Newsletter: March 2026

Responding to Trump’s illegal war on Iran

Just weeks after kidnapping the president of Venezuela, Trump embarked on a new regime-change operation in flagrant violation of U.S. and international law when he began bombing Iran this month in coordination with Israel, assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and killing hundreds of civilians, including more than 165 young girls at an elementary school in Minab. The war, as we put it in our statement responding to the initial strikes, is “unconstitutional, unlawful, and immoral.”

Defending Rights & Dissent has been doggedly pushing Congress to reassert their Constitutional authority to take the country to war, to invoke the War Powers Act and rein Trump in. We mobilized thousands of you to take action, urging your Congressmembers to stand up for peace. 

Both the House and Senate narrowly failed to pass War Powers bills in recent votes, but we’re keeping the pressure up, pushing back against more funding for Trump’s illegal war.

Nonprofit Coalition Asks Courts to Prevent Coercive Federal Investigation Tactics

Defending Rights & Dissent joins seventeen nonprofit organizations, led by The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, in filing an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from conducting a retaliatory investigation into Media Matters for America, brought after Media Matters published critical reporting about allies of the Trump administration.

The brief, authored by Albert Sellars LLP, notes that this sort of coercive tactic — where a federal agency will launch a pretextual investigation, keep it open as a way to coerce compliance, and resist any effort to have a court review the lawfulness of the agency’s actions — has become a troublingly common form of government intimidation under the current administration. From the Justice Department to the Federal Communications Commission, court intervention has been one of the few tools that organizations have to prevent federal overreach. The amicus brief asks the appellate court to uphold a preliminary injunction. Without judicial remedy, such investigations are an acute danger to the nonprofit organizations that Americans rely on for information on matters of public concern. 

DRAD Fights Treasury’s Illegal Data-Grab Proposal

Defending Rights & Dissent joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and 15 other organizations in an effort to prevent the U.S. Department of the Treasury from creating yet another illegal, privacy-defying national database. Together, we submitted comments objecting to the Department’s proposal for massive data grabs of our personal information from states, vendors, and other institutions with a role in administering Treasury programs, including Emergency Rental Assistance, Homeowner Assistance, and other programs

As EPIC writes,

This database would contain the personal information of virtually any person or entity associated with financial assistance programs supervised by the Department, including emergency rental assistance, homeowners assistance, small business credit, and other programs. The Department also included over 20 overbroad routine uses that the Department could use to justify disclosing the information in the database with little restriction. This system could be used to further punish states that oppose the Administration or deny Congressionally-approved benefits to those entitled to receive them.

Continuing to Fight for Targeted Pro-Palestine Students and Activists

Defending Rights & Dissent has been speaking up for the students and activists who’ve been targeted, arrested, and detained for exercising their First Amendment rights in protesting the genocide in Gaza. 

We issued a statement as deportation proceedings against Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk were finally terminated this month: “The Trump administration arrested, detained, and attempted to deport Rümeysa Öztürk all because she co-wrote an op-ed in her school’s newspaper about why Tufts should support student demands to support Palestinian human rights. The Trump administration continues to smear her as a terrorist, but her only “crime” was using the First Amendment.”

The administration continues to pursue deportation for other activists, like Mahmoud Khalil, and Leqaa Kordia, the last pro-Palestine demonstrator still in DHS detention. For ongoing coverage of the crackdown on free speech in support of Palestine, subscribe to our newsletter, the Gaza First Amendment Alert.