Listening to all my friends speak I realized that I'm not here to discuss legalisms and I'm not hear to cite these terrible, terrible examples. I'm here, I hope, to claim your conscience. I'm talking among friends, I realize, but I also am talking among a vastly silent group of friends because we have no movement out there. Very little is happening.

My husband remarked the other night maybe we should thank Ashcroft for doing this. I don't think I'm quite there yet. But I will tell you that the outpouring of support that has come to me you usually, I think, have to die to get. And then you can't enjoy it.

I have heard from people that fought against the UFT and the non-democracy in the New York City public schools in the '60s. I have heard from people that I went to law school with in the '70s, people who I tried cases with in places as far away as Arizona and Tampa during the '80s. I have heard from my imprisoned political friends, Richard Williams and other names from the '60s, '70s and '80s, all of whom have one question: what can I do to help?

And I hope that we're going to have some answers about what they can do to help because I guess I am a throwback to the '60s, and that is organize, organize, organize. The only way we can defeat this is to be organized, is to fight back, is to say no to Ashcroft. He wants us to believe that he is the constitution, that he is the person who will interpret it for our own good.

I think he missed a few lessons. Maybe he was demonstrating against some abortion clinic, but he certainly missed ex post facto, making something a crime after the fact, because the indictment, which can be downloaded on CNN and I invite everybody to do so, is rife with ex post facto. First she'll do this, then we'll pass a law prohibiting it.

Also, it should be noted that the attorney-client privilege is the crunch of this indictment. It is really what he wants to do away with and although, heaven knows I have fought long and hard against the system of so-called injustice that we practice under, still in all I know that, I've always said, I'm keeping parts of it even after the revolution.

And one of those parts is the attorney-client privilege because it is the only way that you can vigorously advocate for your client. It is the only way that you can become at one with your client and know that person's heart and mind. If that person feels that you are but an agent of the government and you are going to, under some kind of pressure, reveal what he or she has said to you, then they are not going to be forthcoming. The whole basis of advocacy disappears once Mr. Ashcroft and his minions are allowed to videotape, audiotape your meetings with the client. And I tell you that this happened long before 9-11. This was happening in 2000 that he was videotaping us.

Usually if one breaks a Bureau of Prison, and I say this laughingly, edict, one is told one can't visit the prison again, or one gets some sort of administrative slap on the wrist of some kind. One does not usually get indicted for aiding a terrorist organization. But I say to you that if Ashcroft can do it to me he can do it to any lawyer. And the fear factor for him is I'll pick on Stewart, she's got a lot of name recognition, she's got a lot of friends. If we can defeat her no other lawyer will put his head out of the sand in the next 20 years.

I just want to end by saying, because I know some of you have to go to other meetings, my seven-year-old grandson, Arthur, said to my son, did grandma really help the terrorists? I said that to get that response from you. It is for Arthur and all those children out there, the world they are going to live in, that we fight here. His father said no, they lied about her. But you know when they put that "T" label on you, it's like the old "A" for adultery may have been, that "T" label sticks. And even Arthur, who loves me beyond all things, who would rather have me read Rumplestilskin to him than to breath, had to ask, did she do this? And his father's answer was the right one: "They lie about her."

I hope you will join me and Arthur and all of us in fighting this. Thank you.

To go back to the main Socialist Scholars page, click here.