By Chip Gibbons — Defending Rights & Dissent

Throughout its history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has used its expansive powers to investigate, monitor, and surveil First Amendment-protected activity. As early as 1924, public concern about the FBI’s violation of First Amendment rights and other civil liberties spurred official attempts to check the FBI’s power. This report covers FBI surveillance of political activity over roughly the past decade.

From Restore The Fourth

Dear Chairman Graham, Ranking Member Feinstein, and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

The Inspector-General’s report into the mishandled Carter Page case shows vividly that FBI agents engage in serious abuses with respect to domestic surveillance, and misuse powers intended for foreign intelligence to conduct surveillance of American citizens,[1] despite prior efforts by Congress to rein in FBI domestic surveillance dating back to the 1970s. This report, and the delay in consideration of the expiring PATRIOT Act Section 215 to March 2020, create an opportunity for hearings into abusive FBI practices with respect to domestic surveillance.

by Thomas Drake — Common Dreams

It was the head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre who finally admitted before an Australian Parliament committee that she had unilaterally directed and pressured the CyberCon conference to drop myself and an academic research professor (an Australian citizen) from the University of Melbourne as speakers.

On December 9, 2019, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice released its review of “Crossfire Hurricane,” an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign for president coordinated with the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 elections.

Rolling back key aspects of the military-industrial-surveillance complex cannot be accomplished without putting up a huge fight.

By Norman Solomon – Common Dreams

By Sam Adler-Bell : The New Republic

House leadership included the measure in a government funding bill—and even members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus went along with it.

By Chip Gibbons – RightsAndDissent.org

A new report from Defending Rights & Dissent finds that nearly every major social movement of the past decade — including Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock protesters, environmental activists, and supporters of Palestinian rights — has been targeted by the FBI.​

World Beyond War

Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA case officer who was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and was in federal prison in Colorado. Prior to this program, as far as we know, Sterling had not been asked whether he believes the stated purpose of the program he worked on. Does he really think the purpose of giving obviously flawed nuclear bomb-part plans to Iran was to slow down a nuclear weapons program that may not even have existed? Or does he believe the purpose was to plant evidence on the government of Iran? Listen to his answer.