Safir Ahmed has been an independent book editor and an editorial and media consultant working with various organizations and publishing companies. Among the books he has edited are "Crashing the Gate" by Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong, "How Would a Patriot Act?" by Glenn Greenwald, "Thinking Points" by George Lakoff, "Anatomy of Deceit" by Marcy Wheeler, and the soon-to-be-released "American Taliban" by Markos Moulitsas and "Rebooting the American Dream" by Thom Hartmann. Safir has also edited various articles and books by Hamza Yusuf, a leading American Muslim scholar and theologian, and served as editorial and media relations consultant for Muslim organizations in the U.S. Previously, Safir was Editor of AlterNet and spent two decades as a journalist, first as writer and editor at the Pulitzer-family owned St. Louis Post-Dispatch and then as Editor of The Riverfront Times. He also worked as Communications Director for the Senate Democratic Caucus in Missouri and for the U.S. Senate campaign of Nancy Farmer in 2004. Safir lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and teenage daughter, and currently works as Editorial Director at CREDO Mobile.

Josh Gerstein is a White House reporter who covers legal and national security issues for POLITICO. Gerstein joined the political news outlet just before President Barack Obama’s inauguration and has reported extensively on how Obama’s pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for war-on-terror captives went awry. Gerstein’s articles have also explored how expectations that the Obama Administration would dramatically reform the legal architecture of the Bush Administration’s anti-terrorism have proven to be mistaken.

Gerstein has covered the Supreme Court nominations of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the Obama Administration’s little-heralded crackdown on leaks, and the surprisingly icy relationship between the press and the Obama White House.

From 2003 to 2008, Gerstein was The New York Sun’s national reporter and covered national politics as well as terrorism trials and other legal stories of national significance. He was one of few national reporters to provide in-depth coverage of the legal saga of Sami Al-Arian, a former Florida college professor who has spent nearly two decades in the sights of federal prosecutors over his ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

As a White House reporter for ABC, Gerstein was among the first to report on a policy closing many immigration cases to the public after 9/11. He also wrote for the New Republic about the Justice Department’s aggressive use of material witness warrants to detain those suspected of ties to terrorism.

Gerstein attended Harvard College and received a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in government. He’s also the author of a 1991 Massachusetts law requiring college and university police departments to keep a public log of arrests and reported crimes.

While not a lawyer, Gerstein’s an expert on the Freedom of Information Act and has pursued several lawsuits seeking records on federal contracting, allegations of abuse of detainees at Guantanamo, use of the sneak-and-peek provisions of the Patriot Act, and the government’s handling of leaks of classified information.

Gerstein can be followed as @joshgerstein on Twitter. His blog, “Under the Radar,” is at www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/.

Farhana Khera is the president and executive director of Muslim Advocates (www.muslimadvocates.org), a national legal advocacy and educational organization dedicated to promoting freedom, justice and equality for all, regardless of faith. Prior to joining Muslim Advocates in 2005, Ms. Khera was counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution. She worked for six years for Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI), the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, where she advised the Senator on civil rights and civil liberties, including the USA PATRIOT Act, racial and religious profiling, and other issues raised by the government’s anti-terrorism policies since September 11, 2001.

Prior to the Senate, Ms. Khera was an associate with the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, LLP, and the law firm of Ross, Dixon & Masback, LLP, where her work as the lead associate on several pro bono employment discrimination cases resulted in the firm being honored with the Outstanding Achievement Award by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
In 2008, Ms. Khera was honored by the Auburn Theological Seminary with its Lives of Commitment Award, along with former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. The Minority Bar Coalition of San Francisco awarded Ms. Khera with its Unity Award in 2008. She has also been recognized by Islamica Magazine as one of “10 Young Muslim Visionaries,” for leadership, innovative approaches and “a level of success that bodes well for America.”

Ms. Khera received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her J.D. from Cornell Law School. In 2009, she completed the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Adam Serwer is a Staff Writer at the American Prospect. He writes mostly on issues of civil and human rights, criminal justice, and national security.

Michelle Richardson is a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office, focusing on national security issues such as the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance and state secrets, open government, and congressional accountability and oversight. In her capacity as legislative counsel, Richardson closely monitors legislative activity relating to her issue areas, frequently drafting legislation, testimony and communications to Congress and the Administration advocating the ACLU’s position. In addition, she represents the ACLU in coalition work that connects an array of players across the political spectrum and creates lobbying, grassroots and messaging strategies for ACLU members and activists.

Richardson has provided legislative and political analysis to numerous American and international media outlets including AP, UPI, C-SPAN, CBS News, Time, CQ’s Weekly Report, Cox newspapers, Al Jazeera, NPR and Voice of America. Her voice carries from left to right across the airwaves and web hubs such as Democracy Now, Air America Radio, Politico, Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Raw Story, Pam’s House Blend, Reason, Salon, Talk Left and various regional programs and blogs. She is also quoted by trade and legal publications such as Jurist.
Before coming to the ACLU, Richardson served as counsel to Representative John Conyers, Jr. and the House Judiciary Committee he chairs, where she specialized in national security, civil rights and constitutional issues for the Democratic staff. Among other things, she drafted legislation, wrote committee reports and conducted an investigation in to and oversight of the Department of Justice’s post 9/11 anti-terrorism policies.

Richardson received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and earned her J.D. cum laude at American University’s Washington College of Law.