Defending Rights & Dissent
@rightsdissent.bsky.social
2.5K followers 100 following 390 posts
Defending your right to know and freedom to act. Learn more at RightsandDissent.org
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
"It is the responsibility of the State Department to advocate for American journalists."

With @penamerica.bsky.social, @freedom.press & more, we wrote to Sec. Rubio over the Americans and others who Israel illegally abducted from the Global Sumud Flotilla

www.rightsanddissent.org/news/rights-...
Reposted by Defending Rights & Dissent
A powerful, insightful, and disturbing interview Chip Gibbons from #ProtectTheProtest coalition member @rightsdissent.bsky.social on last week's executive order.
Reposted by Defending Rights & Dissent
Use this tool from @rightsdissent.bsky.social to tell the State Department to demand Israel release these activists and journalists.

secure.rightsanddissent.org/a/state-dept...
A US journalist is on board. The State Dept. should be all over this and it should be headline news.

Neither is likely, because the government considers critics of Israel terrorists and the media often shuns reporters who oppose slaughtering their Palestinian colleagues.
🚨 BREAKING: The Sirius-Haifa (carrying Drop Site editor Alex Colston) has been boarded by Israeli military...Contact with Colston has been lost; as part of security protocols, he and other...

🎥 “The Ship Sirius: A day in the life,” a video report from Alex Colston (@recolston.bsky.social)...
Read the latest from @dropsitenews.com on Israel's illegal interception of Global Sumud Flotilla boats, below 👇

Then tell @statedeptus.bsky.social that Israel must release Drop Site journalist Alex Colston and the rest of those abducted immediately: secure.rightsanddissent.org/a/state-dept...
War Powers Watch: Trump and Venezuela

Constitutional law expert @chipgibbons.bsky.social reviews the legal issues around Trump's extrajudicial killing of 11 individuals in a speedboat in the Caribbean

www.youtube.com/live/XKy8QBs...
War Powers Watch: Trump and Venezuela
YouTube video by Defending Rights & Dissent
www.youtube.com
NEWS: Judge to drop the RICO charges against all 61 Cop City protesters accused of racketeering!

These charges were always an absurd affront to the First Amendment and should never have been looming over these activists' heads for so long.

apnews.com/article/atla...
Thank you Senator Paul for your speaking out.

Our Constitution and our principles are clear.

The President cannot order someone dead because he suspects they committed crime.

And extrajudicial executions are a war crime.
Senator Rand Paul directly and forthrightly takes on JD Vance:

"What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial."
Reposted by Defending Rights & Dissent
📣Urge your reps to support the Land of the Free Act and repeal a pernicious provision, invoked by the Trump admin., to arrest and attempt to deport legal residents for exercising their right to free speech, including targeting Rümeysa Öztürk for co-authoring an op-ed.

Via @rightsdissent.bsky.social
Support the Land of the Free Act
secure.rightsanddissent.org
Great post from @hrdag.org about protecting our rights by protecting our data
HRDAG stands firmly with the human rights community in insisting that encryption is not optional — it is fundamental to the defense of truth.

Any attempt to ban or backdoor encryption technology is a threat to the human rights community.

hrdag.substack.com/p/without-en...
Without Encryption My Work Wouldn’t Be Possible
Our work isn’t always popular. It can infuriate those in power who want to cover up incriminating truths about the past and current trends in state violence. So when I think about HRDAG’s threat model...
hrdag.substack.com
LIVESTREAM: Register now to see our conversation with Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Whistleblower Anthony Aguilar, August 12 at 3:30pm.

Aguilar saw first-hand how the GHF 'aid' sites became "death traps" for starving Palestinians in Gaza. secure.rightsanddissent.org/a/livestream...
Livestream: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation whistleblower speaks to Defending Rights & Dissent
secure.rightsanddissent.org
The people have a right to transparency and a functioning Congress. We don’t know what’s in the Epstein files, but depriving the people of a functioning legislature in order to hide these secrets is outrageous.
BREAKING: Defending Rights & Dissent Lawsuit Uncovers FBI Surveillance of Journalists and Peace Activists at Left Forum

@chipgibbons.bsky.social breaks down our discovery that 2 FBI agents secretly attended a panel on WikiLeaks at the 2018 conference www.rightsanddissent.org/news/defendi...
Reposted by Defending Rights & Dissent
Federal agencies can't limit requests for government information about third parties this way.

If CBP doesn't want to release information about its communications with these organizations, it shouldn't communicate with them.
BREAKING: In response to our FOIA request about the government’s collusion with private blacklisting organizations like Canary Mission, Betar, and the ADL, CBP
is claiming it cannot release files mentioning a “business” unless the business consents on their letterhead.
Defending Rights & Dissent in June:

🔹Investigating Our Govt's Role in Gaza “killing fields”
🔹Filed amicus brief supporting Khalil et al's case against Columbia
🔹War on Iran, CIA analyst sentenced, 'No Kings' rallies, GTMO expansion, CBS settlement & more

www.rightsanddissent.org/news/newslet...
This is a blatant misstatement of FOIA law -- individuals, not “businesses” have privacy rights.

Who is CBP protecting?
BREAKING: In response to our FOIA request about the government’s collusion with private blacklisting organizations like Canary Mission, Betar, and the ADL, CBP
is claiming it cannot release files mentioning a “business” unless the business consents on their letterhead.
This revelation came from a late night filing by the US Attorney's Office in response to our ongoing lawsuit Defending Rights & Dissent v. FBI.

We are currently in court defending your right to know about the FBI's role in the press freedom case of the century.
BREAKING: The FBI likely has 28,240 pages of files on Wikileaks founder and journalist Julian Assange, excluding any files from the Mueller Investigation.