SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
March, 08 2016, 12:00pm EDT
Contact:
Chip Gibbons, Esq., Legal Fellow (443) 618-0996 chip@defendingdissent.org
On 45th Anniversary of Break-In That Exposed COINTELPRO, 60 Groups Demand Congressional Commission to Investigate FBI & DHS
Over 60 national and local groups have signed on to a letter initiated by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Defending Dissent Foundation, calling on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to investigate the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) monitoring of political protests and social movements.
WASHINGTON
Over 60 national and local groups have signed on to a letter initiated by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Defending Dissent Foundation, calling on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to investigate the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) monitoring of political protests and social movements. Signatories include the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Center for Constitutional Rights, ColorOfChange, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Government Accountability Project, Greenpeace USA, National Lawyers Guild, Popular Resistance, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, Rising Tide North America, School of the Americas Watch, US Uncut, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, and Veterans for Peace.
The letter is a response to recent revelations that the FBI has been spying on Black Lives Matter, School of the Americas Watch, and anti-Keystone Pipeline groups, and earlier revelations that both the FBI and DHS engaged in similar surveillance of Occupy Wall Street. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the FBI continuously invokes counterterrorism authorities to monitor groups it admits are peaceful and nonviolent. The signatories are asking for a full investigation to determine the extent of FBI and DHS spying in the past decade.
The letter is delivered on the 45th anniversary of the break-in at the FBI's Media, PA office by eight peace activists, which exposed COINTELPRO, the FBI's expansive program to surveil, disrupt, and "neutralize" lawful political groups. Popular outrage over the revelations forced Congress to act with its own investigation (the Church and Pike Committees) and reform legislation (such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act).
"That the FBI cannot discern between activism and terrorism shows us that they think dissent is still the enemy," BORDC/DDF Legal Fellow Chip Gibbons said. "There have been multiple attempts at reform but after each and every one we see the same thing happening again. The FBI claims to no longer investigate groups for their political beliefs, but look at who the FBI investigates under its counterterrorism authority - peace groups, racial justice groups, economic justice groups - the very same types of organizations that were targeted during the heyday of J. Edgar Hoover."
Letter: https://bordc.org/fbi-dhs-letter
Background: https://bordc.org/investigate-the-fbi
Defending Rights & Dissent strengthens our participatory democracy by protecting the right to political expression. About the merger of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Defending Dissent Foundation In 2015, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) and the Defending Dissent Foundation agreed to merge to place both organizations and their respective supporters in an even stronger position to help restore constitutional rights eroded by executive agencies. While BORDC was established to fight the PATRIOT Act in the wake of its passage under the Bush administration, DDF was founded decades ago to fight the McCarthy-era witch hunt that targeted law-abiding Americans on the basis of their political beliefs. Both organizations are committed to popular constitutionalism, and work with grassroots Americans from all walks of life to help them raise their voices to confront the national security state.
LATEST NEWS
DNC Half-Measures Condemning Dark Money Won’t Cut It, Says Sanders as He Demands Total Ban
"Billionaire-funded super PACs—AIPAC, AI, crypto, and others—are spending hundreds of millions to defeat any candidate who crosses them. They should be banned from Democratic primaries. Period."
Apr 10, 2026
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday called for a total ban on dark money a day after the Democratic National Committee voted down a resolution that would have condemned the leading US pro-Israel lobby, which has spent nine figures on US elections over the past five years.
The DNC Resolutions Committee rejected the resolution, which condemned “the growing influence” of dark money and corporate-backed outside spending on Democratic races, specifically calling out the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. United Democracy Project, AIPAC's dark money arm, unleashed a $100 million blitz targeting progressives during the 2024 election cycle.
When combined with other pro-Israel lobby groups, like GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson's Preserve America PAC, that figure soars to over $200 million, according to the public interest group AIPAC Tracker.
Instead, the DNC panel opted for a broader resolution decrying the influence of dark money—defined as undisclosed independent campaign contributions—in the 2026 Democratic primaries.
"The DNC just passed a resolution condemning dark money," Sanders (Vt.) said Friday on X. "That’s a start, but not enough."
"Billionaire-funded super PACs—AIPAC, AI, crypto, and others—are spending hundreds of millions to defeat any candidate who crosses them," the senator added. "They should be banned from Democratic primaries. Period."
Sanders campaigned twice for president, centering his opposition to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which effectively ushered in the modern era of secret unlimited political spending.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, dark money spending in federal elections has skyrocketed from negligible amounts before 2010 to over $1.9 billion in the 2024 cycle alone, with over $4 billion in total undisclosed outside financing following the high court's contentious ruling.
