Sponsored with the National Lawyers Guild, International A.N.S.W.E.R-L.A., The Office of the Americas and Southwestern University School of Law

Date: Saturday, September 18, 2004

Location: Southwestern University School of Law
675 Westmoreland Avenue
Los Angeles, CA
Time: 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

For the past three years, the Bush administration has consistently described our country as at peril and at war. The politics of fear have been used to justify an unprecedented array of security measures, beginning with the Patriot Act that was passed in the immediate aftermath of September 11. The detention and deportation of immigrants; racial profiling including special registration procedures for immigrants from certain countries; new statutes rendering previously protected First Amendment activity criminal; the revision of guidelines previously established to protect the freedom of political associations from government investigation and infiltration; increased electronic surveillance, unmonitored by ordinary criminal procedure principles; the creation of military tribunals and "enemy combatant" status to remove people in detention from constitutional courts; the monitoring of conversations between attorneys and their clients; restrictions of freedom of information procedures designed to allow citizens to know what their government is doing-these are but some of the troubling initiatives the government has taken. Moreover, the government has systematically asserted the right of the executive branch to act without judicial review-an assault on our basic constitutional protection of checks and balances assured by separation of powers.

Many constitutional law experts believe that the government has already established the framework for establishing a national security state in this country. This conference will bring together some of the most knowledgeable national experts who have been monitoring the fate of civil liberties in the context of the war on terrorism. We hope you will join us to discuss and debate the legal and political issues that are paramount at this crucial juncture in our nation's history.

• Implications of the Supreme Court's decisions in the Guantanamo, Hamdi and Padilla cases.
  
• The legal impact of the current political atmosphere on immigrants.
  
• The role the PATRIOT Act plays in establishing an infrastructure for a national security state.
  
• What legal challenges have been made to repressive statutes and administrative measures.
  
• How you can use international conventions and treaties in U.S. courts.