LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Certain laws meant to fight terrorism have actually hijacked the war on terror, says Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California who will speak at a public forum on government repression Wednesday evening.

Arulanantham, the director of immigrant rights and national security cases for the ACLU/SC, will be one of three featured speakers at the forum, scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 10 in room 311 of the Westmoreland Building of the Southwestern School of Law, at 3050 Wilshire Blvd.

The government has stepped up enforcement of so-called 'material support of terrorism' laws, but that has done nothing to make us safer, Arulanantham said. It has actually undermined American efforts to help victims of disaster around the world while at the same time threatening our most cherished freedoms.

'The war on terror has been distorted by misguided legislation and then hijacked by irrational enforcement policies,' Arulanantham said. 'There's no rationale for why we have laws that make it a crime to send school books or baby formula to people who are victims of natural disasters.'

At the forum, Arulanantham will describe United States v. Omidvar, et al, in which he represents one of several Iranian Americans being prosecuted under material support of terrorism laws for having worked with a charity alleged to have links to an Iranian resistance group designated by the government as terrorist organization. In fact, the group is collaborating with U.S. military forces in Iraq.

'The bureaucratization of the war on terror has resulted in a terrorism enforcement system that has taken on a life of its own,' Arulanantham said.

Also available at the forum will be copies of Arulanantham's paper for the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, 'A Hungry Child Knows No Politics,' published in June.

In addition to Arulanantham, the forum will feature as keynote speakers Vince Warren, executive Director of the Center For Constitutional Rights in New York City, which has coordinated representation for defendants detained as enemy combatants by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay; and Stacy Tolchin, a National Lawyers' Guild member and noted immigrants' rights attorney who is involved in challenging recent raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Los Angeles area.

The forum is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Southwestern School of Law Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The ACLU of Southern California today applauded Calabasas Mayor Mary Sue Maurer and the other members of the Calabasas City Council for approving a new resolution on grant funding for community groups that eliminated language from an earlier version that violated First Amendment protections.

After receiving a strongly worded letter from the ACLU/SC that raised the constitutional concerns and threatened possible litigation, the City Council voted 5-0 on Wednesday night to rescind the old resolution and enact a new one. The new law eliminates language that prevented community organizations whose principals had “open or pending lawsuits” against the city, or who had vaguely defined “political affiliations,” from qualifying for city grants.

“We’re very pleased that the city responded to the concerns we expressed and eliminated the portions of previous funding language that we considered unconstitutional,” said Peter Eliasberg, Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU/SC. “Barring a group from obtaining city funding based on past or pending litigation comes dangerously close to a loyalty test. And if the city’s goal is to avoid the political use of city funds, it can do so by putting restrictions on how the grant money is used, rather than by restricting which organizations qualify.”

In fact, the city will now rely on the legal restrictions on political activity that apply to nonprofit organizations under federal income-tax laws, Calabasas City Attorney Michael G. Colantuono told the council in a report. “The city is fully supportive of rights of free expression and appreciates this opportunity to clarify that commitment,” he said in the report.

The ACLU/SC sent the first of two letters to Calabasas city officials in July after learning that the city had passed its resolution on grant funding in April. At that time, the council made it clear that under the resolution, otherwise qualified organizations would not receive funding if they had engaged in litigation against the city.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that litigation, because it is a way of petitioning the government for redress of grievances, is constitutionally protected activity,” Eliasberg wrote.

This is a joint release by the ACLU of Southern California and the County of Orange.

ORANGE, CALIF. -- Attorneys for the ACLU of Southern California, Orange County office, representing an association of day laborers, have reached an agreement with counsel for several Orange County defendants in a lawsuit over the First Amendment rights of day laborers to seek work in public areas of the city of Lake Forest.

In the agreement, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the day laborer association affirm the First Amendment right of all individuals to solicit work on public sidewalks in the city unless there are violations of law. They also affirm the right of contractors to solicit workers in public areas of the city as long as no law is violated. Accordingly, under the agreement, the county defendants retain full authority to enforce laws regulating conduct, including those prohibiting jaywalking, double parking or littering.

“This agreement recognizes that certain basic rights belong to all people,” said Belinda Escobosa Helzer, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU/SC). “Everyone has the right to free expression on the public sidewalk, so long as they are not violating state or local law.”

The terms of the agreement do not include the payment of money by the County of Orange, the Orange County Sheriff's Department or any of the individual defendants, and there is no admission of wrongdoing by any defendant. The agreement allows the plaintiffs to file a motion with the district court to seek payment of attorneys’ fees and costs.

The agreement comes 17 months after the ACLU/SC, acting on behalf of day laborers in the Lake Forest area, filed suit against the city of Lake Forest and several representatives of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department over a local city ordinance barring laborers from soliciting work on local street corners, and over alleged acts of intimidation and harassment targeting those day laborers.

Plaintiffs La Asociacion de Trabajadores de Lake Forest (ATLF), Colectivo Tonantzin, and The National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) complained that the Lake Forest ordinance was illegal because it targeted speech by a specific group and left workers no alternative way to express their availability for work, thus infringing on their constitutionally protected freedom of expression. The plaintiffs further complained that just as the ordinance could not lawfully target the expression of workers, neither could the defendants, through informal acts, seek to discourage workers from engaging in protected speech. The plaintiffs thus claimed that certain practices of sheriff’s deputies interfered with First Amendment rights.

The Orange County defendants maintained throughout the lawsuit, and continue to maintain, that it is the policy of the Sheriff's Department to respond to criminal violations, crime trends, citizen complaints and observations of criminal/suspicious behavior in the same manner throughout the city of Lake Forest. The Sheriff's Department does not discourage the free expression of any individual's constitutional rights, including the right to peaceably assemble on public sidewalks and express availability to work. It is, and has been, the policy of the Sheriff's Department to enforce the law without bias to gender, race, ethnicity or socio-economic standing.

Three weeks after the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit, the city repealed the ordinance. However, the plaintiffs alleged that even after the repeal, the defendants continued in their informal enforcement efforts targeting day laborers soliciting work, so the plaintiffs continued to pursue the litigation.

In June 2008, the plaintiffs settled with a private security company working for business owners in the area that had been added as a defendant in the litigation. At that time, the plaintiffs also agreed to dismiss the city of Lake Forest and its City Council members as defendants, but continued to pursue the case against the Orange County defendants.

On August 18, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter urged the remaining parties to resolve the dispute themselves, although both sides were prepared for a trial.