West Milford residents were greeted with a non-traditional presentation during the public portion of the January 4 council meeting. Tyler Warden and his roommate, Adam Grovic, were in town for their college’s winter break. While other students were on a Florida beach or skiing in Maine, these two students had engaged in some serious scholarship. Tyler started off the presentation by letting us know that he appreciated his American freedom, in particular, his freedom to speak up in town hall of his own “free will,” and not because of fatherly influence from Councilman James Warden. As is the case for many Americans, Tyler and Adam had been following the news over the past few months and were upset by the conflicts they observed. On the one hand people their own age were fighting, sometimes losing their lives or becoming seriously and permanently wounded in the fight to protect our freedom, democracy and civil liberties. On the other hand, the US Congress had re-approved the “Patriot Act,” which deprives US citizens of their civil liberties in the name of protecting those very civil liberties. Likewise, President Bush and US Military officials have imprisoned both foreigners and Americans without due process, without the possibility of a defense lawyer, and in situations where they had undergone physical and psychological torture, without being convicted of any crime. Indeed, these two students were upset, even frightened, to learn that US citizens had been spied upon, and had their privacy rights violated, without a court warrant. Who might have the “right” to know what books these students had checked out of the library? What if one of them decided to date a Moslem? Is there now not just fear of terrorism, but increasing fear of our own government taking away our inalienable rights? Tyler and Adam had spent some of their winter break studying the Patriot Act, the US Constitution and the case law that provides for its interpretation and implementation. How many other Americans have gone deeper than the TV one-liners, into understanding our civil liberties, as we watch them crumble before our eyes, ironically in the name of liberty, freedom and democracy? As an NYU professor, I was pleased to see two of our youth, perhaps two of our future leaders, speaking on such important topics, and being so well-prepared. They spoke eloquently, with passion and confidence. They ended their presentation with a request to the council to pass a resolution in support of our constitutionally-endowed civil rights and against a US government that appears to be in the process of taking them away. Adam and Tyler received a round of applause from the residents who packed the meeting room. They had an impact upon me that has lasted many days. As a senior citizen, perhaps three times their age, I began reviewing my past decades as an American citizen. I thought first about my early childhood years during World War II, when Christian children, with the support of their parents, engaged in “war games” by throwing rocks, acorns, gingko tree stink-balls, prickly sycamore balls and ink-laden mulberries at non-Christian children, the minority in the neighborhood. Then I thought about my Japanese cousins who spent World War II in a California internment camp because they were Japanese-American artists. Later, I could still vividly visualize the front door of a Washington DC restaurant a few blocks from my home, which had a sign saying “No Negroes and Dogs.” I remember teaching math at Roosevelt High School the first year of racial integration in Washington. All the teachers in the building, except for myself, required black children to sit on one side of the room and white children on the other. The other teachers thought it strange I permitted the students to sit next to whomever they wanted. Next, came six weeks of horror during the summer of 1959. I had applied for a job as a mathematical statistician at the US Naval Research Lab, based on a score of 99 percent on the civil service test. But, this was the era of Joseph McCarthy, and I might not get the job because I was “too liberal” for the times. The job I wanted was classified “top secret,” so I was investigated for six weeks by the FBI. Would I be prevented from getting the job because I had taken a philosophy course in which we read texts by and about Communists? Would I lose the job because my mother had organized a children’s art exhibit sponsored by a women’s Socialist organization? What about the Lebanese guy I had dated when Lebanon was a US enemy? Ultimately, I got the job, only to find rampant discrimination against women among the civilian researchers in the male-dominated US government research lab. After the council meeting I went to The Huntsman to enjoy some food and conversation with my newly-made young friends. Although we are about 40 years apart in age, we share a philosophy of government based on civil liberties. I applaud Tyler and Adam for speaking to our West Milford governing body about their views on an important aspect of US government. I hope that I can soon applaud that council for enacting a resolution in support of civil liberties in America.