Dear Friend of The Future of Freedom Foundation:
Last winter The Future of Freedom Foundation held one of the most important programs in our 22-year history — our College Civil Liberties Tour, which took us to four college campuses: Columbia University, Indiana University–Purdue University, Middle Tennessee State College, and Ohio State University. The program, which was co-organized and co-sponsored by Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), attracted audiences of 100–150 people, most of whom were students. At each campus, one could easily sense the interest, passion, and concern that the students had about the state of our country and the direction in which it is headed.
Why am I relating this to you? Because in October we are taking our College Civil Liberties Tour to the West! And we’re asking you to continue your great support of FFF with a midyear donation to help us fund this tour.
Our program consists of three speakers — a liberal, a conservative, and a libertarian — all three of whom share much the same perspective on civil liberties, foreign policy, and the so-called war on terrorism.
As the first speaker, I present the uncompromising libertarian case for civil liberties. The second speaker, Glenn Greenwald, is a constitutional attorney who blogs at Salon.com and was named by Forbes magazine as one of the top 25 most influential liberals in the country. Last winter, it was easy to see that Glenn’s participation on the panel attracted many students to the events. Bruce Fein goes third. He’s also a constitutional attorney, and he served in the Justice Department under Ronald Reagan. Fein’s eloquent and spellbinding presentations enraptured the students. The speeches are followed by what always turned out to be the best part of the program — the discussion period.
Moderating the panels is Jack Hunter, an eloquent speaker who works for YAL, writes for the American Conservative magazine, serves as an advisor for the Ron Paul campaign, and was a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch television program on the Fox Business Network.
Glenn, Bruce, and Jack all readily said yes when we asked them if they were up for doing it again, and YAL is as excited as we are about taking our program on the road again.
YAL is now setting up five venues for the fall at colleges in the following cities: Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, and Boulder. This division of labor is one of the most fantastic aspects of the program. YAL sets up and promotes the event on each of the college campuses, and FFF organizes the panels and all the travel and hotel arrangements. Like last time, we’ll be live-streaming and videotaping the events and posting them on our website.
We now live in a country in which the president wields the omnipotent authority to attack, invade, and occupy any nation on earth, for whatever reason he deems proper, without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war. We live in a country in which the president also now wields the omnipotent power to assassinate people in the name of the war on terrorism — as well as the authority to kidnap people anywhere in the world and have them tortured and incarcerated indefinitely, even for the rest of their lives, all without the benefit of a jury trial or due process of law.
Those who thought the post–9/11 “emergency” powers would only be exercised against foreign citizens have been disabused of that notion; the military and the CIA, following the orders of President Bush and President Obama, have arrested, tortured, incarcerated without trial, and assassinated American citizens who were accused of being terrorists. We live in a country in which there is also a constant environment of fear, one in which people are subjected to humiliating and abusive searches at the hands of government officials at airports and to secret, surreptitious “sneak-and-peek” searches into people’s homes and financial affairs.
That is not what a free country is all about. That is what a totalitarian country is all about. We need to turn things around. We can turn things around. Never in the history of the libertarian movement has there been such widespread passion and enthusiasm for the libertarian philosophy, especially among young people. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of this phenomenon is listening to students tell us how they’re getting their parents into libertarianism!
Our audiences are not limited to students. If you live in the areas we’ll be visiting, I hope you’ll plan to join us, and bring your friends, for one of the most intellectually enjoyable evenings you’ll ever experience, one of vital importance to the future well-being of our nation.
Your tax-deductible donation to FFF will help defray the substantial costs associated with this program. Thank you very much for your great support of freedom and The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Yours for liberty,
Jacob G. Hornberger President The Future of Freedom Foundation 11350 Random Hills Road Suite 800 Fairfax VA 22030 Tel: (703) 934-6101 Fax (703) 352-8678
P.S. While our program is devoted to the importance of civil liberties, we make it a point to distribute our booklet “Economic Liberty and the Constitution” and our monthly journal, Future of Freedom, to everyone who attends.