Last October, L.A. County Sheriff's deputies entered a popular L.A. community college and stopped every African American student they found, searching their schoolbags and holding many for more than an hour. Now students who experienced the roundup at L.A. Trade-Technical College near downtown L.A. are speaking out about how it affected them.

"Each time I see a sheriff on campus, it reminds me of what happened," said Darrin Simington, one of the students who was searched. "The fear that we experienced on October 17 is the same fear we feel today."

A report by the community college district said the searches constituted racial profiling, yet the Sheriff's Department has stated that deputies did nothing wrong. The ACLU/SC and the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP have filed a claim against the Sheriff's Department over the incident.

"The sheriffs' actions took us back to the bad old days, when police believed they could stop and harass persons based on skin color," said Catherine Lhamon, ACLU of Southern California Racial Justice Director.

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Vicente Rosales, a Latino student who witnessed the roundup, was also stopped by deputies when he attempted to film the incident on his cellphone. "Where was my freedom of speech when I needed it most?" he asked. Video Rosales posted on YouTube shows deputies standing over African American students as other students look on. Sheriffs said they were investigating drug sales on campus, but sheriffs found no evidence any of the students stopped were involved.

Longtime L.A. Trade-Tech faculty member Richard Wells, who coaches the men's basketball team, tried to intervene with sheriffs on behalf of several of his players but was turned away by deputies. Wells said he was "shocked and hurt." He added: "What I witnessed was something I thought I'd never see, when a college campus turned into the streets."

L.A. Trade-Tech is the city's oldest community college with a racially diverse student body and a rich history in the city's African American community. Last week Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke at the school.

Photos: L.A. Trade-Tech basketball players Steven Brown and Robert Summers (top) were among 33 African American students searched on campus in October 2007 by L.A. sheriffs. Fellow student Vicente Rosales (below) was detained by sheriffs when he stopped to film the incident with his phone.

ONTARIO - The ACLU of Southern California will argue tomorrow in federal appeals court that a video camera hidden in an Ontario Police Department locker room violated police officers' right to privacy in the workplace. More than 100 officers were captured on videotape, and the ACLU/SC sued the department in 2004 on their behalf. In April 2006, U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips held that the videotaping violated the U.S. Constitution and California privacy laws.

According to the lawsuit, in 1996 a hidden surveillance camera was installed in the police officers' locker room as part of an investigation into the theft of an officer's flashlight. The camera, which was hidden in the ceiling, provided a view of the door and the adjacent lockers and dressing area and was connected to a videotape recorder located in a nearby office. It was discovered in 2003 when the Police Department began the process of moving to a new headquarters.

Judge Phillips held that Ontario Police Detective Brad Schneider, who arranged for the camera to be installed, violated his fellow officers' rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the state constitution's right to privacy. The Fourth Amendment bans this kind of video surveillance without probable cause and a court-issued warrant. The ACLU/SC is also seeking to have a jury find that then Chief of Police Lloyd Scharf authorized the surveillance, and that the City of Ontario is liable for the violation of the officers' rights.

The City of Ontario appealed the decision, and tomorrow a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena will hear arguments on February 6 in the case, Trujillo vs. Ontario.

'People demand that the police respect their right to privacy, and we demand no less for police officers from their own bosses, who are supposed to know better than anybody the constitutional limits on installing a hidden camera,' said Peter Eliasberg, Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU of Southern California.

'This case is about letting the people who run the police department know that they are not above the law,' said Sgt. Steven T. Trujillo, a 23-year veteran of the Ontario Police Department and one of the more than 100 officers involved in the case. 'We want to hold them to the same high standards that all police officers are held to every day.'

LOS ANGELES - The board of directors of the ACLU of Southern California has passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their abuses of basic civil liberties.

'President Bush has violated his oath of office to 'protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution,' has subverted the system and structure of democratic government, and has otherwise engaged in a course of conduct that warrants removal from office,' the board's resolution states.

The ACLU/SC board urges the House of Representatives to investigate impeachable offenses by the President and Vice President, including:

' Manipulating intelligence before the Iraq War and deceiving the American people about imminent threats they faced.

' Authorizing the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other military prisons and handing over suspects to other nations who tortured them (a practice known as "extraordinary rendition").

' Authorizing the firing of federal prosecutors for political reasons and obstructing justice by defying Congressional subpoenas investigating the firing.

' Authorizing wiretaps on U.S. citizens without warrants and in violation of the Constitution, and concealing the program from Congress and the public.

' Conspiring to disclose the name of Valerie Plame, a covert agent in the Central Intelligence Agency. This action risked her life and the lives of her intelligence contacts.

"This White House has broken American law and deceived the American people, not just once but again and again," said ACLU/SC board president Alan Toy. "Congress has a duty to hold President Bush and Vice President Cheney responsible for their actions, and history certainly will."

The ACLU of Southern California is one of the nation's largest ACLU affiliates, with more than 50,000 members. The ACLU board of directors guides the ACLU's work to safeguard civil liberties and civil rights for residents in the seven-county Southern California area.