NORWAY – Street theater with audience participation was the medium used Thursday to examine how the U.S. Patriot Act affects people’s civil rights.

The Public Interest Forum was hosted by the Norway Memorial Library on Main Street.

The script was loaned by the group Freedom Rousers in the Portland area, which describes itself as “citizens concerned about the erosion of civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.” Its aim is to create an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect for dialogue and consciousness around this issue.

The only prop was an old-fashioned cowbell that Nancy Wood of Harrison used to signal the beginning and end of the play. Following a reading of The Bill of Rights by Mary Adams of Lovell, Pat Fogg of Oxford reminded the audience that The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, has been the cornerstone of individual liberties for more than 200 years.

Tilla Durr of Sweden said these basic rights continue to be eroded. Signed into law less than two years ago, the USA Patriot Act, an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Requiring Appropriate Tools to Interrupt and Obstruct Terrorism, gives the FBI authority to monitor political and religious activities. The government, she said, can get a secret warrant to search a person’s home, monitor their Internet use and e-mail, and obtain medical and financial records. If asked, libraries and bookstores must report what books a patron takes and are forbidden to tell the patron that their reading habits are being watched. And the government can detain a person, deny them access to a lawyer or charge them with a crime.

When actors from the audience said they didn’t understand, Durr and Fogg and others responded with examples. In reference to the Attorney General’s edict authorizing the FBI to place political and religious groups under surveillance without evidence of wrongdoing, Mary Adams of Lovell said, “Does that mean what I think it means? I can be spied on in my church?”

Durr said yes.

Peter Lenz of Norway said he’d been harassed and intimidated during the Vietnam War and all he did was sign a few petitions, write letters to his newspaper and organize a discussion at church.

After hearing implications of the Patriot Act, Wood said, “This is awful. What can I do to stop the loss of my rights?”

That was just the opening Fogg needed. She said one citizen right is to petition the government. “Speak up. Let people know you don’t want your rights messed with. Write your congressman. Write the president,” she said.

She suggested people support a local resolution rejecting the Patriot Act as the states of Hawaii, Alaska and Vermont plus about 140 towns and cities have done.

Durr said every person can make a difference. “Maybe the action you take will be just what’s needed to save our liberties guaranteed by our Bill of Rights for future generations,” she said.

In the discussion that followed the end of the play, Durr said she remembers the McCarthy era when her family was under surveillance for 25 years because her mother was suspected of being a Communist sympathizer. She said it’s imperative that people support each other at the local level in cases of injustice because what happens locally is a microcosm of what happens nationally.

The next step, participants agreed, is to organize local opposition to the Patriot Act.