Several colleges around the country invited me to address students, including Amherst, Cornell, and my alma mater, Stanford (where I keynoted the "Listen to the Silence" conference). Each visit proved fascinating -- it's amazing how much one can learn from insightful questions!
Truthout posted my thoughts on the tragic withdrawal of Dawn Johnsen's nomination to head the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel -- the same office made infamous by her predecessors who approved torture.
The Jackson (MS) Free Press declared me its "person of the day" during a series of appearances launching the Cross-Pollinate speaker & performance series.
The USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism quoted me at length in a story about emerging Muslim American leaders, around the same time that the Center for American Progress included a brief clip from a recent interview in a segment on Muslims' "Dreams for the New Decade."
I did a fun interview on the Alyona Show about Senator Lieberman's preposterous proposal to revoke the citizenship of anyone (merely) accused of a national security offense.
In February 2010:
I facilitated a workshop at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership and did a short interview with Batala Aristide from Brooklyn.
Rabbis for Human Rights quoted me in an A Drash for Vaera on January 11. As a Muslim-American, it felt very humbling for my voice to resonate with their's.
Deborah Dupre encouraged grassroots activists to join me and my colleagues at the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in a grassroots lobby day we organized to oppose government spying.
I published Double Standards: How Our Lawlessness Strengthens Our Enemies, on Huffington Post and Truthout.
My friend Syd Gris posted his DJ set from August 2008, at the Opulent Temple at Burning Man on the Tuesday night of that year's gathering, which I introduced with an essentially a capella rhyme to an audience of several thousand raging burners.
In November 2009:
Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network named me #3 on her list of the top 20 national security experts whose voices could inform the national discourse.
I wrote a coalition letter to President Obama on behalf of 30 interfaith, civil rights, and peace & justice organizations calling on the Defense Department to release evidence of torture and allow prosecution of all officials involved. Our efforts attracted some third-party media attention, and are part of our outreach strategy for model legislation I wrote through which cities & towns can assert universal jurisdiction, under principles of international law, to adjudicate alleged human rights abuses.
In October 2009:
A group of Muslim and South Asian leaders in New York City asked me to help represent them at a meeting with the FBI's regional leadership.
The Rights Working Group convened its member organizations around the country to hear about model legislation I wrote to limit local law enforcement by granting protections sought by Latino, African-American, Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and (often demographically mainstream) civil libertarian groups.
Beat the Chip, a web radio program based in Austin, TX, aired an interview with me about domestic surveillance.
In September 2009:
My summer in Northampton, Mass wrapped up and I returned to DC.
Smoke and Mirrors was published on Huffington Post and alt.Muslim, examining how "engagement of vulnerable communities emphasizes form over substance and, historically, has amounted to mere public relations.
On August 1, 2009, I did an extended studio interview with WMUA, the student-run
radio station at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Part 1 focused on art & culture as a vehicle for
social organizing and building political power, and included We Watch
Reality. Part 2 riffed on
my personal history, recommendations for student activists, and reflections on
the first year of the Obama administration. Part 3 includes some historical context for civil liberties
issues, as well as further reflections on the Obama administration and the
landscape it confronts in DC. Part 4 includes a discussion about the state of our democracy and opportunities
to recover political ground lost during the Bush years, as well as Bumpin in
My SUV. Part 5 discusses the electronic
dance underground and its transformative social potential. And Part 6
includes me rhyming live over a Daft Punk track from
the Homework album.
In July 2009:
Al-Jazeera aired my concerns about domestic surveillance, following the release of an Inspector General's report confirming widespread abuse and problematic secrecy.
I wrote a coalition letter on behalf of a dozen civil rights groups
to DHS Secretary Napolitano, calling her attention to problems in the
Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties under the direction of Bush
holdovers who run the office in the absence of appointed political
leadership.
I published Secrecy Sacrificing National Security. KPFA Pacifica radio in San Francisco aired an interview the next day about the various transparency and accountability issues I raise in the article.
We at BORDC released a series of online sign-on letters (to which anyone is welcome to add your voice) pressing the Attorney General to investigate torture allegations wherever the evidence leads.
I played a few open mics in Northampton, including the May 30 session at Sam's Pizza (which picks up around 1:30).
The Stanford Asian American Activities Center awarded me its alumni award for public service.
My 4-part analysis of the Supreme Court, "Bush v. Gore Rears Its Head (Part III): Justice Souter's Resignation as an Invitation to Balance a Politicized Court," appeared on Huffington Post. Two weeks later, I posted the final installment, "Bush v. Gore Rears Its Head (Part IV): A New Check on the Courtto Defend the Rule of Law."
WMNF in Tampa aired an interview on May 22 about several civil liberties and rule of law issues.
I delivered a commencement address at USC's ceremony celebrating the inaugural class of its American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (video forthcoming).
Muslim Advocates published and presented to Congress the report I wrote on border profiling over the prior year (though unfortunately without attributing or publicly recognizing my authorship).
South Asian Americans Leading Together invited me to talk at its South Asian Summit about racial & religious profiling and the recent expansion in FBI powers (podcast forthcoming).
In March 2009:
I visited Berkeley Law School to share reflections (and a rhyme) with several student groups who graciously invited me, including the ACS and NLG chapters, the Graduate Assembly,
Journal of Middle-Eastern and Islamic Law, and Law Students of African
Descent.
The National Lawyers Guild chapter at the University of Denver Law School invited me to give the keynote presentation in its annual "Race and the Law" symposium.
Several DC guerrilla poets performed with me at the UDC Eco/Justice Cafe in Washington, DC.
