From the ACLU, this is At Liberty.

I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at ACLU's national headquarters in New York City,

and I'll be taking over as host for Lee Rowland.

Before we begin today's show, I'd like to send a special thanks to her for all her great work getting this podcast off the ground.

Today, we're joined by Brian House, a staff attorney

at the ACLU working on free speech and the right to protest. In multiple states and even at the

federal level, new laws seek to stop people from participating in political boycotts aimed at the

state of Israel. Brian has been leading the ACLU's work in challenging

these laws and just this month argued against one in Arkansas. He's here to help us understand

what exactly all this means and why it's an important civil liberties issue. Brian, welcome to the

podcast. Thanks for having me, Emerson. I wanted to start for our listeners who are less familiar

with this area. What is the boycott

divestment and sanctions campaign? So boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns are basically

political protest campaigns that are designed to encourage businesses and other groups to get the

Israeli government to change its policies specifically with respect to Palestinians.

And these campaigns have three goals that kind of unite the disparate boycott campaigns themselves.

The first goal is to seek equality for Palestinians and Israeli citizens living within Israel.

The second goal is to end Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.

And the third goal is a right of return for all Palestinian refugees. How centralized is the BDS campaign?

Is this one organization or is this something that people are engaging on an individual basis?

There are a number of organized BDS campaigns that are promoted by different groups,

like the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace. And people often participate in those campaigns to varying degrees.

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