Chip Gibbons Joins Historic WikiLeaks Symposium
March 23, 2026
Gaza First Amendment Alert (4/1/26)
April 1, 2026Newsletter: April 2026
We’ve had an especially busy March! We organized a panel event with a sitting Congressmember, saw a detainee and a journalist we campaigned for walk free, and we participated in an historic conference on groundbreaking journalism in Berlin. We’re proud of this work, but it can only happen with your support. Please consider a donation to Defending Rights & Dissent today.
Announcing Landmark Espionage Act Reform Bill with Rep. Rashida Tlaib
In a livestreamed event hosted by Defending Rights & Dissent, in collaboration with the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Rep. Rashida Tlaib announced the introduction of the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, a landmark bill to reform the Espionage Act to finally end its abuse against journalists and whistleblowers. Named for the legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower, this legislation amends the Espionage Act to create a public interest defense, and to explicitly ban its use against journalists and their sources who are seeking to expose crimes, waste, fraud, or abuse. Defending Rights & Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons heavily advised Rep. Tlaib’s office on the drafting of the bill.
Coalitions of press freedom groups and former U.S. military veterans and intelligence officers signed joint letters to Congress, highlighting the importance of Espionage Act reform and urging support for the Daniel Ellsberg Act.
Watch the panel event with Rep. Tlaib, Daniel Ellsberg’s son Robert, Defending Rights & Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons, and Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Trevor Timm.
Chip Gibbons at Historic WikiLeaks Symposium
Defending Rights & Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons was in Berlin earlier this month to address an international symposium on the impact and importance of WikiLeaks’ revelations. Gibbons joined Stella Assange, WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, and more at the Exposing Crimes is Not a Crime conference as both a panelist and moderator. The symposium addressed the political and media landscape that paved the way for the transparency outlet’s groundbreaking journalism and the ramifications of its releases on the War on Terror, investigative journalism, and democratic accountability.
First, Gibbons joined a panel discussion on ‘The Reasons Behind,’ looking at the motivations behind WikiLeaks’ formation and the culture of secrecy the organization sought to change. Chip was joined by Stella Assange, wife of WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange, as well as Sunna Ævarsdóttir, director of Courage International; and Renata Avila Pinto, a human rights lawyer.
Gibbons discussed the impact of the Iraq and Afghan War Logs that WikiLeaks released on both the public’s understanding of the U.S. war on terror as well as its impact on our understanding of what journalism can achieve. As the discussion turned to governmental efforts to repress these kinds of exposures, Chip explained how the Espionage Act evolved from a tool to silence political dissent to a weapon to silence whistleblowers and even the press who publish their disclosures.
Later in the conference, Gibbons moderated a panel on Intelligence and Cybersurveillance, featuring U.S. and UK intelligence whistleblowers Terry Albury, a former FBI counterterrorism agent who exposed abusive FBI surveillance practices, Thomas Drake,a former NSA senior executive who exposed warrantless surveillance, Katharine Gun, who as an employee at the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters leaked to the Observer a top-secret NSA memo about spying UN diplomats in order to gain support for the Iraq War, as well as Andy Müller-Maguhn of the Wau Holland Foundation, himself a victim of surveillance.
Albury, Drake, and Gun each explained why they chose to become whistleblowers, and Müller-Maguhn discussed the personal impact of being spied on. The panelists detailed the lengths the government went to in order to punish them, and they highlighted the urgent need for better protections for whistleblowers so that more conscientious people can come forward today.
Leqaa Kordia Finally Released from Detention!
New Jersey resident Leqaa Kordia was finally released from immigration detention this month after more than a year of confinement in Texas. She returns home where she’ll continue to fight the government’s deportation case against her. Leqaa was targeted for selective immigration enforcement in March 2025, nearly a year after her participation in a protest at Columbia University in April 2024, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, where nearly 200 of Leqaa’s relatives have been killed.
Defending Rights & Dissent moderated a panel discussion the week before her release, recounting the details of her case and mobilizing support for her freedom. The event featured Leqaa’s cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, and members of her legal team with Muslim Advocates, Texas Civil Rights Project, and the Boston University’s Immigration Rights Clinic.
We also led a coalition of 21 civil society groups, including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and others, in writing to the DHS calling for Leqaa’s immediate release.
Journalist Detained by ICE Released from Confinement
On March 19, Nashville journalist Estefany Rodriguez was released from detention more than two weeks after she was arrested by ICE on March 4 after reporting on immigration raids and allegedly criticizing the Trump administration. Rodriguez’s lawyers argue she was targeted for her speech and work as a reporter
Earlier this month, Defending Rights & Dissent joined a coalition of 41 press freedom groups in coauthoring an open letter to the Department of Homeland Security calling for Rodriguez’s release. The letter explains that “Rodriguez’s detention is part of a broader erosion of democratic norms and human rights in the United States in which immigration authorities are increasingly being used to chill free expression and First Amendment rights.”
