Defending Rights & Dissent
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.
[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.
[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.
Eventually, J. Walter Yeagley at the Department of Justice instructed the FBI to stop submitting reports requesting that NCA-HUAC be required to register.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
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.
DRAD criticized the use of sting operations and agents provocateur and recommended changing the standards for opening FBI assessments, a preliminary form of investigation.
"[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.
[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.
