Year: 2009

Eric Boehlert: Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America. He is the author of “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush”.

Kevin Surace: a noted speaker and writer on climate change and the built environment, is on a mission to significantly reduce the use of fossil fuels and their effect on the environment. As CEO of Serious Materials, Kevin leads the company in its mission to reduce energy usage and CO2 generation of the world’s largest contributor, our buildings.

Andrew Jakabovics: is the Associate Director for the Economic Mobility Program. He works on housing, household debt, and higher education, as well as other issues related to sustaining and growing the middle class.

Hina Shamsi: is a Staff Attorney in the ACLU’s National Security Project. Her focus includes freedom of speech and association, including the material support statutes, torture, detention, and fair trial practices.

Free Speech Zone

Tommy Panik: reports on the latest

Gary Chew: Oscar preview

Ari Melber: is The Nation’s Net movement correspondent and a writer for the magazine’s blog. Article archive and contact information available at www.arimelber.com.

David Cobb: an American activist and was the 2004 presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS).

Jon Eisenberg: partner in the law firm of Eisenberg and Hancock.

Jason Leopold: investigative journalist. He writes for the online publication The Public Record.

Melanie Sloan: serves as CREW’s Executive Director. Prior to starting CREW, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia where, from 1998-2003, she successfully tried cases before dozens of judges and juries.

Trevor Paglen: is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us.

Robert Weiss: Mr. Weiss is licensed to practice law in the State of New York and Washington, D.C. Mr. Weiss is admitted to the United States Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the United States District Courts, including the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Check out his website at rightsforamerica.com.

Bryan Burrough: is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair magazine and the author of five books, including the No. 1 New York Times Best-Seller Barbarians at the Gate and the best-selling Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34.

Ray McGovern: is a retired CIA officer turned political activist.

Col. Steve Kleinman: The Air Force Reserve Colonel is a veteran military interrogator who has spent his career in human intelligence. He was a senior interrogator in Panama, the first Gulf War, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Free Speech Zone

Robert Parry: founder of ConsortiumNews.com.  His new book is called “Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush”.

Robert Dreyfuss: freelance investigative journalist whose work appears in The Nation, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The American Prospect, and other progressive publications.  His work also appears in the new blog “Dreyfuss Report“.

John Chiang: California State Controller; is the Chief Fiscal Officer of California, the eighth-largest economy in the world. Elected every four years, the Controller makes sure the state’s $100 billion budget is spent properly, helps administer more than $300 billion in state pension funds and serves on 76 state boards and commissions.

Jon Eisenberg: partner in the law firm of Eisenberg and Hancock.

Sen Bernie Sanders: is the junior United States Senator from Vermont, elected on November 7, 2006. Before becoming Senator, Sanders represented Vermont’s at-large district in the United States House of Representatives for 16 years.

Brad Friedman: self-described election integrity muckraking journalist jerk. You can read his blog at Bradblog.com.

Ion Sancho: was elected to his first term as the Supervisor of Elections for Leon County, Florida in November 1988. He was re-elected in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 serving his sixth term as of January 2, 2009.

Matt Corley: Assistant Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at American Progress.

David Novack: has been a producer, post supervisor, and associate producer for a number of documentary films and television series, including the historical documentary, “Songs of Odessa,” the acclaimed Showtime/United Nations series, “What’s Going On” and two episodes of PBS/WGBH’s “Frontline.”

Scott Dick: regular contributor on Military/Vets issues. Dick hosts his own radio broadcast called The Scott Dick Show.

R J Shulman: political satirist. You can read Shulman’s blog at ptsd1.blogspot.com.

Karl Frisch: is a columnist and Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, the nation’s preeminent progressive media watchdog.

Lt. Gov John Garamendi: 46th Lieutenant Governor of California. He brings to the office 32 years of public service.

Aaron Glantz: is an American journalist and author. Glantz works as a reporter for Pacifica Radio, as well as for other media outlets, including the global news agency, Inter Press Service (IPS).

Peter Phillips: director of Project Censored, he is an associate professor of sociology at Sonoma State University. He is known for his op-ed pieces in the alternative press and independent newspapers nationwide, such as Z Magazine and Social Policy.

Free Speech Zone

Rep. Barbara Lee: Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives representing California’s 9th congressional district.

Trevor Paglen: is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley.  His recent book is Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World.

Glenn Greenwald: previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator and now a Contributing Writer at Salon.com

Rep. Joe Sestak: is serving his first-term as the Representative from Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, which includes most of Delaware County and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties.

Jason Leopold: investigative journalist. He writes for the online publication The Public Record.

Free Speech Zone

Craig Eisendrath: At age 22, he was given the extraordinary job of managing United States international relations for outer space.  Dr. Eisendrath is the author of a number of fiction and  non-fiction books on foreign affairs such as To Enter Jerusalem.

David Sirota: is an American political figure and commentator. He is a two-time New York Times bestselling author, nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist and blogger who is generally considered to be a political progressive, as well as a strong critic of neoliberal economic policies.

Barbara Lubin: is the founder and Executive Director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), a children’s advocacy organization based in Berkeley, California that raises funds for organizations based in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Iraq that refuse to recognize Israel’s existence.

Col. Steve Kleinman: The Air Force Reserve Colonel is a veteran military interrogator who has spent his career in human intelligence. He was a senior interrogator in Panama, the first Gulf War, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Amna Akbar: is a Clinical Fellow at the International Human Rights Clinic, NYU School of Law.   The Clinic represents former CIA secret detainee Mohamed Bashmilah, a co-plaintiff in the ACLU-led case Binyam Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.

Robert Parry: founder of ConsortiumNews.com.  His new book is called “Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush”.

Jerome Pohlen: ran as the Green Party U.S. Representative of Illinois in the 3rd District.

Conn Hallinan: is an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

Saul Landau: an internationally-known scholar, author, commentator, and filmmaker on foreign and domestic policy issues.

Brad Friedman: self-described election integrity muckraking journalist jerk. You can read his blog at Bradblog.com.

Noah Kunin: is a Minneapolis blogger who lives behind the 35W bridge and was present for its collapse.

Faiz Shakir: Research Director at The Center for American Progress and serves as Editor-in-Chief of ThinkProgress.org.

Caroline Fredrickson:  is the director of the Washington Legislative Office of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation’s oldest, largest and most vital civil liberties organization.

Scott Dick: regular contributor on Military/Vets issues. Dick hosts his own radio broadcast called The Scott Dick Show.

Free Speech Zone