News & Events Archive

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.  It was sponsored by the Greater Tampa ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Florida.  See:  http://www.CAIR-Florida.org/ .  Thanks to all who 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.  See:    http://www.law.GeorgeTown.edu/faculty/facinfo/tab_faculty.cfm?Status=Faculty&ID=235 ;

*  Ben Wizner, Esq., a staff attorney at the ACLU since 2001.  See:    http://blog.aclu.org/2007/08/07/when-torture-is-the-only-way-to-describe-it/ ;

  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; and

*  Dr. Parvez Ahmed, National Chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).  See:    http://drparvezahmed.blogspot.com/.  Dr. Ahmed is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of North Florida, when he has spare time from his responsibilities with CAIR.

The Greater Tampa ACLU held two PATH (Providing Access to Pregnant Teens) Project Trainings in Hillsborough County near downtown in 2007.  This training is for attorneys who wish to help pregnant teens obtain judicial by-pass of parental notification.  A big thank you to all who attended; you ARE making a difference.  If you are an attorney and would like to be trained in or near Tampa, please check the PATH Project website at:

 http://www.PathProject.net/

  And for more information on our two local trainings, please check these links:

 Path_training_june9.cfm ; and
 Path_training_nov_28.cfm .

Tuesday, 26 June, 2007 marked a splendid "Find Habeas" Event for Greater Tampa ACLU.  The Greater Tampa ACLU leadership would like to thank everyone who helped with the ACLU Find Habeas Street Theater Event in downtown Tampa from approximately 11 AM to 1:30 PM on 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.  See:   http://aclufl.org/news_events/?action=viewRelease&emailAlertID=2256 .

The Greater Tampa ACLU held a hugely successful event on May 25, 2006:  Professor David Cole, Esq. from Georgetown University Law School (Yes, the very same Prof. Cole as above.) came to speak at USF on a panel about the administration's illegal spying, its abuse of executive power, and how dubious it is that we are safer after all of this.  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.