Polling has repeatedly affirmed that support for Israel—which stands accused in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in Gaza and has already been found by the ICJ to be illegally occupying Palestine under apartheid rule—is detrimental to Democrats.
The DNC's own suppressed postmortem of the 2024 presidential election also showed that former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris' unconditional support for Israel cost Harris votes.
As AIPAC has grown more toxic to US voters amid a litany of Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank under the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—a growing number of Democrats, including some who once welcomed the group's support, are turning their backs on the lobby.
“AIPAC really is not an organization that I think today I would want any part of," Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said last month after affiliated groups poured $22 million into House races in his state.
While AIPAC cash was instrumental in unseating congressional progressives including former Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.), its largesse failed to oust others, including Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
Sanders wasn't the only one to criticize the DNC's rejection of the anti-AIPAC resolution.
“The American people are clear: They want our government to invest in life and stop funding the bombs that are destroying lives in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran," Jewish Voice for Peace political director Beth Miller said Friday.
"The DNC’s failure to pass this simple resolution condemning the outsized spending of an extremist and Republican-funded group like AIPAC in Democratic primaries shows how wildly out of touch the party is with its base," Miller added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Human Rights Groups Denounce Trump Plans to Send Cubans Fleeing Impacts of Blockade to Guantánamo
“The continued use of Guantánamo Bay, which has an extensive history of abuse and torture, is horrific and unconscionable."
Apr 10, 2026
Dozens of human rights organizations sent a letter to Congress on Friday, decrying threats by US military officials to detain Cubans who flee to the US to escape President Donald Trump's crushing economic blockade at Guantánamo Bay.
The 86 groups, which include the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Victims of Torture, the International Refugee Assistance Project, and Refugees International, zeroed in on remarks made by US Marine Corps Gen. Francis Donovan, the commander of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month about how the military would respond to the mass influx of Cuban refugees to the United States.
The risks of a refugee exodus from Cuba were sparked in January after Trump tightened the already brutal regime of economic sanctions by threatening to slap harsh tariffs on any nation that provided oil to Cuba. The result has been a crippling fuel shortage that has caused routine blackouts and disrupted every facet of daily life, from hospital care to food cultivation.
Trump enacted the fuel blockade in what he has described as an effort to coerce the government to step down from power and make way for one more amenable to the interests of American companies. With Cuba in a weakened state, he has threatened to "take" the island outright using American military force.
The United Nations has warned that if the blockade is prolonged, it could bring about a total "humanitarian collapse.”
Asked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) about what would be done if this caused a mass influx of Cuban refugees to the US, Donovan said they had an executive order that would involve coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security to handle a "mass migration event."
Donovan said it would include using the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, “where we would set up a camp to deal with those migrants or any overflow from any situation in Cuba itself.”
“Given the well-documented history of abusive and unlawful detention at Guantánamo, any proposal to use the base for additional detention is deeply troubling and unacceptable," the organizations wrote on Friday,
They note the prison’s history as a site used for extrajudicial torture during the global War on Terror and as a holding facility for other migrant groups, including Haitian refugees and asylum seekers who fled a military coup in the 1990s, many of whom were subjected to substandard living conditions.
"Time and again, we have seen the US government try to use Guantánamo as a legal black hole to mistreat migrants, subjecting them to inhumane conditions and interfering with both their right to seek protection in the United States and their right to counsel," said Pedro Sepulveda, a litigation fellow for the International Refugee Assistance Project.
Despite pledges from multiple presidents to close the camp for good, it remains open more than two decades after former President George W. Bush began using it to detain hundreds of terrorism suspects without trial.
Trump has expanded its use during his second term, using it to temporarily hold more than 700 migrants since February 2025—including dozens of Cubans rounded up by immigration agents.
Trump’s use of the camp marks the first time it has been used to hold people detained in the continental United States. A Washington Post investigation from February found that those in the facility were subject to weeks-long periods of isolation, invasive strip searches, and denied contact with lawyers.
The human rights groups called on Congress to block any funding that could be used to detain Cubans fleeing Trump's blockade and to shut down Guantánamo Bay for good.
"The president has held Guantánamo detention as a threat over the heads of migrants in the United States and now threatens the same over Cubans who may be forced to flee their homes as a result of his own actions," said Michael Galant, the senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Yumna Rizvi, a senior policy analyst for the Center for Victims of Torture, said, “If the Trump administration is worried about Cuban migration, the solution is simple: Stop intentionally impoverishing the Cuban people through an embargo and fuel blockade.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Democrats Report Overcrowding, Medical Neglect at Arizona ICE Facility After Unannounced Visit
"This is Trump’s mass deportation machine in action."
