Several protesters were forcibly removed from the audience at a speech given by former Attorney General John Ashcroft at the University of Colorado at Boulder Tuesday night.

The organizers of the event called in extra security from the Boulder Police Department at the last minute after hearing rumors about the protests, said Jessica Forthofer, chair of CU's Cultural Events Board, which was responsible for organizing the speech.

"We thought that the conservative viewpoint isn't very espoused on the CU campus, and that's why we wanted John Ashcroft," Forthofer said, but she added that the board's guest speakers, who have included the Rev. Al Sharpton and Charlton Heston, had never received such a heated reception.

About 20 student protesters from CU and Naropa University, wearing shirts with "shame" written on the backs and wearing American flags over their faces, welcomed Ashcroft to the stage by standing up and turning their backs to him.

But the small group of silent protesters from the Students for Peace and Justice were overshadowed by several other unidentified demonstrators who rushed the stage to confront Ashcroft repeatedly during his speech and the question-and-answer portion.

"I have a question," yelled one woman who was removed several times but "kept finding a way back into the auditorium. ""What medication are you on that you could violate our rights with such a clear conscience because I'd really like to get some."

Ashcroft spent most of his speech defending to the estimated crowd of about 1,000 people the legacy of his tenure as attorney general: the implementation of the Patriot Act following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The way we defend our country is to prosecute, but the threat of prosecution is empty to those who would willingly extinguish themselves to harm us," Ashcroft said. "Prosecution is the re-creation of the past. My directive from the president was to prevent, so we changed the way we did things."

Ashcroft remained calm while the crowd booed him loudly several times during his speech, including when he said Guantanamo Bay was a "good place" for detainees and that he was proud of the United States government and its self-policing of Abu Ghraib, but he lost his composure when a man in the audience called him a liar.

"For those of you who have nothing to learn," Ashcroft asked. "Why did you come tonight?"

Jessica Evans, a Naropa student and one of the masked protesters, said the angry outbursts from the audience was evidence that the Bush administration did not give enough voice to the concerns of the public.

"What I saw out there was very real anger," Evans said. "Unfortunately the message gets lost when the voice of a heckler is the only voice of dissent heard."

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