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As you know, in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, federal, state, and local governments are taking extraordinary measures to prevent the rapid spread of the deadly virus.What happens when valid public health orders are left to the police to enforce? Do prisons and detention centers undermine our efforts to reduce the spread of the virus? And does surveillance or even the military have a role to play in combating the pandemic?
What about our rights?
Join Defending Rights & Dissent & The Nation for a FREE virtual town hall on Thursday, April 16 at 8 pm called "Our Civil Liberties in the Age of COVID-19." During this important national conversation, we will explore what these measures mean for you, your rights, and our collective future - and what you can do right now to remain vigilant even in the face of an unprecedented crisis. Among the topics to be discussed will be: surveillance, policing, and immigrant detention.
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Moderated by DRAD policy director and journalist Chip Gibbons, this important & provocative virtual town hall will feature The Nation's DC correspondent Ken Klippenstein, legal & policy director for Project South Azadeh Shahshahani, In These Times web editor Sarah Lazare, author of "The End of Policing" Alex Vitale, and the Cato Institute's Patrick Eddington.
This moment we're living in can present challenging questions for civil libertarians and those who are concerned about over-policing. Hopefully, we can provide you with some much-needed answers. You don't want to miss this conversation.
Hope you can join us,
Sue
Town Hall Participants
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Ken Klippenstein
is The Nation’s DC Correspondent. In recent weeks, he's covered the
Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic and has
provided an important critical review of how that response has impacted
vulnerable communities, particularly immigrants and migrants at the
border. Prior to joining The Nation, Klippenstein was a Senior
Investigative Reporter for The Young Turks and a Contributor to The
Daily Beast.
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Azadeh Shahshahani
is the Legal & Advocacy Director at Project South and a past
president of the National Lawyers Guild. She previously served as
director of the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project for the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Georgia. Shahshahani has worked
for a number of years in the US South to protect the human rights of
immigrants and Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities. She
is the author or editor of several human rights reports, including a
2017 report, "Imprisoned Justice: Inside Two Immigrant Detention Centers
in Georgia", co-produced by Project South and the Penn State Law Center
for Immigrants' Rights Clinic. Shahshahani has appeared on Democracy
Now! and BBC, and has been quoted by the New York Times, the Washington
Post, CNN, the Guardian, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and other
outlets. In addition, Shahshahani serves as a board member of Defending
Rights & Dissent.
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Sarah Lazare
is web editor at In These Times. She comes from a background in
independent journalism for publications including The Nation, Tom
Dispatch, YES! Magazine, and Al Jazeera America. A former staff writer
for AlterNet and Common Dreams, Sarah co-edited the book "About Face:
Military Resisters Turn Against War." Sarah got her start in journalism
reporting for the Independent Media Center movement and has organized
against U.S. militarism at home and abroad.
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Alex S. Vitale
is Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social
Justice Project at Brooklyn College and a Visiting Professor at London
Southbank University. He has spent the last 25 years writing about
policing and consults both police departments and human rights
organizations internationally. He has spent the last 25 years writing
about policing and consults both police departments and human rights
organizations internationally. Prof. Vitale is the author of City of
Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics
and The End of Policing. He is also a frequent essayist, whose writings
have appeared in The NY Times, NY Daily News, The Nation, Vice News,
Jacobin, and USA Today.
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Patrick G. Eddington
is a research fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the
Cato Institute. From 2004 to 2014 he served as communications director
and later as senior policy advisor to Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ). He is also
Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for
Security Studies. From 1988 to 1996 Eddington was a military imagery
analyst at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center.
Eddington’s opinion pieces have appeared in a number of publications,
including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, and
Army Times, and he’s appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, SKYNews,
and CNN, among other venues.
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Chip GIbbons
is the policy director of Defending Rights and Dissent, where he
authored the report "Still Spying on Dissent: The Enduring Problem of
FBI First Amendment Abuse." Chip has advised both state and federal
lawmakers on the First Amendment implications of pending legislation and
has appeared as an expert on US Constitutional Law on Al-Jazeera. Chip
is also a journalist and researcher whose writings on the FBI have
appeared in The Intercept, Jacobin, The Nation, In These Times, and The
Washington Post.
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Defending Rights & Dissent
1325 G St. NW Suite 500 | Washington, District of Columbia 20005
202.552.7408 | info@rightsanddissent.org
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