The swanky Crowne Plaza Hotel seems an unlikely place for 300 scruffy-faced and sandal-clad activists to spend the weekend. But there they are, scarfing down wraps while waitstaff in crisp black and white uniforms collect plates and glasses.

These delegates to Amnesty International's annual regional conference sit in a dimly lit room with garish green and red carpet and stiff chairs. They're waiting for New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh and human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith to reinforce what everyone here already knows: Bush is bad. The war on terrorism is a sham. And prisoner abuse must stop.

Hersh opens with a joke. "The way I see it the bad news is there are 1,185 days left in the Bush administration. The good news is tomorrow there will be one less." The crowd eats it up. He discusses breaking the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and how his and others' investigations have had zero effect on the president. "I don't know if it's because he talks to God or whatever," Hersh explains.

Smith, with his British accent and liberal sprinkling of "bullshit," gets the biggest laugh when discussing how he wants to help Eminem collect royalties for all the times U.S. soldiers played his music to torture detainees. Smith represents 40 Guantanamo Bay prisoners and says he's sure the Cuban compound will close in a year or so because it's bad PR. Abuses will continue. They'll just be covered up better, he says.

After a short Q and A (during which one woman calls the speakers her heroes) the men get a standing ovation and an AI leader takes the podium. "Are you outraged?" she asks the crowd. "Are you inspired to act?" A few yell out. "Yes! Yes!" and someone passes out "commitment cards." She asks people to stand to indicate they agreed to hold a teach-in, write a letter or call a politician. "For all of those not standing, stand up and say what you're going to commit to," she says. "We're not leaving this room until we're all standing."

Most people stand, but some are too engrossed in conversation to heed the rallying cry. Someone yells, "Woo hoo!" Everyone is now free to pass through the hotel's revolving doors and denounce torture in the streets of Center City.