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Panel to discuss the ethics of intelligence gathering

By Sarah Meyer '08
October 26, 2006

The student-run St. Olaf Political Awareness Committee, Pi Sigma Alpha (the Political Science honor society), the St. Olaf chapter of Amnesty International and the Pre-Law Society will sponsor a panel discussion about the nature of interrogation and the role of the United States military on Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. in Holland Hall, room 501. The public is welcome to attend.

Four panelists, moderated by Tony Lott, an assistant professor of political science at St. Olaf, will address the recent landmark decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld as well as the ongoing debate over the balance between the rights of accused terrorists and the demands of national security. The panelists have extensive personal and professional experience with this topic: Roger Brokaw, a reservist and former interrogator at Abu Ghraib; Charles "Chuck" Samuelson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota; Jim Dorsey, an attorney for Fredrikson & Byron and co-founder of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights; and Peter Swanson, an attorney for TCF Bank and member of the Center for the American Experiment.

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was just ruled on this past June. In this case the United States Supreme Court ruled that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try Guantanamo detainees violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions.

Contact Carole Engblom at 507-786-3271 or leigh@stolaf.edu.