Bay Area Lawyer Chapter Hosts "Criminal Justice and the 'War on Terror:' Defending Individuals Accused of Terrorism
On June 26, 2008, the ACS Bay Area Lawyer Chapter co-hosted an event with the San Francisco Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, featuring Steven T. Wax and Wazhma Mojaddidi. Mr. Wax is the Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon, author of Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror, and the attorney for Brandon Mayfield and seven Guantanamo Bay detainees. Ms. Mojaddidi represents Hamid Hayat, a U.S. citizen accused of attending a terrorist training camp and providing assistance to a terrorist organization. The two attorneys told a crowd of over sixty people about how the U.S. government has targeted and denied due process rights to their clients -- individuals whom these attorneys believe to be innocent of the charges brought against them. The audience heard first-hand accounts of the "Kafka-esque" nature of criminal prosecutions in the "war on terror."

