Protecting America’s Promise

Abstract

The 2007 joint National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML) and NationalMuslimLawStudentsAssociation (NMLSA) conference took place on 9-11 November in San Francisco. Both NAML and NMLSA are rapidly growing organizations with many young Muslim students now deciding to enter the legal profession, a field in which they have been historically underrepresented. This year’s theme, “Protecting America’s Promise,” could not have been more appropriate. The conference was kicked off by an electrifying talk by Jameel Jaffer, co-author of Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Columbia University Press: 2007) and director of the ACLU’s National Security Program. He detailed the manner in which the Bush administration has implemented a systematic program of torture since 9/11, and how it has done this without significant challenge from the other two branches of government: Congress and the judiciary. The first plenary session, which addressed the topic of “Investigating and Prosecuting Terrorism Cases: Seeking Justice while Upholding Constitutional Principles,” focused on the tension between bringing alleged terrorists to justice and upholding core constitutional rights and protections, including the accused’s rights to counsel, a speedy trial, and to confront the evidence presented by the plaintiff. The second plenary session, “The Impact and Legality of U.S. CounterterrorismPolicies Overseas,” discussedwhether the United States has accurately framed the terror threat and how its policies have inflamed or diminished that threat. The session also explored the legality and effectiveness of arbitrary detention, torture, extraordinary rendition, and other counterterrorism policies. The various parallel sessions throughout the conference addressed a myriad of topics germane to the legal profession in general, as well as to Muslims and the law in particular. In a session entitled “Leveraging Legal Resources for the Benefit of the Muslim American Community: A Training Session for Lawyers,” attendees learned some of the basic laws and challenges facing Muslim Americans from experienced criminal defense and with pdfFactory ...