I began recording a few new music tracks, including Thought Crimes, a sick dance track with Producer Adam Ebel (AKA Space Frequency) and another with Jive and Simo from Sleevin Records.
I submitted a FOIA request for a secret FBI policy mandating ethnic profiling in two dimensions, which appear to reflect national equivalents of local proposals by the NYPD and LAPD that were decisively rejected in 2007.
Al-Jazeera English invited me to offer live commentary on their international election night programming...minutes before the Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency kickstarted a pro-Obama street party with several thousands of people outside the Reeves Center in DC.
The Center for American Progress released Partnership for Progress: Advancing a New Strategy for Prosperity and Stability in Pakistan and the Region, a policy report I helped inform & advise throughout 2008.
Some friends threw a mic at me at The Science Club in DC.
In October 2008:
I performed at an Obama fundraiser at 1015 Folsom in SF, as well as a going-away party for my dear friend Melvin at The Lookout.
Legislation relating to border security was introduced in the U.S. House and Senate, informed by testimony and suggestions submitted by the advocacy program I direct;
I performed with Syd Gris of Opel Productions at SF Love Fest for a crowd of thousands on the steps of City Hall on a beautiful, sunny afternoon.
In August 2008, I:
camped with 40,000 other burners in Black Rock City, NV, where I performed at The Opulent Temple, Pink Mammoth and Garage Mahal camps.
wrote a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on behalf of a coalition of 40 organizations around the country, representing a variety of civil liberties,
interfaith and other interests, urging him to release a pre-final draft of the revised FBI investigative guidelines that ultimately remained secret until October 3.
did an interview on NPR's Here & Now relating to profiling at the nation's borders & airports (randomly following an interview with a dear friend whose appearance was a total surprise).
played a show with some friends (including v:shal, Christylez, and the Medievil Punditz) at the Rock & Roll Hotel in DC.
wrote some reflections that my old colleagues at ACS posted about a terrifying Fourth Circuit decision that could lay a legal foundation for the preventive detention of U.S. citizens.
celebrated my 34th birthday. It was actually far less celebratory than my birthdays have been recently, which only offered more reasons to be thankful for the company of my dear friends.
helped prepare congressional testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding racial & religious profiling at the nation's borders and airports.
spoke at a brownbag forum hosted by the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco regarding the Rule of Law crisis in Pakistan.
addressed the graduating class of '08 at Horace Mann Elementary School in San Francisco. If you've never heard hundreds of families rocking hip-hop chants in Spanish inside a closed auditorium about empowering their communities, you've not lived.
delivered a policy briefing for an allied organization's Lobby Day in Washington DC and introduced a know-your-rights training video before an audience of roughly 1,500 conference attendees.
met with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and several of his senior staff about objectionable Bureau policies & practices. Little did we know they were being redrafted at the time to become even more objectionable.
In May 2008, I:
wrote a response on behalf of several advocacy organizations representing recently marginalized communities to a poorly reasoned and internally inconsistent Senate report by the Homeland Security Committee under Senator Lieberman's confused and counter-productive leadership.
collected audio recordings of several recent radio interviews, as well as some older TV interviews, that may take me some time to get uploaded to the site.
February 2008 was an intense month.
I packed my things in DC and moved to San Francisco to start my new job at Muslim Advocates.
Our delegation to Pakistan released "Defending Dictatorship: U.S. Foreign Policy and Pakistan's Struggle for Democracy, a preliminary report presenting our findings based on interviews with over 50 jurists, lawyers, journalists, elected officials, civil servants, political candidates, and activists in five cities around the country. Over the course of the month, I shared our delegation's findings with audiences in DC, Baltimore, and San Francisco.
We hosted an epic going away party at the Belmont House (where I dropped a set on the decks before hitting the mic) rated by one attendee as the best party she'd ever seen in DC, and by another as the best she'd ever attended in the United States!
In December 2007, I posted my 2007 highlights and went to Pakistan on a fact-finding delegation organized by the National Lawyers Guild and the Rule of Law Porject at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
In November 2007, I made a few additions to the site and started working on several others.
I posted some of my latest interviews, including a nationally-syndicated radio interview on the imposition of "emergency" martial law in Pakistan and a late-night talk show appearance on ABC's The Edge with Jake Sasseville scheduled to air in January or February 2008.
The list of projects & organizations I actively support got updated, notably with the addition of Muslim Advocates, the Ad-Hoc Committee for the Rule of Law in Pakistan (ACRLP) and John Edwards for President
I posted a few poems to the poetry section, including a new poem responding to the crisis in Pakistan and an old one from 2005 in the wake of Bush's re-election to the Presidency
On tap for December: a slightly redesigned site, as well as the release of my first CD: Get Outta Your Chair. Check back soon....
In October 2007, I posted two updates, in particular:
My latest foreign policy analysis, "Supporting Musharraf Fuels Crisis in Pakistan," forecasting a looming crisis in Pakistan two weeks before Dictator (and Bush ally) Parvez Musharraf imposed martial law on November 3
The Bumpin in My SUV video (courtesy of Producer and Videographer David Grossman):
In June 2007, I renamed the track now known as An Old Friend, which is far more descriptive than the essentially random name I'd dubbed it before. I also posted several videos, including:
The controversy surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the overlooked impeachment remedy
The meaning of the Second Amendment in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings
The constitutional crisis in Pakistan and longstanding Republican support for military dictators.
I also posted some new music:
The Disease of Industrialization, fusing one of my global fusion electronic beats with a rhyme about environmental destruction and the tragedy of our moral failure to preserve the Earth for our successors
An Old Friend, the first new instrumental I've produced since moving to the east coast four years ago
