Greater Tampa Chapter of the ACLU of Florida


Home News & Events Meetings & Activities Our Issues Take Action Get Help Join Now Bill of Rights Contact Us About ACLU of Florida	News & Events Greater Tampa ACLU Annual Meeting on Tuesday, 11 March 2008 beginning at 6:30 PM was a Great Success. This was a GREAT year for the Greater Tampa Chapter of the ACLU of Florida. The meeting location was held at the John F. Germany Public Library (Hillsborough County's Main Library, in Downtown Tampa) Main Auditorium, 900 North Ashley Drive (http://www.hcplc.org/hcplc/liblocales/jfg/), Tampa, Florida 33602-3788 with location phone 813.273.3652. We reviewed the year, had GREAT guest speakers and shared our success with our members. The Annual Meeting program focused on Racial Justice issues. The guest speakers were include: Dennis Parker, Esq.(http://www.ACLU.org/about/staff/25824prs20060612.html, http://www.ACLU.org/scotus/2006/video/index.html), Director of the ACLU?s National Racial Justice Program (http://www.ACLU.org/racialjustice), and Muslima Lewis, Esq. (http://www.ACLUFL.org/about/staff.cfm) Director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Florida (http://www.ACLUFL.org/issues/issue_detail.cfm?iID=8). Dennis Parker will speak on the "school to prison pipeline". The speakers also include Michael (Mike) E. Pheneger, Colonel, US Army Retired, and member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the National and Florida ACLUs and Rebecca Harrison Steele, Esq., the Director of the ACLU of Florida's West Central Florida regional office (http://www.ACLUFL.org/about/staff.cfm) & Steve Phillippy, Vice President of the ACLU of Florida Board of Directors (http://www.ACLUFL.org/about/board.cfm). Some food and refreshments were served and time was allowed for informal networking with area, state and national ACLU leadership assembled. http://www.PathProject.net/) Training in Hillsborough County Near downtown tampa. This is for Attorneys who wished to Help Pregnant Teens Obtain Judicial By-Pass of Parental Notification. Thank you to everyone who attended! (If you are an attorney and would like to be trained in Tampa, contact the PATH Project at the website above.) You are making a difference. http://www.law.GeorgeTown.edu/faculty/facinfo/tab_faculty.cfm?Status=Faculty&ID=235 http://blog.aclu.org/index.php?/authors/10-Ben-Wizner,-ACLU, http://blog.aclu.org/index.php?/categories/1-Torture-Abuse, http://blog.aclu.org/index.php?/archives/2007/03/summary.html On November 28, 2007 - The Greater Tampa ACLU held a PATH (Providing Access to Teen Health, The Balancing Liberty and Security Civil Liberties Forum held on Thursday, 6 September 2007 at 7 PM at the Channel Side Cinemas 10 (close to the Florida Aquarium), Tampa, FL 33602 was well attended. This forum brought to Tampa some international experts on civil liberties law and security. Those experts included the following: Professor David Cole, Esq. from Georgetown University Law School Ben Wizner, Esq., a staff attorney at the ACLU since 2001. Mr. Wizner specializes in national security, human rights, and first amendment issues. He has been involved in numerous post-9/11 civil liberties cases, including a challenge to the CIA's abduction, detention, and torture of an innocent German citizen (El-Masri v. Tenet); a suit against a private aviation services company for facilitating the CIA's rendition to torture of five Muslim men (Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.); lawsuits aimed at exposing FBI and Pentagon surveillance of non-violent protestors; and suits challenging the discriminatory removal of Arab and South Asian men from commercial flights and other public venues. He has traveled to Guantanamo Bay to observe and report on Military Commission trials. Web: Dr. Parvez Ahmed, National Chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). He is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of North Florida, when he has spare time from CAIR. Web: http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=Board&person=Parvez This event is sponsored by the Greater Tampa ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, the national ACLU and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Florida (http://www.CAIR-Florida.org/). Thank you to everyone who attended. The Greater Tampa ACLU Chapter would like to thank everyone for making 2006 & 2007 our best years ever! The Greater Tampa ACLU leadership would like to thank everyone who helped with the ACLU Find Habeas Street Theater Event, downtown Tampa FL on Tuesday, 26 June 2007 from approximately 11 AM to 1:30 PM. Save Habeas ACLU Demonstration Day (Washington DC and all over the US). Find Habeas Action Center: http://FindHabeas.com/action-center; http://www.ACLU.org/. The location was Lykes Park, also known as Gaslight Park, in downtown Tampa FL. ACLU volunteer and staff work on voting integrity was GREAT! The ACLU has joined the lawsuit in Sarasota County related to the integrity of the voting systems in that election (http://aclufl.org/news_events/?action=viewRelease&emailAlertID=2256). The David Cole event on May 25th, 2006 a huge success. In the words of one participant, it was "The most important program I've been to in ten years!" For those who were unable to attend, or didn't recieve materials, you can download the ACTION ITEM PACKAGE. Other Greater Tampa ACLU news, events & calendars are located at our group communications environment at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ACLUTampa/cal. Please see the Meetings tab on this website for information about Greater Tampa Chapter meetings and events. This web page is for "News", analysis, thank yous, reviews, some events repeated from the "Meetings" tab, etc.