Above photo: J. Edgar Hoover FBI Headquarters. Christian Korsager.
Aimed At Palestine Solidarity Activists.
NOTE: Listen to this Clearing the FOG interview with attorney Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights and Dissent about using lawfare against immigrants, how that impacts people with permanent residency and what is being done to oppose it.
Washington, DC – Defending Rights & Dissent has launched a major new investigative project into the abuse of immigration process to retaliate against critics of Israel’s war in Gaza or supporters of the Palestinian people. As part of this project, the free expression organization has filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice, requesting documents on the “Catch and Revoke” initiative and the agencies’ communications with private McCarthyite blacklisting organizations and the Government of Israel.
When the government goes to war against the First Amendment, the American people have a right to know the details. There is no question that the Trump administration is abusing immigration law to chill the speech of opponents of Israel’s war. In addition to disturbing reports of the use of artificial intelligence to spy on political speech on social media, there is growing evidence that anti-Palestinian blacklisting organizations are helping select targets for political retaliation. All of this raises troubling questions about severe abuses of free expression rights and we intend to get answers,” said Chip Gibbons, Policy Director Defending Rights & Dissent.
Since the start of Israel’s war against the Palestinian people of Gaza, the United States has undergone one of its worst free speech crises in decades. As part of the growing crackdown, private vigilante groups have publicly boasted of using facial recognition to identify protesters on student visas to create deportation lists. The Trump administration has escalated this attack on the First Amendment by launching “Catch and Revoke” to deny visas of those engaged in activism for Palestinian rights. ‘Catch and Revoke’ is a State Department-led, whole-of-government initiative that also involves the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice. To select targets for Catch and Revoke, the government is reportedly using artificial intelligence to surveil social media for political speech, monitoring public reporting on political demonstrations, and consulting the lawfare efforts of anti-Palestinian, anti-free speech organizations. Many of the high-profile targets for retaliatory immigration enforcement based on campus activism have also been the targets of private blacklisters, suggesting an interplay between the U.S. government and politically motivated vigilantes.
Defending Rights & Dissent is a national civil liberties organization that defends the American people’s right to know and freedom to act through grassroots mobilization, public education, policy expertise, and advocacy journalism. Defending Rights & Dissent has repeatedly successfully used the Freedom of Information Act to expose government abuses of First Amendments rights. They also publish the Gaza First Amendment Alert.