GN summer fall09 Digital.indd - National Lawyers Guild

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009Major panelsPolice Occupation of Communities of Color: Litigatingand Organizing to Fight BackFrom military-style seizure and interrogation checkpointslaunched in Washington, D.C. to confiscation and towingcheckpoints in Maywood and Pomona, CA, the police are deployingblockades in communities of color that set a modernstandard for martial law against a civilian population.This panel will discuss the tactics being used by thepolice to put targeted communities in a constant state of siegeand offer tactics and strategies to challenge and stop them.The panel will focus also on the interrelation and coordinationbetween the fight in the court house and organizing in thecommunity. Presentations will be from litigators and activists.Economic Collapse: Surviving the Crisis on the LegalFrontThe economic crisis is claiming victims in all fields ofwork. Attorneys, legal workers and activists are not immuneto the inhumanities of the massive “downsizing” and collapsingmarkets. This panel seeks to propose strategies forsurvival. Although the focus will be on issues faced by newerattorneys, legal workers and activists, the information andtactics presented will also be useful for those who are moreexperienced and are facing similar obstacles. Strategies discussedwill include confronting the shrinking job market andsecuring grants and funding.Ending the War on Drugs: Pre-Booking DiversionPre-booking diversion programs represent collaborationamong law enforcement, service providers, and the communitiesthey serve in support of an effective and cost-efficientalternative to incarcerating low-level drug offenders. Thispanel will provide an overview of the essential componentsof a pre-booking diversion program, describe successfuldemonstration projects in Seattle, and discuss strategies forengaging key stakeholders in exploring this model in othercommunities.Who is to Blame: The Economic Crisis, Attacks onWorkers’ Wages, and the Growth of Protectionism andAnti-immigrant Sentiment?We are currently facing a profound global financial crisiscaused in part by the deregulation of Wall Street. Yet its rootslie in the long-term weakening of the real American economyover several decades in an era of globalization—evidencedby closed factories, outsourcing of high tech jobs, low wagejobs with no benefits, and the building of a credit economy tosustain “middle class” living standards. The current economiccrisis has resulted in billions of federal dollars to banksand automobile companies, while the working class facescontinued plant shutdowns, home foreclosures, and demandsfor wage freezes and concessions. Populist politicians havetapped into workers’ frustrations, blaming the loss of jobs onimmigrant workers and calling for “Buy America” campaigns.The panel will analyze the real reasons for the economiccrisis, address the ideological and practical weaknessesof protectionist and anti-immigrant policies, and providealternative arguments and solutions based on internationaltrade union solidarity and working class unity.Perpetual War or Rule of Law?Presidents Reagan and Bush promised that the collapseof the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War would leadto a “peace dividend,” where the money that formerly went tomilitary preparedness would be saved or spent on improvingour infrastructure. No such luck. The fall of the Soviet Unionushered in the era of perpetual war and successive administrationshave changed the locales but not the fundamentals.There is another way. It requires that all countries, startingwith the U.S., submit themselves to a rule-based regimebased on the UN Charter and international human rightsconventions.This panel will explore the Obama administration’s plansfor continuing the era of perpetual war and an alternativevision, one established by the UN charter, still more honoredin the breach than the observance. The world must choosebetween the law of the jungle and the rule of law and we inthe United States have a special obligation to work toward thelatter. This panel will give us the tools.The Surveillance State and Domestic Spying in theObama Era: Tactics to End the Bush LegacyWith no criminal predicate, millions of people have beenswept into federal and local law enforcement databases, manytargeted because of their political beliefs and activities, theirreligious beliefs, their race and ethnicity or because they inadvertentlyfell into one of the many broad categories used tojustify and execute the sweeping data collection program. Anumber of organizations and practitioners have been activelyworking to identify, expose, challenge and expunge this datacollection.This panel will discuss the political direction of thecountry in terms of the security state apparatus set up underthe Bush Administration and its direction under the ObamaAdministration which has stated it intends to maintain thefocus on law enforcement as an intelligence driven operation.Further, the panel will provide specific tactics and knowledgethat practitioners can use in progressive litigation tofight back and expose domestic spying from different anglesincluding constitutional rights and First Amendment litigationto FOIA litigation. □▪ 18 ▪