Aug. 31, 2007
Contact: Rita Mitchell , University Relations
‘Surveillance, Terrorism and the Constitution’ academic speaker’s topic
MARTIN, Tenn. – Award-winning author and Constitutional scholar Roger K. Newman will speak at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 17, in Watkins Auditorium of Boling University Center at the University of Tennessee at Martin. “Surveillance, Terrorism and the Constitution” is his lecture topic. The presentation will be co-sponsored by Honors Programs and the American Democracy Project. The event is free and open to the public.
With master’s degrees from the University of Virginia and New York University, Newman has achieved a national reputation as a constitutional scholar. While teaching at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and serving as New York University Research Scholar from 1985-2001, Newman has published and lectured extensively, from one end of the country to the other, on major constitutional issues.
Hailed by Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., as “a scholar of the first rank,” Newman’s “Hugo Black: A Biography” (1994) received the Scribes Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is co-author of “Banned Films: Movies, Censors and the First Amendment” (1982) and editor-in-chief of the four-volume encyclopedia, The Constitution and Its Amendments (1999). Currently, he is editing the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law.
Noting that “if the first casualty of war is truth, civil liberty is second,” Newman warns that “the reaction to 9-11 threatens to restrict civil liberties on a far greater scale and in ways we do not yet know.” Prime among these threats is the “unparalleled extent” to which the government is monitoring and recording private conversations. Newman will discuss personal freedom, technology and the role of the Constitution.
“As we celebrate the 220th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, we are again locked in conflict over the issue of personal liberty vs. security in time of war,” said Dr. Dan McDonough, UT Martin Honors Programs director. “Constitutional scholar Roger Newman has been studying these issues for decades and can be relied upon to present an enlightening discussion of the constitutional implications of our current situation.”
For more information, contact McDonough at danmc@utm.edu or 731-881-7436.
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