Working to make the promise of the Bill of Rights a reality.
Welcome to Defending Rights & Dissent
Join the grassroots movement to fulfill the promise of the Bill of Rights for everyone. Together, we can make police and intelligence agencies accountable to we the people whom they serve. It’s time to convert your concern and outrage into political action. Let’s do this.
Dissent NewsWire
Color Of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of American Immigrants
Since the Snowden disclosures of 2013, it’s been a truism in Washington that “everyone is watched.” But history shows that not everyone is watched equally: Instead, people of color, immigrants, religious minorities, and LGBT persons have disproportiona… [Read More]
Demand That Charges Against Winner Be Dropped
On this centennial of one the worst pieces of legislation ever passed, join us in standing up to yet another abuse of it. Reality Winner and all other whistleblower should not be charged with any crime at all.
We Won! No Spy Planes Over Miami.
Responding to community outcry, police director Juan Perez withdraws his proposal to implement a Wide Area Surveillance program in Miami Dade County
Why Is A Senate Committee Bringing Message of Anti-Muslim Street Protests Onto Capitol Hill?
If the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) is interested in learning more about terrorism and effective strategies to protect against it, they should call as witnesses experts on terrorism, not purveyors of half-truths and innuendo.
Why Wide Area Surveillance is a Big Deal
Militarization of American police forces is becoming more and more common and, as a result of digital-age technologies and the use of smaller-scale surveillance cameras both publicly and privately, many people living in the United States today believe they have no privacy and, indeed, no right to expect privacy. They are misinformed.
UN Experts Decry Surge in Anti-Protest Bills in US States
“These state bills, with their criminalization of assemblies, enhanced penalties and general stigmatization of protesters, are designed to discourage the exercise of…fundamental rights.”
Spy Planes Over Miami
The highly invasive technology was developed by the US Air Force during the Iraq War and features Cessna airplanes flying over an area filming all that goes on in a 32 square mile area below. But activists are fighting it.
Who Is This Guy? Trump Nominates Christopher A. Wray To Be FBI Director
Trump announced his nominee via twitter this morning. Wray isn’t a household name, even among civil liberty advocates, so we’re still researching those details. Here’s what we’ve got so far…
Expansive Protections Against Police Abuses Win Approval in Providence
On Thursday night, the capital of the smallest state in the union adopted a wide-ranging police reform measure with national and historic implications. The ordinance was inspired by our Local Civil Rights Restoration Act.
So Maybe it ISN’T Constitutional to Deafen Protesters?
US District Judge Hon. Robert W. Sweet denied a bid by the City of New York to dismiss key assault and battery, excessive force, and failure to train claims in a landmark federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of NY and NYPD officers who used an LRAD “sound cannon” against Black Lives Matter protesters, journalists, and bystanders in December of 2014.