Listen to the Conference (Frank Serpico keynote, expert panel, workshops and interviews)
July 26, 2003 - "Protecting
Our Civil Liberties: The Core of Democracy"
Fourteen local and national groups joined G.C.C. and Traprock as co-sponsors: Interfaith Council of Franklin County, W. Mass A.C.L.U., Pax Christi USA, All Soul’s Church Social Action Committee, Conscious Communications Institute, Amherst Human Rights Commission Peace Development FundCharboneau Learning Center, Pax Christi USA, SAGE Committee, World Learning/School for International Training, W. Mass A.F.S.C., the Greensboro Justice Fund and the New England Coalition for Sustainable Population.
The Saturday sessions started with welcoming remarks by Greenfield Community College President Robert Pura. Frank Serpico then answered questions as a follow-up to his keynote address the previous evening.
Morning panelists outlined pressing challenges to civil rights, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution and then conducted work-shops.
*Prize-winning journalist and professor of politics Christopher H. Pyle addressed the problems of past, present and proposed surveillance, called total information awareness. His morning workshop advocated for more intelligent anti-terror policies, explaining that current law provides woefully inadequate checks against inevitable abuses. Pyle worked with Senator Sam Ervin, Jr.'s Judiciary Sub-Committee on Constitutional Rights, and the Senate Committee on Government Relations. He helped write the Privacy Act in 1974. His articles have been published in hundreds of newspapers including the New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Wall Street Journal.
^Attorney Bill Newman is the Director of the Western Mass Regional Office of the American Civil Liberties Union. Newman deftly used wit and humor while addressing a wide- range of issues from military tribunals to the loss of basic, legal due process.
*C. William
Michaels of Baltimore, author of No Greater Threat, America After September
11th and the Rise of a National Security State, teamed up with Newman to demystify the PATRIOT Acts I
& II, Homeland Security and Presidential directives that undermine
constitutional rights. Michaels is a co-founder of Pax Christi in Baltimore. He
called upon citizens and religious communities to consider the 12
characteristics of a national security state and asks them to examine where our
nation is headed.
^Mahsa Khanbabai, pro-bono attorney for the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation (PAIR ) Project in Boston, discussed illegal detentions & the targeting of international neighbors. Khanbababai was born in Iran, raised in western Massachusetts and graduated cum laude form Albany Law Schol in 1998. She is a member of the Massachusetts Governor's Advisory Council on Refugees and Immigrants and has dedicated her career to immigration and naturalization issues.
*Sut Jhally, professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and founder and executive director of The Media Education Foundation in Northampton presented a morning workshop on Fear, Fallacy, & the Media, Spinning & Un-spinning the Fictions. He is one of the most popular teachers at the University of Massachusetts. Over the past ten years, Jhally has been the executive producer of more than twenty videos produced and distributed by the Media Education Foundation. He is co-editor of Cultural Politics in Contemporary America. Jhally has written broadly on issues of popular representation.
After lunch a panel of workshop presenters introduced skills and solutions addressed in five 'How-to' WORKSHOPS.
Irvine Sobelman - Town by Town, Resolutions for Constitutional Rights.
Sandra Boston - Speaking Up for Civil Liberties--Smart Skills for Dialogue
Leo Hwang Carlos--Writers' Workshop for Civil Liberties
Ezzell Floraniña-- Theater Improv for Civil Liberties yes"
Lewis Battalen--Libraries and Intellectual Freedom, Will they Endure?
Copyright 2003 Charles Jenks
charles@peacejournal.org 8/18/03
Traprock Peace Center, 103A Keets Road, Deerfield, MA 01342; 413-773-7427
See also grassrootspeace.org/CivilLibertiesConf072503/">Photo Album of Friday night session.
| page 1 of 6 |  |
