Tufts students were shown examples of the dangers and abuses of the USA Patriot Act in a film screening, Wednesday night.
Tufts students gathered to meet members of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the film, titled "Unconstitutional - The War on our Civil Liberties."
The film explored the Bush administration's use of the Patriot Act to detain people of Arab descent indefinitely and without due process. Nancy Murray of the Massachusetts ACLU branch and Tufts ACLU member Dan Grant led the screening and discussion.
"The threat to our civil liberties in the Patriot Act is getting so bad that even members of the military are speaking out," Murray said.
The hour-long movie showed emotional testimony from people directly affected by the Patriot Act, including Safu Hammoui.
Hammoui's immigrant family was seeking asylum from the Syrian government when they were taken into custody at gunpoint late one night. For months, they were kept in solitary confinement without ever talking to a lawyer or going before a judge.
Perhaps the most moving scene in the film focused on the detainees at the Guantanamo military base in Cuba. Since the base is not on American soil, the Bush administration has argued that detainees there are not subject to due process in American courts. But the first detainees at Guantanamo, who had been living in isolation in squalid conditions, waited over a year before seeing a judge or being released.
"Guantanamo is especially frightening because the United States government acted like it did not know what was going on," Murray said. "I mean, we have a checks and balances system to prevent this kind of thing from happening to American citizens."
Following the movie, Murray and John Bookston, an ACLU volunteer, held a question-and-answer period.
Many audience members seemed stunned by what they had just seen and heard.
"The movie brought some important issues to light that the public doesn't hear about," freshman Michael Eddy said. "I was very surprised by some of the things the Bush administration did without much media criticism, and even without the public's knowledge."
The USA Patriot Act, signed into law roughly a month after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, created new law enforcement measures to fight domestic terrorism. One provision allows the government to detain people considered a threat to national security without trial until the perceived threat has passed.
Other provisions allow government officials to view library records and other personal information of suspects who might pose a threat to the United States.
The act has come under criticism for being too vague and for giving the government too much power. Civil rights advocates argue that, in a post-Sept. 11 world, the threat of a terrorist attack on America is always possible and therefore the people can be held indefinitely, as in the case of the Hammoui family.
"We have been at points like this in American history before," Murray said. "I feel that this could be a more insidious problem that happens slowly. One day we could wake up and our liberties will be gone."
The ACLU was formed in 1919 by citizens alarmed by the fact that immigrants, labor organizers and political dissenters were being detained without due process during the Palmer raids. Today, the non-profit organization boasts 300,000 members, including a chapter on the Tufts campus.
"We try to focus on on-campus civil rights, but there are projects in the Medford-Somerville area that we need volunteers for," Grant said.
