Formation | 1960 |
---|---|
Merger of | Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Defending Dissent Foundation |
Legal status | 501(c)(3) |
Headquarters | Washington, DC |
Website | www.rightsanddissent.org |
Formerly called | National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee, National Committee Against Repressive Legislation |
Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD) is a national not-for-profit advocacy organization in the United States, dedicated to defending civil liberties, exposing government repression, and protecting the right of political dissent. DRAD was formed as the merger of the Defending Dissent Foundation (DDF) and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC). DRAD is currently active in defending the right to protest, [1] [2] [3] opposing political surveillance, [4] and campaigning against the prosecution of national security whistleblowers. [5] [6]
In 1960, the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee (NCA-HUAC) formed as a group opposing the House Un-American Activities Committee (known popularly by the acronym "HUAC"). Frank Wilkinson founded the group after he came under HUAC suspicion. In his capacity working for the Los Angeles City Housing Authority on a public housing project, Frank Wilkinson was asked by opposing lawyer Felix McGinnis to disclose which organizations he had previously been associated with. This was a thinly veiled attempt to determine whether Wilkinson belonged to the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) or one of CPUSA’s many front groups. [7] When subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Wilkinson again refused to answer questions regarding his organizational involvement "as a matter of conscience and personal responsibility." [8] Wilkinson was cited for contempt of Congress and sent to jail in 1961, where he served a year-long sentence. [7]
NCA-HUAC, under Wilkinson’s leadership, began its advocacy against McCarthyism in 1960. The organization was an outgrowth of the Southern California Civil Liberties Union (a unit of the American Civil Liberties Union) and the Citizens Committee to Preserve American Freedoms. [9] Unlike other civil liberties organizations, NCA-HUAC retained a single-minded focus on opposing HUAC. As an organizing tactic, NCA-HUAC created networks of local affiliates located across the United States. NCA-HUAC theorized that national groups alone could not turn the tide against HUAC; targeted local lobbying in individual congressional districts would be necessary. [10]
From the outset, NCA-HUAC was a target of FBI covert action and surveillance. In 1957, HUAC produced a report alleging that activist groups opposed to HUAC had been infiltrated by communists. [11] Assistant FBI Director Fred J. Baumgardner believed that HUAC was a "buffer target” bulwarking the FBI against communist subversion. [11] The FBI believed that communists were engaged in a secret war to destroy HUAC called "Operation Abolition.” [12] Based on this belief, the FBI took steps to surveil and discredit critics of HUAC, including NCA-HUAC. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover personally ordered an expedited investigation of NCA-HUAC as part of COINTELPRO. An FBI memo included directives to "expose, discredit, or disrupt” NCA-HUAC. [11]
The FBI conducted covert actions (then called "counterintelligence operations”) against NCA-HUAC. [13] The ostensible purpose of investigation and covert action was to decide whether NCA-HUAC should be required to register as a communist front organization under the Internal Security Act of 1950. However, the Department of Justice repeatedly declined the FBI’s request to require NCA-HUAC to register as a communist front organization. Eventually, J. Walter Yeagley at the Department of Justice instructed the FBI to stop submitting reports requesting that NCA-HUAC be required to register. [11]
The FBI routinely forwarded derogatory information about NCA-HUAC to HUAC and their allies. On at least twenty different occasions, the FBI forwarded HUAC material about NCA-HUAC, including information gathered from FBI informants. HUAC then forwarded its supporters dossiers on people connecting to NCA-HUAC, including material intended to be used to prepare for debates against NCA-HUAC members. [11] The FBI obtained pre-publication copies of a pamphlet slated to be released by a member of NCA-HUAC entitled "HUAC: Bulwark of Segregation.” The FBI produced a chapter-by-chapter summary of the unpublished pamphlet to be distributed to field offices. [11]
Not all of the FBI’s information campaign against NCA-HUAC was conducted in-house. A "sizeable number” of records from the FBI Crime Records Division were leaked to media contacts, including reporters at the Los Angeles Examiner and the American Legion publication Firing Line. HUAC submitted press releases based on FBI files to the newswire United Press International. [11]
When Wilkinson embarked on an NCA-HUAC speaking tour, he faced further FBI surveillance and covert action. The FBI ordered field agents to spy on Wilkinson’s speaking engagements, which they secretly photographed and videotaped. At Drake University in 1962, the FBI planted an audience member, who asked Wilkinson whether he was a communist. In another instance, the FBI stationed a "friendly newspaperman” at the entrance to the church where Wilkinson was speaking to ask for audience members’ names and addresses. This was an attempt to dissuade the public from attending the event. The FBI further attempted to interfere with the NCA-HUAC speaking tour by mailing newspaper clippings portraying NCA-HUAC in a negative light to venues planning to host Wilkinson. In several cases, this tactic led to the cancellation of planned speaking engagements. Ahead of Wilkinson’s media appearances, news stations received FBI-drafted questions about Wilkinson’s alleged communist ties. These questions were sometimes posed to Wilksonson on air. [11] The FBI also recruited counterdemonstrators, including members of the American Nazi Party. [14]
In addition to interfering with Wilkinson’s speaking tour, the FBI also interfered with fundraising, creating problems for NCA-HUAC as a donor-dependent nonprofit organization. The FBI called on the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission to raid a Democratic Party fundraiser because one of the candidates present was a sponsor of NCAHUAC. [15] In January 1966, the office of the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights was broken into. This black bag operation was authorized by FBI Assistant Director William C. Sullivan and undertaken for the purpose of photographing the lists of donors to the organization. [11]
NCA-HUAC also lobbied Congress. Here too, the FBI surveilled the organization and undertook covert actions disparaging the organization. Critics of HUAC in Congress were surveilled, and informants reported back to the FBI which congresspeople attended NCA-HUAC sponsored events. [11] This amounted to an FBI effort to interfere with constitutionally-protected political advocacy.
