Former ACLU lawyer fights for freedoms from Port Townsend home front

PORT TOWNSEND — An American Olympic athlete was placed on the no-fly list.

A Chinese national from Indonesia was brought in for FBI questioning.

A father, mother and daughter of a Seattle Syrian-American family were arrested and detained pending deportation.

These are some of the stories Jane Whicher thinks every American should hear.

“It’s one thing to read a newspaper article about the latest government probe,” she said.

“It’s quite another to listen to a person who is the subject on that probe tell the story in their own words.”

Whicher is an attorney who fought civil liberties encroachments for 20 years.

Now practicing law in Port Townsend, she brings a personal perspective on how the Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, has affected people’s lives.

She will share that perspective at Tuesday’s showing of the documentary film, “Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties.”

“The film tells the story of real story of real people and how the war on terrorism has terrorized them,” she said.

“In a way, the war on terrorism has been a war on dissent, on people who are different and on immigrants.”

“UNCONSTITUTIONAL: THE WAR on Our Civil Liberties” is a documentary that will be shown Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Port Townsend Community Center, Lawrence and Tyler streets.

Admission is free.

Former ACLU attorney Jane Whicher will give an update on Patriot Act cases, and Don White will lead a discussion on President Bush’s nomination of Alberto Gonzales for attorney general.

The evening is sponsored by the Jefferson County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. For more information, call Bill Woolf, 360-385-1290.

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