According to The Providence Journal, there was a debate last night.
In one corner was the architect of the American torture policy, John Yoo.
In the other corner was Larry Cox, the executive director of Amnesty International USA.
It happened at Brown University.
I've scanned the Internet, including YouTube, for more information on the debate. But I haven't been able to find much...yet.
With this diary, I'm hoping to find some more information. Perhaps from someone who attended. And perhaps from someone who has actual video.
At this point, all we know is this:
The topic of discussion: "Are there universal human rights and how far should we go to protect them?"
...
Each guest speaker was given 25 minutes to make their cases, which they did with academic decorum, before the discussion was opened to audience questions.
One of the defining issues that split the two speakers was that of security. Yoo argued that relinquishing some rights was among the "tough tradeoffs" required for maintaining security. "You have to make a choice," he said, "between whether you want more liberty or more security."
The question, Yoo said, is whether the aftermath of 9/11 (think: Guantanamo Bay) was worth the tradeoff, given there have been no further terrorist attacks. "The question should be: Did it come at too high a price?" Yoo’s answer: No.
Cox, of Amnesty International, said, "In the long run. the violation of human rights undermines, rather than protects, security."
Cox outlined the 1948 drafting at the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the recognition that human rights "cannot be taken away by governments."
Despite all the progress since then, he said, "the last decade has been one of the most damaging in the history of human rights."
Nathan Florence, a 27-year-old cook in Middletown who had been videotaping the speeches, jumped up when the question-and-answer period began. His question, following one about President Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, was like the blare of a megaphone. He aimed it at Yoo.
Florence blurted out his best recollection of a question he said he’d heard directed at Yoo during a recent hearing. He asked whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" could include "a child’s testicles being crushed in front of its parents."
"...Sir, I’ve read your memos and they’re not the work of genius. They’re the work of a fevered ego!"
The student moderator broke in: "You have a question?"
Yoo, his voice calm, said that he had not answered that question before because he objected to hypothetical questions. "It all depends on what the real facts are," he said."
Anybody have more information on this?