Information about the extent of FBI interference in the operations of NCA-HUAC came to light when the organization filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests following an armed break-in in 1969. [14] When the news broke of burglaries associated with the Watergate scandal, members of NCA-HUAC grew suspicious that the break-in at their office was connected to the FBI. On the basis of advice from Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, NCA-HUAC asked the FBI about the break-in. [14] The FBI response led Wilkinson to begin filing FOIA requests inquiring about FBI surveillance and covert action against his organization. The FOIA inquiry started a legal battle to retrieve over 132,000 pages of FBI material collected about Wilkinson and NCA-HUAC. [7] The Church Committee investigation later found additional evidence of FBI misconduct in its actions against NCA-HUAC. [15]
NCA-HUAC changed its name to National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL) in the late 1960s, in order to expand the purview of the organization to include opposition to the criminalization of dissent in criminal code reform, civil liberties abuses in counterterrorism, and mass surveillance. [16] In 1985, a sister non-profit organization, the First Amendment Foundation was created to accept tax deductible donations. The First Amendment Foundation published books and reports by NCARL.
When HUAC was abolished in 1975, Representative Robert F. Drinan commented that:
No account of the demise of the House Un-American Activities Committee would be complete without a notation of the extraordinary work done by the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation. [17]
After HUAC was disbanded, NCARL continued to advocate for the eradication of anti-subversive legislation across the federal government, including through the McCarran-Walter Act, the Seditious Conspiracy statute, and the Smith Act. [18]
Representatives in NCARL testified in front of Congress multiple times in the 1970s and 1980s on issues relating to First Amendment freedoms and whistleblower prosecutions. In 1977, NCARL Washington Coordinator Esther Herst delivered testimony raising concerns that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would endanger the privacy of American citizens. [19]
A few years later, Herst testified against provisions of the Criminal Code Reform Act of 1979 that criminalized pre-crime behaviors and endangered dissent that could be construed under the bill as interfering with the processes of government. [20] Herst also testified at other hearings in the same year about dangers to whistleblowers posed by further revisions to the federal criminal code. [21] She raised the concern that certain provisions in the reform bill would allow the New York Times and Washington Post to be prosecuted for publishing the Pentagon Papers. [21]
Paul Hoffman, the vice chairperson of NCARL and the lead attorney in NCARL's lawsuit against the FBI, testified in hearings relating to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that the FBI had improperly administered NCARL's FOIA requests in order to "obscure the true nature and extent of the FBI's counterintelligence actions against NCARL.” [22] NCARL alleged that the FBI acted improperly by defaming and discrediting the organization rather than entering into public debate on the merits of the issues at stake. [22]
In the 1980s and early 1990s, NCARL had program priorities of ending FBI investigations that threatened First Amendment rights and prohibiting CIA covert action. NCARL advocated for statutory control over the FBI to prevent the agency from undertaking investigations that infringed upon First Amendment-protected activity. [23] The NCARL petition, circulated among law school faculty, contributed to the introduction of the FBI First Amendment Act in 1988. Although the bill was not enacted, provisions from the bill were later included as the Edwards Amendment in the 1994 Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act. [23] It also published a report on CIA covert operations and participated in the CIA Off Campus campaign. [24]
Throughout the 1990s, NCARL and its sister organization, the First Amendment Foundation, worked under the auspices of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF) [25] to oppose what they saw as the suspension of due process and revival of McCarthy-era law to profile Muslims and Arab Americans. [16] NCARL also opposed the expansion of FBI authorities under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. [26] After 9/11, NCARL continued to oppose the profiling of Muslims, [27] overbroad designations of terrorist organizations, use of secret evidence in trial proceedings, use of torture, and the suspension of the right of habeas corpus for Guantanamo Bay detainees. [28]
In 2007, NCARL was folded into its sister organization First Amendment Foundation, which then changed its name again, to the Defending Dissent Foundation. [29] DDF identifies itself as a member of several coalitions of U.S. advocacy groups: Alliance for Justice, Charity and Security Network, Cybersecurity Working Group, D.C. Bill of Rights Committee, Free Expression Network, Liberty Coalition, OpentheGovernment.org, Rights Working Group, and United for Peace and Justice. [30]
