Previous Academy Speaker Events

Dr. Thomas Campbell, Dean, Chapman Law School and Former U.S Congressman, spoke on the war powers of the US President and the efforts he’s made to define the limits of the President’s power to involve the country in wars without the consent of Congress.

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Border Security and Mexico's Drug War:
Mexico's drug war is getting harder for Americans to ignore.  Learn about the challenges and potential dangers that arise with an unsecured Southern Border March 12, 2015

Ms. Longmire is a [medically] retired Air Force captain and former Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. During her eight years with AFOSI, she conducted numerous criminal investigations and worked extensively in the fields of counterintelligence, counterespionage, and force protection. During her last assignment, Ms. Longmire worked at HQ AFOSI as the Latin America desk officer, analyzing issues in the US Southern Command area of responsibility that might affect the security of deployed Air Force personnel. From Dec 2005-Jul 2009, Sylvia worked as a senior intelligence analyst for the California state fusion center and the California Emergency Management Agency's Situational Awareness Unit, focusing almost exclusively on Mexican drug trafficking organizations and southwest border violence issues. Between 2004 and 2011, she regularly lectured on terrorism in Latin America at the Air Force Special Operations School's Dynamics of International Terrorism course. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of South Florida in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, with a focus on the Cuban and Guatemalan revolutions.

Ms. Longmire has been published in Small Wars Journal, Henley-Putnam University's Journal of Strategic Security, the Journal of Energy Security, the American Bar Association’s National Security Report, The Fletcher Forum on World Affairs, and the US Army Counter Terrorism Center’s The Sentinel. Her writing is also regularly featured in Homeland Security Today magazine’s Borders & Intelligence column. Ms. Longmire has been interviewed extensively by national, international, local, and Internet news outlets, including Stossel and Geraldo at Large on Fox News Channel, John King USA on CNN, Jose Díaz-Balart and The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, CNN International, CNN México, AOL News, BBC Radio, the Miami Herald, theHouston Chronicle and the San Diego Union-Tribune, as well as Mexico’sProceso, El Universal, El Diario, and Rio Doce. She has also appeared as a guest expert on an episode of The History Channel’s Brad Meltzer’s Decoded, and has regularly consulted with producers of National Geographic Channel’s Border Wars and Drugs Inc. series.

Ms. Longmire is currently an independent consultant and freelance writer, and is an ASBPE award-winning contributing editor for Homeland Security Today magazine and Breitbart Texas. She is also on the Board of Advisors for Stanford University’s non-profit organization Love Thy Neighbor, Mexico, the Editorial Board for Norwich University’s Transnational Crime program, and aSmall Wars Journal El Centro Fellow. Her first book, Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico’s Drug Wars (Palgrave Macmillan), was published in September 2011, and was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was also a contributor to Glenn Beck’s Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say (Threshold Editions). Her most recent book, Border Insecurity: Why Big Money, Fences, and Drones Aren’t Making Us Safer (Palgrave Macmillan) was published in April 2014 with critical acclaim. Ms. Longmire regularly provides services as an expert witness for Mexican immigration cases.
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"Outrageous Acts of Peace" with Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee and Karima Bennoune
Ordinary people. Impossible circumstances. Extraordinary courage.

Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian social worker, women's rights advocate and mother who mobilized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the war in Liberia, and played a pivotal role in electing the first female president in Africa. She will talk about the power of education, collaboration and hope in overthrowing one of the most brutal warlords in the history of Africa, and how each one of us can be citizen peace builders.  Ms. Gbowee is currently living in New York City serving as a Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College.  Learn more about Leymah Gbowee and her work at gboweepeaceusa.org.

Karima Bennoune: International Law Professor, former Amnesty International Legal Advisor, and author of Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalists. View Bennoune's TEDx talk. The topic of Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here is a very personal one for her. Mahfoud Bennoune, her father, was an outspoken professor at the University of Algiers who faced death threats during the 1990s, but continued speaking out against fundamentalism and terrorism. In writing this book, Karima set out to meet people who are today doing what her father did back then, to try to garner for them greater international support than Algerian democrats received during the 1990s.