ACLU Forum: Technology and the Future
Our new speaking series, The Forum on Technology and the Future,
features a variety of experts discussing cutting-edge technologies and
their
implications for the future of civil liberties. Audio and/or
video of these
events are also archived for
download.
January 14, 2008, 10:30 AM
National Press
Club
529 14th St NW
Washington,
DC
Handcuffing the Flu:
Can a Law
Enforcement/National Security Approach to Pandemic
Preparedness Protect
the American People?
View Complete Video of the Forum (.wmv): here
The threat of a drug-resistant strain of bird flu has sparked fears about the
potential for a global pandemic. How would our society respond? And
how should we prepare for such an emergency?
With panic and
quarantines, or with sound, disciplined public
health policies and a respect for
individual rights?
Three of the nation's top experts will have
a
conversation at the National Press Club to discuss the findings of an
ACLU-commissioned report on the intersection of science, medicine,
security and
civil liberties in confronting a flu pandemic.
Featured Panelists:
Wendy E. Parmet is a George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews
Distinguished Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law
and
director of the law school’s J.D.-M.P.H. program with Tufts
University School of
Medicine.
Michael Greenberger is the Director of the
Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) at the University of
Maryland and
a professor at the School of Law.
Monica Schoch-Spana, PhD, a medical
anthropologist, is Senior Associate with the Center for Biosecurity of
the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and Assistant
Professor in the
School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases.
Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and
Liberty Project will moderate the discussion.
June 12, 2007, 9:30 AM
ACLU Washington Legislative Offices
915
15th St. NW, 6th Floor
Washington, DC
Of Mice and Men
Divided by
Ten:
EPA's New Rules for Testing Pesticides in
Humans
View Complete Video of the Forum (.wmv):
Part
1 and Part
2.
Imagine that a company offered you $1,000 to drink a pesticide. Would you
take it? Did you know that testing pesticides on humans was even
allowed?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last year issued rules for
accepting data from researchers who intentionally expose human subjects
to
pesticides. These are non-therapeutic experiments that are
not conducted
to help fight disease or improve human safety; typically
they are conducted by
chemical companies that are trying to convince
the EPA to increase the amount of
pesticide residue that is allowed on
fresh fruits, vegetables and processed
foods. EPA’s regulations are the
first that encourage companies to perform human
experiments for the
purpose of improving the profits of pesticide companies.
This forum will explore the history and evolution of the EPA ruling as well
as its legal and ethical ramifications. We will consider the following
questions:
Does intentional pesticide dosing of humans conflict with established ethical
codes for human experimentation, such as Nuremburg and Helsinki?
What protections does the EPA rule allow for such experiments?
Are special protections provided for prisoners or other institutionalized
individuals?
Why would individuals undergo such experiments given that there are no
expected therapeutic benefits?
What constitutes informed consent under theses circumstances?
Should the EPA accept data from past experiments even if they were conducted
in an unethical manner?
Featured Panelists
Sheldon Krimsky is a Professor in the Department of Urban
& Environmental Policy & Planning at Tufts University and a
Visiting
Scholar-In-Residence at the ACLU. He is the author of
eight books,
including Genetic Alchemy: The Social History of the
Recombinant DNA Controversy
(MIT Press, 1982), Biotechnics and Society:
The Rise of Industrial Genetics
(Praeger, 1991), Hormonal Chaos: The
Scientific and Social Origins of the
Environmental Endocrine Hypothesis
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), and
Science in the Private
Interest: Has the lure of profits corrupted biomedical
research?
(Rowman & Littlefield Pub., 2003). Professor Krimsky holds
numerous
advisory and editorial board positions and currently serves on the
Board of Directors for the Council for Responsible Genetics and as a
Fellow of
the Hastings Center on Bioethics.
Michael E. Wall is a Senior Attorney with the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he heads the organization's San
Francisco-based litigation team. Mr. Wall has litigated an array
of major
cases to protect human health, preserve endangered species,
and restore western
waterways. Prior to joining NRDC, Mr. Wall
practiced constitutional,
labor, and environmental law at a boutique
law firm in San Francisco and, from
1994 to 1998, served in the
Environment and Natural Resources Division of the
U.S. Department of
Justice. Mr. Wall graduated magna cum laude from both
Harvard
College and Harvard Law School and clerked for the Honorable Edward E.
Carnes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project,
will moderate the discussion.
