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Research Shows Poor Americans More Severely Harmed By Surveillance
According to a piece in The New York Times, a recent study by the Pew Research Center revealed that Americans in lower income groups confront greater privacy and security concerns, but enjoy less access to means of addressing them… Read more »
Defending Rights and Dissent Releases Resources Equipping Activists to Protect Free Speech Rights
Defending Rights and Dissent, a partner organization affiliated with the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights, has released a collection of online resources for instructing activists how to preserve their right to peaceful protest. The resources, known collectively … Read more »
In First Amendment Victory, Federal Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Remaining Trump Inauguration Protesters
According to a new article by The Guardian, last week federal prosecutors dropped charges on the last 39 demonstrators participating in a Washington, DC Inauguration Day protest who were awaiting trial on felony rioting charges, among other alleged offenses. The … Read more »
Police Persecute Black Activist Attacked by White Supremacists
According to a new article from The Guardian, a journalist stabbed by white supremacists while chronicling counter-protesters’ presence was subsequently charged for rioting and assault, among other offenses. Cedric O’Bannon, an activist and journalist, was filming counter-protesters opposing a Neo-Nazi … Read more »
Illinois Bill Authorizing Police to Fly Facial Recognition-Equipped Drones Over Protests Falters in House, For Now
Chicago Tribune reports that the Illinois House has tabled a bill that would allow law enforcement across the state to deploy drones armed with facial recognition technology over large public demonstrations. The bill (SB 2562), which was … Read more »
Prosecution Drops Case Against 129 Inauguration Day Protesters
According to a new piece from Al Jazeera, prosecutors in the case against protesters taking part in the Disrupt J20 demonstration, which took place in Washington, DC in January 2017, have dropped all charges against 129 defendants. Among the … Read more »
Announcement: CCDBR to Host FOIA Training Workshop Featuring LPL
To ensure the integrity of the democratic process, it is vital that citizens must be able to know what their government does in their name. This is more important now than ever, as government at all levels increasingly pursues opaque … Read more »
From Bridgeview to Black Lives Matter, Targets May Change, But the Surveillance Remains the Same
Two new reports released in as many weeks, one by WBEZ and the other by Al Jazeera, vividly illustrate how politically motivated policing is a thread that runs through law enforcement from before the start of the war on … Read more »
Internal FBI Documents Conflate Peaceful, Majority-Black Social Movements with Terrorism
A new report from Foreign Policy reveals that the FBI has begun characterizing police accountability and racial equality movements which are primarily comprised of African-Americans as “black identity extremists” or “BIEs” in their internal reports. According to these documents, FBI … Read more »
Justice Department Slaps Facebook with Warrants for Protesters’ Account Information
Al Jazeera reveals that the US Department of Justice, as part of its ongoing prosecution of Inauguration Day protesters, has issued search warrants for a group page and user accounts related to the Disrupt J20 campaign. The three warrants … Read more »
