, without debate in Congress or at public hearings.
"It inserts and deletes from the federal code many different procedures relating to search and seizure," Umphrey said. She added that due to the need for haste in writing the bill and the fact that its main purpose is to modify existing statutes, the act does not apply to many people, including some of the people who passed it.
"Section 2.15 expands the government's authority to look at people's activities when those records are held by third parties ... and the subjects of surveillance are not allowed to find out about it," said Umphrey. "[This is] probably the provision that most affects most of you [students]."
Next, Umphrey discussed a proposed act, PATRIOT II, which seeks to extend many of the provisions of the original act, slated to run out in 2005.
Professor O'Connell briefly stated the federal government's rationale for the PATRIOT Act before opening the forum for discussion. "[After September 11th,] the government was under its greatest siege in history ... Terrorists are nowhere, and therefore everywhere," he said. "Our very practices [of freely admitting immigrants and foreign visitors] make us vulnerable." He described the issue as an irresolvable tug-of-war between the demand of liberty and that of security, and explained that the president had to act quickly.
Ethan Davis '05 argued that law-abiding citizens deserve more protection than those individuals who break the law. "The Constitution is used to uphold order and liberty. Your right to be free of wiretaps can only be exercised when you're not engaged in an illegal act," said Davis. "Why would we afford so much protection to the rights of the law-breakers rather than for the safety of the law-abiders?"
O'Connell explained that the American founders wrote the Bill of Rights to protect minorities. "We forget that it exists not to secure the safety of the majority, who are able to [use their power to achieve their safety], but that of minorities."
College librarian Marjorie Hess spoke about the resolution on the USA PATRIOT Act adopted by the American Library Association (ALA). "The ALA considers sections of the USA PATRIOT Act a present danger to the Constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users," she said. Hess explained that, under the act, federal officials can demand the library records of any patron. "We were worried that the threat itself is enough to inhibit research [on certain subjects]. ... Education cannot exist without the free and open exchange of information."
Alexa Jaffurs, head of access services, explained what the library is doing to protect the privacy of its patrons. "We want to limit the information that is available [for the government to request]. … Once you return a book, it's deleted from your patron record … [Also], you can use the library computers anonymously so that your searches aren't saved."
Jacob Maguire '07 posed a number of questions regarding the proposed PATRIOT II Act. "What is the likelihood of [PATRIOT II] passing? Has it even been introduced? [How much] support does it have in the Senate?"
Stout said that Ashcroft introduced it in 2003, but it has been set aside for some time. "We can't say how likely [it is to pass], but the more protests there are, the less likely it is to pass ... I read an article two weeks ago that said if it were brought up now, it wouldn't pass."
Stout hoped that the discussion would foster campus activism. "I want President Marx to make a declaration [stating that] Amherst College as an entity is against the PATRIOT Act. My goal was to raise awareness, and I think that succeeded. …Hopefully, this will be a springboard to campus activism."