Topic: Transparency and Acountability

Defending Rights & Dissent’s Statement on the Indictment of Julian Assange
April 11, 2019 – Earlier this morning, London police entered the Ecuadorian embassy and arrested Julian Assange. Press freedom, civil liberties, and human rights groups have long opposed the extradition of Assange to the US.
A New Website for the NSA’s Inspector General
October 1, 2018 – The National Security Agency Office of the Inspector General (NSA OIG) announced today the launch of its new, independent website – sharing much more information with the public about its work.
Artists, Poets, Activists Ask “Is Truth Melting Away?” In a Series of Events Sept. 21-23
September 16, 2018 – DRAD has teamed up with PEN America, the Corcoran School of Art and Design and artists Nora Ligarono and Marshall Reese to host a weekend of For Freedoms programming as part of a 50 State Initiative in which concurrent decentralized public events across the country will reflect a multiplicity of voices and spark a national dialogue about art, education, commerce, and politics.
We’ve Been Without PCLOB Since Before Trump Took Office. That Is A Problem
August 30, 2018 – Members of the 9/11 Commission were smart enough to understand that federal counterterrorism programs would threaten privacy and civil liberties, so they recommended the creation of a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) to review those programs to ensure they include safeguards to protect privacy and civil liberties. It’s been inoperative since January 2017.
Statement on Reality Winner Sentencing
August 24, 2018 – Reality Winner has received the longest sentence ever given in federal court for leaking information to the media. Winner is a whistleblower and this outrageous sentence, which the prosecution has boasted is meant to send a message to would be whistleblowers, is just the latest escalation in the US government’s war on whistleblowers.
California Enacts Law Protecting Consumer Privacy, But There is Still a Ways to Go
July 6, 2018 – The 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act is a law that will require technology corporations, such as Google and Facebook, to drastically alter their business models regarding data collection and privacy regulations. Despite the bill’s strong language, it has many shortcomings.
Statement on Reality Winner’s Plea Deal
June 28, 2018 – We believe that whistleblowers who alert the public or the media to matters of public concern are heroes, not criminals. As such, we oppose the use of the Espionage Act in Winner’s case and would have opposed any criminal charges brought against the whistleblower.
Federal and State Bills Feed Dangerous Myth of a “War on Police”
June 18, 2018 – Both major parties are supporting legislation that breathes life into the misguided belief that police are under attack, and that protesters or criticism of aggressive policing put police officers’ lives in danger.
FBI, Jeff Sessions, Used Misleading Statistics to Drum Up Fear About Encryption
June 7, 2018 – Defending Rights and Dissent has joined a coalition of 20 other civil liberties organizations in demanding that the Justice Department Inspector General review how the incorrect figure of 7,800 unlockable devices originally came to be. The coalition of groups is also pushing for an investigation into why Justice Department officials and Attorney General Jeff Sessions continued to cite this statistic even after it was discovered that the FBI had made an error in their calculations.
There Are Just Too Many Unknown Unknowns When it Comes to Local Police Surveillance. But Activists In Oakland are Changing That
May 16, 2018 – Orwell’s dystopic vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person’s movements may be upon us, but even his prescient imagination did not envision the rise of non-disclosure agreements.