National ACLU President Nadine Strossen debated 15-year FBI veteran and terrorism investigator Christopher Whitcomb at the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium at Johns Hopkins University in Shriver Hall.

If you missed the debate, here's a brief recap:

Introduction:

Nadine: The sky is falling! Civil liberties are dying! Ethnic profiling! Fishing expeditions! They have an insatable appeitite for power! Democracy dies behind closed doors! Visit www.aclu.org!

Chris: I fought the terrorists with my own two hands, and they're scary. When I was overseas the terrorists were even more scary. The regulations don't reflect the current needs of law enforcement. People are dying, but the police protect us, you can trust your country to do the right thing!

Debate:

Nadine: There's dishonest people in government, we need protections against them! I have several reports where a single person in a government agency has come out to say that everyone else they work with is a dishonest crook. Now they're in our churches and political organizations and tapping our phone lines! The FBI bureaucracy is the problem. Visit aclu.org!

Chris: That may be true, but the large majority of them are trying to protect you with inadequate tools. People are dying! Death, death, death! But we can protect you if you let us. God bless America! Honestly, I don't like Big Brother either, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little liberty for a lot of security, and so should you.

Nadine: I'm not, and neither should anyone else! Visit aclu.org!

Closing:

Chris: Terrorists are bad, you need to understand that we're at war and you have to deal with it to be free. Everybody please join me in singing the Star Spangled Banner! Thank you.

Nadine: If we don't fight this, then the terrorists have won. We're living in 1984, and we're all doomed. Visit aclu.org! Thank you.

November 6, 2002 - November 8, 2002

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