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October 25, 2006, 9:30 AM
Rayburn 2226
House
Office Building
DNA Databases: A Panel
Discussion
View
Complete
Video of the Forum:
Windows Media (.wmv)
Over the past fifteen years, the United States has witnessed an
extraordinary expansion in the banking and mining of DNA for law
enforcement
purposes. Recently, the U.S. Congress as well as several
state legislatures
voted to allow
for the permanent retention
of DNA from persons who are
arrested. These dramatic expansions have
occurred with little regard for the
tremendous threats they pose to
individual privacy and racial justice. At the
same time, such
expansions threaten to overburden crime laboratories and
undermine
quality assurance in DNA testing and analysis. This panel will
consider
these and other concerns related to our criminal justice system's
increasing reliance on DNA collection and analysis.
Featured Panelists:
Barry Scheck is a Professor of Law at
Cardozo Law School in New York City and Co-Director of the Innocence
Project, which
uses DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongly
convicted. Since 1994 he has been a
Commissioner on New York State’s
Forensic Science Review Board, a body that
regulates all crime and
forensic DNA laboratories in the state. From1998 - 2000,
he served on
the National Institute of Justice's
Commission on the
Future
of DNA Evidence.
Helen
Wallace, Deputy
Director of Genewatch
UK, specializes in the
ethics, risks and social implications of human
genetics. She
has a degree in physics from Bristol University and a PhD in
applied
mathematics from Exeter University. She has worked as an
environmental scientist in academia and industry and as Senior
Scientist at
Greenpeace UK, where she was responsible for science and
policy work on a range
of issues.
William C. Thompson, J.D., Ph.D. is Professor and
incoming Chair of the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at
the
University of California, Irvine (UCI) and a member of the
California Bar.
He writes about the
use (and misuse) of
scientific evidence,
particularly DNA tests, and about jury decision
making.
Tania Simoncelli, Science Advisor to the ACLU,
counsels the organization on emerging developments in genetics and
neuroscience
and their implications for civil liberties. She also
serves on the Board of
Directors of the Council for Responsible
Genetics.
Barry Steinhardt,
Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project will moderate the
discussion.
June 20
Mining the Mind: A Panel Discussion
Download Complete Video of the Forum:
Windows Media (.wmv)
file (131 MB)
NEWS
ACLU Seeks Information About Government Use of Brain
Scanners in Interrogations
(06/28/2006)
Recent developments in the application of functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to lie detection raise tremendous concerns for
civil
liberties. The federal government has invested heavily in a range
of
technologies and devices, including fMRI, for their use in detecting
deception.
At least two companies have recently announced that they
will soon offer lie
detection services using fMRI and are aggressively
marketing their
services to private companies and government agencies
for everything from
personnel screening to interrogating terror
suspects.
The panel will consist of some of the top thinkers on both the
science and policy aspects of this issue:
- David Heeger, Professor of Psychology and
Neural Science at New York University, is a leading neuroscientist
using fMRI to
study connections between brain and behavior.
- Hank Greely, Deane F. and Kate Edelman
Johnson Professor at Stanford University Law School, is one of the
world’s
leading experts on neuroscience and the law.
- Gregg Bloche, Professor of Law at Georgetown
University, Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University, and a Senior
Fellow
at The Brookings Institution, writes about health law and was
among the first to
report
on the role of health professionals
and psychological theory in
abusive interrogation practices at
Guantánamo and elsewhere.
The panel will be moderated by Barry Steinhardt,
Director of the ACLU Technology & Liberty
Project.
Bruce Schneier
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May 23
Bruce Schneier on "The Future of
Privacy"
View
a 30-second promo for "The Future of Privacy"
View complete video of the talk, "The Future of
Privacy:"
Windows
Media (.wmv) | RealMedia
(.rm) | MP3
(audio
only)
Read
Bruce's Guest ACLU Blog >>
Bruce
Schneier
is an internationally renowned security technologist, referred
to by The
Economist as
a "security guru." He is the
author of eight books —
including the best sellers Beyond Fear:
Thinking Sensibly about Security in
an Uncertain World,
Secrets and Lies, and Applied
Cryptography, — and
hundreds of academic articles and papers. His
influential newsletter,
Crypto-Gram, is read by over 120,000 people. Schneier is
regularly
quoted in the press, and his essays have appeared in national and
international publications. He is the CTO and founder of Counterpane
Internet
Security, Inc., and the author of the popular Blowfish and
Twofish
encryption algorithms. He is also a frequent guest on
television and radio, has
testified before Congress, and is a frequent
writer and lecturer on issues
surrounding security and privacy.
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