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) began in Northampton, MA in the immediate aftermath of the passage of the PATRIOT Act. Attendees at a Women's Congress for Peace gathering concerned with PATRIOT Act attacks on the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment decided to form an advocacy organization opposing the PATRIOT Act on the local level. [31] BORDC conducted local education, hosted debates about federal policy, and advocated for a city council resolution condemning the PATRIOT Act and instructing law enforcement to avoid infringing upon civil liberties. [23] As a result of this activism, the City of Northampton unanimously passed a city council resolution establishing a "civil liberties safe zone.” [32] Following this success, BORDC became a national organization. On the national stage, BORDC coordinated networks of local groups and provided resources for local activism against the PATRIOT Act. By August 2005, 396 local governments had enacted resolutions. [33] By 2007, eight states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Vermont) and the District of Columbia had passed state-wide resolutions. [34]
According to DRAD, when BORDC became a national organization, it expanded its purview to include advocacy against the expansion of NSA, FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS, and DOJ surveillance authorities. [32] In 2008, BORDC ran the People's Campaign for the Constitution. [35] As part of the campaign, BORDC ran a paid advertisement in the New York Times entitled "A Declaration for Our Times,” which was signed by over six hundred people from across the country. Written in the same format as the Declaration of Independence, the document was designed to draw attention to the Bush administration's secret wiretapping of American citizens, detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and other policies which, in the view of BORDC, "establish tyranny through false promises of greater security.” [36]
Through the 2010s, BORDC continued its strategy of pushing local governments to pass resolutions limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal intelligence agencies. In 2011, BORDC successfully pushed Northampton City Council to unanimously pass a resolution withdrawing local enforcement from cooperation with the Secure Communities program, a controversial information sharing initiative used by federal officers conducting immigration enforcement. [37]
In 2015, the Defending Dissent Foundation merged with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee to form Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD). [38] DRAD describes their work as encompassing grassroots organizing, watchdog monitoring, coalition work, and legislative advocacy. [38] According to their website, they defend constitutional rights and confront expansions of the national security state. [38]
In recent years, DRAD released a report cataloging FBI surveillance of Black activists, Muslims, protestors at the Republican National Convention, peace activists, Occupy Wall Street protestors, and Abolish ICE protestors. [4] As summarized in The Intercept, the report concluded that the FBI exhibited political bias in its intelligence operations. DRAD criticized the use of sting operations and agents provocateur and recommended changing the standards for opening FBI assessments, a preliminary form of investigation. [4]
DRAD advocates for protections for national security whistleblowers. In particular, DRAD opposes the use of the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers. [39] The organization has supported bills amending the Espionage Act to better protect journalists and require the government to prove that whistleblowers acted with an intent to harm national security. [39] In 2021, DRAD issued a statement of support for drone whistleblower Daniel Hale. The statement was signed by over fifty journalists and nonprofit organizations. [40]
In 2022, DRAD's foundation partners included the Craigslist Charitable Fund, CS Fund/Warsh-Mott Legacy, Stewart R. Mott Foundation, Victor & Lorraine Honig Fund (Common Counsel Foundation), and Tikva Grassroots Empowerment Fund. [41]
Members of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee included:
In 2022, DRAD's Board of Directors included:
In 2022, DRAD's staff included:
DRAD created two podcasts: the Still Spying Podcast and Primary Sources. According to the Still Spying Podcast website, the series examines "the failure to reform the FBI, the FBI's own war on Black dissent, the FBI's dual role as both law enforcement and intelligence, and how the issue of political surveillance fits into larger discussions about policing." [46] The Primary Sources website describes the purpose of the podcast as "explor[ing] the challenges faced by whistleblowers, journalists, and other truthtellers who expose abuses committed in the name of 'national security'." [47] On Primary Sources, DRAD Policy Director Chip Gibbons interviewed Daniel Ellsberg, James Goodale, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Michael German, Coleen Rowley, Jeffrey Sterling, Lisa Ling, Terry Albury, and Jesselyn Radack, along with several other guests. [47]
In 2019, DRAD released the report Still Spying on Dissent: The Enduring Problem of FBI First Amendment Abuse. [48] The report cataloged FBI targeting of political dissent in its assessments, investigations, and surveillance activities. [4] Previously, DRAD released a joint report with the Center for Constitutional Rights entitled Ag-Gag Across America: Corporate-Backed Attacks on Activists and Whistleblowers, about the criminalization of investigation into the agricultural industry. [49]
DRAD also publishes Dissent NewsWire and a monthly newsletter.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center established in 1994 to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age. Based in Washington, D.C., their mission is to "secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age for all people through advocacy, research, and litigation." EPIC believes that privacy is a fundamental right, the internet belongs to people who use it, and there's a responsible way to use technology.
