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Defending Rights & Dissent
June 30, 2021
On June 30, Rep. Raskin, Chair of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and Rep. Judy Chu, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus convened a roundtable conversation, “Researching while Chinese American: Ethnic Profiling, Chinese American Scientists
June 29, 2021
Defending Rights & Dissent was deeply saddened by the passing of Senator Mike Gravel. Gravel served two terms as a Senator from Alaska. During his first term, Gravel led an unparalleled rebuke against government secrecy, becoming the only Senator to
June 9, 2021
On this day in 1954, one of our nation’s most infamous demagogues had his career come to a symbolic end. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose name has now become synonymous with political persecution, rose from a relatively unremarkable junior Senator to
June 8, 2021
Witness Against Torture (WAT) invites you to join a fast during June Torture Awareness Week. We will fast in our homes in deference to the still unvanquished pandemic, but we’ll connect by Zoom. Fast for a day or two, or for
May 24, 2021
May 24, 2021 Unbeknownst to most of us, Dan Ellsberg secretly copied another exposive report when he copied the Pentagon Papers fifty years ago. The second classified study documented how close the U.S. came to starting a nuclear war with
April 28, 2021
April 28, 2021 Today, Defending Rights & Dissent joined two dozen other organizations to urge an end to the funding for the National Capital Region Facial Recognition Investigative Leads System (“NCR-FRILS”) pilot project, halt the use of the system, and
April 22, 2021
While the assassination of Fred Hampton took place five decades ago, new revelations about the FBI’s role in Hampton’s death are still emerging. Researchers Aaron Leonard and Conor Gallagher have been key to these developments. In their quest to
April 20, 2021
In a new letter co-signed by dozens of civil rights and civil liberties organizations across the country, Defending Rights & Dissent is calling on the federal government to end its use of facial recognition technology provided by the private company
April 14, 2021
April 14, 2021 Last night, for the third night in a row, people in Brooklyn Center, MN took to the streets to protest the police killing of Daunte Wright. And for a third night, police in riot gear responded with
April 6, 2021
Last week, Daniel Hale, a drone whistleblower, pled guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act. Hale admitted in court that he gave to an investigative reporter documents detailing human rights abuses pertaining to the US’s troubling assassination program.
April 1, 2021
Members of Congress, civil society groups, and historians and other scholars all called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to release the remaining files on the FBI’s role in the assassination of Fred Hampton. Hampton, the charismatic young leader of the
March 31, 2021
Defending Rights & Dissent stands with Daniel Hale, a courageous and heroic whistleblower. Earlier this afternoon, Hale pled guilty to one count of “retention and transmission of national defense information” in violation of the Espionage Act. Hale was charged with
March 9, 2021
On March 8, 1971, a group of anti-war activists calling themselves the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into the FBI’s Media, Pennsylvania office. They sought to gather definitive proof that the FBI was undermining social movements and waging
February 24, 2021
Dear Mayor de Blasio & Commissioner Shea: The revelation made during a City Council Education Committee hearing on February 18, 2021, that the NYPD is planning to hire 475 new school safety officers, at the expense of $20 million, is
February 17, 2021
On February 12, 2021 the 8th Circuit of Appeals ruled that Arkansas’s anti-boycott law targeting supporters of Palestinian human rights violated the First Amendment. The challenge was brought by the Arkansas Times. The newspaper that takes no position on Boycotts,