Freedom Fighters

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "A lot of reporting is just waiting and standing around for people to say, 'No comment.'" FORMER NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER CHRISTOPHER WREN '57, QUOTED IN THE DARTMOUTH DURING AN' OCTOBER CAMPUS VISIT

CONCERNS ABOUT THE PATRIOT ACT and privacy issues on campus have motivated two juniors to form the Dartmouth Civil Liberties Union (DCLU). Launched during the summer, the group has attracted more than 200 members from across the political spectrum ,who have signed up to receive the organization's Blitzmail announcements and have attended lectures by such prominent civil libertarians as lawyer Harvey Silverglade and Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

"A lot of people don't know quite what the government is up to and how it's affecting them," says DCLU founding president Jedidiah Sorokin-Altmann '05. Adds Adil Ahmad '05, the groups first executive director, "Many students are not even aware of the act. During an event last summer, several students came up and asked us simplistic questions such as, 'What's the Patriot Act? I've never heard of it.' If this is the level of ignorance in the student body here, then it's imperative for the DCLU to raise awareness."

The DCLU, which will bring the ACLU's executive director and legal director to campus to speak in 2004, is not only raising awareness of threats to personal freedom but also hoping to educate students about their civil liberties and to discourage civil liberties violations.

Although the DCLU has no formal ties to the ACLU, it sees bringing representatives of the national organization to campus as part of its educational mission. "During lunch and at her lecture, Strossen pointed out that the ACLU is not a partisan liberal organization in that it has supported many conservatives in the past—for instance, Jerry Falwell," says Ahmad. "That was a real revelation for many. The fact Strossen was the first speaker on campus to talk about the Patriot Act and the work the ACLU has done to oppose the act influenced many students to join the DCLU."

Interest in civil liberties appears to be a trend. Claire Edel, executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union (NHCLU), who has also visited Dartmouth, says national membership in the ACLU has risen in the past three years from 250,000 to more than 410,000. Enrollment in the NHCLU has also increased to more than 2,000, up from 1,400.

Says Edel, who is quick to point out that mostly senior citizens attend NHCLU meetings, "Young people offer a perspective that is both necessary and essential to any organizations survival."

Sorokin-Altmann (left) and Ahmad are mobilizing fellow students.