Corliss Lamont Centenary Civil Liberties Forum

A debate entitled: “Must our Civil Liberties be Relinquished Under the Threat of Terrorism?”

Columbia University Law School
Jerome L. Greene Hall (JG101)
435 West 116th Street at Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027, USA
4 PM to 9 PM — Friday, April 5, 2002

These discussions were held in honor of Humanist, Patriot, and Defender of Civil Liberties, Corliss Lamont, as an observation of his Centenary. He was born March 28, 1902.

Professor Vincent A. Blasi, who occupies the endowed Corliss Lamont Civil Liberties Chair at Columbia University, delivered the keynote address. Invited speakers included the following individuals.†

John Perry Barlow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mary Beaty, Electric Librarian
Nancy Chang, Senior Litigation Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights
Jeremiah S. Gutman, Co-chair, National Coalition Against Censorship
Connie Hogarth, WESPAC
C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Michael Letwin, Association of Legal Aid Lawyers
Donna Lieberman, New York Civil Liberties Union
Vincent Lloyd, Editor of CommonSense
Brian McCartin, Thomas Paine National Historical Association
Victor Navasky, Publisher of The Nation
Michael Ratner, Attorney with and Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Partnership for Civil Justice

† Affilations shown for informational/reference purposes only.

The schedule of events was as follows.

   4:00 PM to 6:00 PM - First Panel
   6:00 PM to 7:00 PM - Reception
   7:00 PM to 9:00 PM - Second Panel

This Centenary Program began with a screening of a documentary film entitled, Corliss Lamont: Renegade Patriot, created by Jonathan Heap, Corliss Lamont's grandson. A 6-minute video containing highlights from the film is available on this website.

Collateral materials:

Here are three downloadable Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) files that we've prepared specially for use on this webpage. If you should need to update your copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader program, the latest version can be downloaded for free using the link below.

A one-page announcement Flyer that was publicly distributed prior to the event.

Corliss_Lamont_Centenary_Flyer.pdf (34,612 bytes)

A six-page Program that was distributed to attendees at the event. This document contains biographies for all of the invited speakers.

Corliss_Lamont_Centenary_Program.pdf (6,738,080 bytes)

A one-page copy of The Bill of Rights that was distributed to attendees at the event. This document is suitable for printing.

The_Bill_of_Rights.pdf (165,681 bytes)

MPEG-4 Video:

Raw, unedited video of both Panel Sessions, in one-hour blocks. These four files, totaling approximately four hours run time, contain some significant technical flaws, but it was felt that the content was important, so they've been posted here. Clicking each of the links below will cause your browser's HTML5 video player to appear in a JavaScript pop-up window. The Play button must be selected (clicked or tapped) to begin playback. Use of Fullscreen Mode on mobile is suggested. A 2 Mbps or faster connection is recommended.

MPEG-4 Video Part 1 of 4
Running time:  57 minutes 21 seconds
Speakers:  Vincent A. Blasi (keynote), Donna Lieberman
MPEG-4 Video Part 2 of 4
Running time:  59 minutes 27 seconds
Speakers:  Jeremiah S. Gutman*, Mary Beaty, Michael Letwin
MPEG-4 Video Part 3 of 4
Running time:  60 minutes 3 seconds
Speakers:  Victor Navasky, John Perry Barlow*, C. Clark Kissinger (Introduced by Beth K. Lamont)
MPEG-4 Video Part 4 of 4
Running time:  56 minutes 58 seconds
Speakers:  C. Clark Kissinger (continued from previous file), Vincent Lloyd, Nancy Chang, Brian McCartin

* We are saddened to report that Jeremiah S. Gutman died February 25, 2004 and John Perry Barlow died February 7, 2018.