Apr 10, 2026
Three Arizona members of the US House learned of credible reports of overcrowding at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility at an airport in Mesa, Arizona, and that was "exactly what we saw," said Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva on Thursday night after the lawmakers paid a surprise visit to the detention center.
Grijalva joined fellow Democratic Reps. Yassamin Ansari and Greg Stanton in visiting the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center at Mesa-Gateway Airport, which the latter two also visited earlier this year—during one of the few periods in recent months in which the center has been under its capacity of 157 people.
As The Arizona Mirror reported Thursday, when Ansari and Stanton alerted ICE ahead of time that they'd be coming for their earlier visit on February 20, the number of detainees held in the facility dipped to one of its lowest levels in the past year.
"Almost immediately after the inspection, those numbers began to climb again," the Mirror reported, reaching as high as 335 in early March. Before the lawmakers notified ICE, as many as 777 people were being detained in the 25,000 square foot facility.
This time, with Grijalva joining them, Ansari and Stanton didn't announce that they'd be coming—and found "well over 240 detainees stacked like sardines in cells," said Ansari in a social media post.
I just conducted an unprompted, late night oversight visit at an ICE holding facility at the Mesa Gateway Airport with @RepGregStanton and @Rep_Grijalva. What we saw was shocking and sick.
Well over 240 detainees stacked like sardines in cells. People were sick and ICE was… pic.twitter.com/mN8GIAXrpd
— Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (@RepYassAnsari) April 10, 2026
"The last time we were there, they very much cleaned things up and tried to make this horrible place as presentable as it could be," said Ansari. "And what we saw tonight was massive overcrowding of every single cell... Each room has capacity for just 21 people. And in each of these rooms there were 40 or more human beings, people were body-to-body, laying next to each other like sardines."
The congresswoman said the people were "really desperate" to talk to the lawmakers despite an ICE rule prohibiting visiting members of Congress from speaking to detainees.
"Through the cracks in the door, they are telling us that it's extremely hot, that they have been there for days," said Ansari. "One of the men was telling me that someone has a fever in there and I tried to get the ICE supervisor to bring medical staff over, and he was just staring at me blankly like I was asking for the most ridiculous thing."
The coordination center is meant to hold people for no more than 12 hours just before they are deported.
According to the Mirror, publicly available data shows that 36 hours is the average length of time this year that people have been detained at the coordination center, compared with 12 hours this time last year.
The Mirror also reported Friday that a supervisor claimed during the three lawmakers' oversight visit that the center is a "72-hour hold facility, even though it has no beds or showers"—contradicting ICE's own earlier statement to the newspaper.
Tonight, I conducted unannounced oversight at ICE’s Mesa Airport detention center with @RepYassAnsari and @Rep_Grijalva.
What we saw was horrifying — crowded cells at 2-3x capacity and busses more of detainees being loaded in. This is Trump’s mass deportation machine in action. pic.twitter.com/IueA5cBjyH
— Rep. Greg Stanton (@RepGregStanton) April 10, 2026
ICE told the Mirror that fluctuations in population levels at the coordination center are a "normal part of operations" and are "based on flight schedules and operational needs."
But Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told the newspaper that "serious problems with overcrowding at ICE field offices" have been reported nationwide as the Trump administration pushes to arrest 3,000 people per day as part of its mass deportation agenda.
"The overcrowding situation is frightening, and you have people that are sick, people that are sweating, women that need sanitary napkins and were asking me if I could get some for them," said Grijalva. "People were laying on concrete without any bedding of any kind, and there were people that were so tightly in there that I couldn't count them."
Just finished a surprise Congressional oversight visit at a temporary ICE holding site in Mesa, AZ. The conditions are absolutely horrific. No human being should be treated this way. pic.twitter.com/krZ05F2g8a
— Rep. Adelita Grijalva (@Rep_Grijalva) April 10, 2026
The three lawmakers said they will be pushing to ensure no new funding for ICE is included in the new budget for the US Department of Homeland Security when Congress debates the spending next week. Stanton told the Mirror that the visit "exemplified exactly why" ICE should not get any more funding.
"What we saw was horrifying—crowded cells at two to three times the capacity and buses of more detainees being loaded in," Stanton said. "This is Trump’s mass deportation machine in action."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular