Subject: Thanks and follow-up
From: "Ann Beeson" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:28:10 -0500

Hi John-

Thanks again for taking the time amidst your crazy schedule -- and many
more important obligations -- to meet last week.  I'm writing to follow
up on one topic we discussed -- what the incoming Administration could
do to address domestic national security policies and practices that
unfairly target Muslim, South Asian and Arab communities in America.
You asked whether I could provide you with a document outlining
recommendations.  To follow up, I asked two leaders working on these
issues, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates and Aziz Huq of the Brennan
Center for Justice (both OSI grantees), to prepare a brief memo
outlining concrete steps that the new Administration could take to
correct these discriminatory policies and practices.  Their memo is
attached.

Muslim Advocates and the Brennan Center are working closely with other
advocacy partners in affected communities, and they would greatly
appreciate the opportunity to meet with members of the transition team
to discuss their recommendations.  Please let me know if I can do
anything more to help facilitate such a conversation.

In case you aren't familiar with the authors, I have included brief bios
below.

Best,

Ann

 

Aziz Huq directs the liberty and national security project at the
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where he has been
counsel in several cases concerning detention of citizens and
non-citizens without due process including Munaf v. Geren and Al-Marri
v. Pucciarelli.  He has also written numerous amicus briefs on national
security issues.  His March 2007 book Unchecked and Unbalanced:
Presidential Power in a Time of Terror (New Press) co-authored with
Fritz Schwarz, was called "necessary reading" by Michiko Kakatani in The
New York Times.  He writes regularly for The Nation, The American
Progress, Huffington Post, and the World Policy Journal, and has
published essays in Human Rights Advocacy Stories; Liberty Under Attack:
Reclaiming Our Freedoms in a Age of Terror"; The Encyclopedia of Islam
in America; and One of the Boys: Women and Torture.  He previously
clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the
United States, and for Judge Robert D. Sack of the Second Circuit Court
of Appeals.  He teaches a seminar at NYU Law School on "Just War Theory
and Terrorism," and was in 2006 was awarded a Carnegie Scholars
Fellowship.  Mr. Huq also is a senior consultant analyst with the
International Crisis Group on issues of constitutional and judicial
reform in South Asia. In March 2009, he will join the faculty of the
University of Chicago Law School to teach constitutional law and
national security law.

Farhana Khera is the first Executive Director of Muslim Advocates and
the National Association of Muslim Lawyers. Prior to joining Muslim
Advocates and NAML, Ms. Khera was Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary
Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property
Rights. She worked for six years directly for Senator Russell D.
Feingold (D-WI), the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee. Ms.
Khera focused substantially on the USA PATRIOT Act, racial and religious
profiling, and other civil liberties issues raised by the government's
anti-terrorism policies since September 11, 2001. She was the Senator's
lead staff member in developing anti-racial profiling legislation and
organizing subcommittee hearings on racial profiling.  Prior to her
service with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Khera was an associate
with Hogan & Hartson, specializing in commercial and administrative
litigation. She also worked with Ross, Dixon & Masback, serving as the
lead associate on several pro bono employment discrimination cases,
which resulted in the firm being honored with the Outstanding
Achievement Award by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
and Urban Affairs. Ms. Khera has been quoted or profiled by The New York
Times, Associated Press, Austin American-Statesman, and San Jose Mercury
News, as well as legal, ethnic and religious media.

 

-----

Ann Beeson

Executive Director, U.S. Programs

Open Society Institute

400 West 59th Street

New York, New York  10019

212-548-0350 (ph)

646-557-2515 (fax)

[email-masked]