The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, is the United States federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased or uncirculated information and documents controlled by the U.S. government upon request. The act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and includes nine exemptions that define categories of information not subject to disclosure. The act was intended to make U.S. government agencies' functions more transparent so that the American public could more easily identify problems in government functioning and put pressure on Congress, agency officials, and the president to address them. The FOIA has been changed repeatedly by both the legislative and executive branches.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil.
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) is a 235-page Act of Congress, signed by President George W. Bush, that broadly affects United States federal terrorism laws. The act comprises several separate titles with varying subject issues. It was enacted in response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a United States civil rights organization, formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals and disbanded in 1956. It succeeded the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, and the National Negro Congress, serving as a defense organization. Beginning about 1948, it became involved in representing African Americans sentenced to death and other highly prominent cases, in part to highlight racial injustice in the United States. After Rosa Lee Ingram and her two teenage sons were sentenced in Georgia, the CRC conducted a national appeals campaign on their behalf, their first for African Americans.
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Christopher H. Pyle is a journalist and professor emeritus of Politics at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He testified to Congress about the use of military intelligence against civilians, worked for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, as well as the Senate Committee on Government Oversight. He is the author of several books and Congressional reports on military intelligence and constitutional rights, and has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress on issues of deportation and extradition.
Frank Wilkinson was an American civil liberties activist who served as Executive Director of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation and the First Amendment Foundation.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is an independent agency within the executive branch of the United States government, established by Congress in 2004 to advise the President and other senior executive branch officials to ensure that concerns with respect to privacy and civil liberties in the United States are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of all laws, regulations, and executive branch policies related to terrorism.
The Liberty Coalition is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that connects politically diverse organizations and promotes transpartisan policies related to civil liberties and basic human rights.
The history of the USA PATRIOT Act involved many parties who opposed and supported the Patriot Act, which was proposed, enacted and signed into law 45 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The legislation, though approved by large majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representative, was controversial, and parts of the law were invalidated or modified by successful legal challenges over constitutional infringements to civil liberties. The Act had several sunset provisions, most reauthorized by the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act. Both reauthorizations incorporated amendments to the original USA PATRIOT Act, and other federal laws.
Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109 (1959), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the actions of the House Un-American Activities Committee did not violate the First Amendment and, thus, the Court upheld Lloyd Barenblatt's conviction for contempt of Congress. The Court held that the congressional committee had authority to compel a college professor to answer questions about his Communist Party membership.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, also called the FAA and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, is an Act of Congress that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has been used as the legal basis for surveillance programs disclosed by Edward Snowden in 2013, including PRISM.
Frank Donner was a civil liberties lawyer, author, and the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Project on Political Surveillance, whose clients included Morton Sobell and William Albertson.
The USA Freedom Act is a U.S. law enacted on June 2, 2015, that restored and modified several provisions of the Patriot Act, which had expired the day before. The act imposes some new limits on the bulk collection of telecommunication metadata on U.S. citizens by American intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency. It also restores authorization for roving wiretaps and tracking lone wolf terrorists. The title of the act is a ten-letter backronym that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015.
The FISA Improvements Act is a proposed act by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Prompted by the disclosure of NSA surveillance by Edward Snowden, it would establish the surveillance program as legal, but impose some limitations on availability of the data. Opponents say the bill would codify warrantless access to many communications of American citizens for use by domestic law enforcement.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama favored some levels of mass surveillance. He has received some widespread criticism from detractors as a result. Due to his support of certain government surveillance, some critics have said his support violated acceptable privacy rights, while others dispute or attempt to provide justification for the expansion of surveillance initiatives under his administration.
Terry J. Albury is an American former FBI agent convicted of leaking documents to news site The Intercept detailing secret guidelines for the FBI’s use of informants and the surveillance of journalists and religious and ethnic minority and immigrant communities. The documents formed the basis for a series of articles in The Intercept called "The FBI's Secret Rules".
Thomas I. Emerson (1907–1991) was a 20th-century American attorney and professor of law. He is known as a "major architect of civil liberties law," "arguably the foremost First Amendment scholar of his generation," and "pillar of the Bill of Rights."