Who We Are

Defending Rights & Dissent is a national civil liberties organization that defends the American people’s right to know and freedom to act through grassroots mobilization, public education, policy expertise, and advocacy journalism.

Our Mission

Defending Rights & Dissent strengthens our participatory democracy by protecting the right to political expression.

Our Vision

We strive for a United States of America where our government respects the right to political expression, securing a participatory democracy for every American;  the promise of the Bill of Rights is fulfilled for every American; and the government respects its commitments to civil liberties, transparency, fundamental human rights, and basic human dignity.

How We Achieve It

Through grassroots mobilization we empower the people to reclaim their right to know and freedom to act by making their voices heard to key decision makers.

We engage in extensive public education through research materials, reports, and public affairs programming that alerts the American people to curtailments of fundamental rights.

Our staff’s policy expertise is relied on by Congressional offices, members of the press, and even other advocates, allowing us to shape policy, correct the record, and drive narratives.

Our advocacy journalism shines light on government abuses of power, especially those chilling core First Amendment freedoms.

Program Areas

Political Surveillance

The ever-growing surveillance state threatens not only the American people’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, but core First Amendment freedoms as well. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies conflate political speech with terrorism and in the name of national security conduct suspicionless surveillance of core First Amendment political and religious activity. 

National Security Secrecy and Censorship

In the name of national security, the American people’s capacity for democratic self-governance is being eroded by excessive classification and secrecy. This secrecy is ruthlessly upheld through draconian laws like the Espionage Act, which our government has abused to imprison whistleblowers and criminalize basic investigative reporting. These actions endanger our First Amendment right to speak freely and to receive information and ideas. 

Right to Protest

One of the most cherished rights guaranteed by our First Amendment is our ability to speak out and speak freely. When Americans disagree with the state of affairs, they are free to peaceably assemble, picket, march, and collectively organize for a better world. Yet all levels of government, often backed by corporate special interests, are working to curtail these rights. The right to protest is not just a fundamental right; it is the tool by which Americans can achieve a more perfect union. 

Constitutional War Powers and Accountability For Human Rights Abuses 

Under our Constitution, the President can only initiate military action when there is a Congressional declaration of war or statutory authorization for use of force, or a national emergency created by an attack on the United States. Yet too often, the executive branch carries out acts of war based on deception, without engaging the deliberative process of our legislative branch. Moreover, the executive branch routinely engages in abuses of power such as violations of the laws of war, torture, assassinations, indefinite detention, and support for other atrocities abroad that violate our values at home. 

Gaza Free Speech Crisis

Our government’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and broader Middle East wars has boomeraged back home in the form of one of the worst crises for free expression since the McCarthy era. With the unrelenting demonization of dissent, excessive force unleashed against peaceful protesters, politically motivated deportations, and surveillance, the First Amendment is under attack. 

FOIA Investigations 

Using the Freedom of Information Act, our staff produces investigative journalism that exposes everything from intrusive surveillance at home to war crimes abroad, producing groundbreaking exposeés, aiding the public’s right to know, and embodying the freedom to act. 

Our History

The Defending Dissent Foundation was founded in 1960 as the National Committee to Abolish HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee). By the end of the decade, after a coordinated campaign of lobbying, education, and grassroots organizing and protesting, HUAC was a shadow of its former self. It was officially abolished in 1975. We became the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation in the late 1960’s in order to expand our agenda to include calls for the repeal of the 1968 Anti-riot Act and other legislation that didn’t specifically relate to HUAC but infringed upon the First Amendment.

Over the decades, we have worked against legislation and policies that infringe on our rights. In the early 1970’s, we fought for the repeal of Title ll of the Internal Security Act of 1950 which created a system of preventive detention along the lines of the Japanese Internment Camps of WWll.  The Japanese American Citizens League spearheaded the repeal effort and a broad bi-partisan coalition lobbying both in DC and at the grass roots won a victory.

In 2007 we changed our name to Defending Dissent Foundation. We hope to post more about our history, but you can dig deeper by looking at our archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society, or by viewing this documentary, narrated by Ed Asner, on youtube.

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee was founded in 2001 to fight the PATRIOT Act. A few weeks after the law passed, the idea for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee was born at a Women’s Congress for Peace gathering in Northampton, Massachusetts. Within a month, participants from the gathering formed a community-based “Bill of Rights Defense Committee” that, in turn, held a community forum and petition drive. Their work culminated with passage of a city council resolution establishing Northampton as a “civil liberties safe zone.”

The idea caught fire, and under the leadership of our first Executive Director, Nancy Talanian, over 400 towns, cities, and even a few states passed similar resolutions over the next few years. Since then, BORDC has grown into a nationwide movement using the successful organizing model developed in Northampton.

Since those early days, the work of BORDC has necessarily expanded beyond calling for repeal of the PATRIOT Act, as the NSA, FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS, and DOJ have perverted other laws, and even the English language, to vastly expand their authorities beyond anything the founding fathers could have imagined. Read more here.

In 2015, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Defending Dissent Foundation agreed to merge, to place both organizations and their respective supporters in an even stronger position to help restore constitutional rights eroded by executive agencies.