NCA-HUAC In 1960, the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee (NCA-HUAC) formed as a group opposing the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Frank Wilkinson founded NCA-HUAC after he came under HUAC suspicion. In his capacity working for the
Los Angeles City Housing Authority on a public housing project, Wilkinson was asked by opposing lawyer Felix McGinnis to disclose which organizations he had previously been associated with. This was a thinly veiled attempt to determine whether Wilkinson belonged to the
Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) or one of CPUSA’s many
front groups. When subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Wilkinson again refused to answer questions regarding his organizational involvement "as a matter of conscience and personal responsibility." Wilkinson was cited for contempt of Congress and consequently sent to
jail, where he served a year-long sentence. Unlike other civil liberties organizations, NCA-HUAC retained a single-minded focus on opposing HUAC. As an organizing tactic, NCA-HUAC created networks of local affiliates located across the United States. NCA-HUAC theorized that national groups alone could not turn the tide against HUAC; targeted local lobbying in individual congressional districts would be necessary. From the outset, NCA-HUAC was a target of
FBI covert action and surveillance. In 1957, HUAC produced a report alleging that activist groups opposed to HUAC had been infiltrated by communists. Assistant FBI Director Fred J. Baumgardner believed that HUAC was a "buffer target” bulwarking the FBI against communist subversion. Based on this belief, the FBI took steps to surveil and discredit critics of HUAC, including NCA-HUAC. FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover personally ordered an expedited investigation of NCA-HUAC as part of
COINTELPRO. An FBI memo included directives to "expose, discredit, or disrupt” NCA-HUAC. The ostensible purpose of investigation and covert action was to decide whether NCA-HUAC should be required to register as a communist front organization under the
Internal Security Act of 1950. However, the
Department of Justice repeatedly declined the FBI’s request to require NCA-HUAC to register as a communist front organization. Eventually,
J. Walter Yeagley at the Department of Justice instructed the FBI to stop submitting reports requesting that NCA-HUAC be required to register. In addition to interfering with Wilkinson’s speaking tour, the FBI also interfered with fundraising, creating problems for NCA-HUAC as a donor-dependent
nonprofit organization. The FBI called on the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission to raid a Democratic Party fundraiser because one of the candidates present was a sponsor of NCAHUAC. In January 1966, the office of the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights was broken into. This
black bag operation was authorized by FBI Assistant Director
William C. Sullivan and undertaken for the purpose of photographing the lists of donors to the organization. In 1985, a sister non-profit organization, the First Amendment Foundation was created to accept tax deductible donations. The First Amendment Foundation published books and reports by NCARL. When HUAC was abolished in 1975, Representative
Robert F. Drinan commented that: No account of the demise of the House Un-American Activities Committee would be complete without a notation of the extraordinary work done by the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation. After HUAC was disbanded, NCARL continued to advocate for the eradication of anti-subversive legislation across the federal government, including through the
McCarran-Walter Act, the Seditious Conspiracy statute, and the
Smith Act. Representatives in NCARL testified in front of Congress multiple times in the 1970s and 1980s on issues relating to First Amendment freedoms and whistleblower prosecutions. In 1977, NCARL Washington Coordinator Esther Herst delivered testimony raising concerns that the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would endanger the privacy of American citizens. A few years later, Herst testified against provisions of the Criminal Code Reform Act of 1979 that criminalized pre-crime behaviors and endangered dissent that could be construed under the bill as interfering with the processes of government. Herst also testified at other hearings in the same year about dangers to whistleblowers posed by further revisions to the federal criminal code. She raised the concern that certain provisions in the reform bill would allow the New York Times and Washington Post to be prosecuted for publishing the
Pentagon Papers. NCARL alleged that the FBI acted improperly by defaming and discrediting the organization rather than entering into public debate on the merits of the issues at stake. Throughout the 1990s, NCARL and its sister organization, the First Amendment Foundation, worked under the auspices of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF) to oppose what they saw as the suspension of
due process and revival of McCarthy-era law to profile Muslims and Arab Americans. After 9/11, NCARL continued to oppose the profiling of Muslims, overbroad designations of terrorist organizations, use of secret evidence in trial proceedings, use of torture, and the suspension of the right of
habeas corpus for
Guantanamo Bay detainees.
DDF In 2007, NCARL was folded into its sister organization First Amendment Foundation, which then changed its name again, to the Defending Dissent Foundation. DDF identifies itself as a member of several
coalitions of U.S. advocacy groups:
Alliance for Justice, Charity and Security Network, Cybersecurity Working Group, D.C. Bill of Rights Committee, Free Expression Network,
Liberty Coalition, OpentheGovernment.org, Rights Working Group, and
United for Peace and Justice.
BORDC The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) began in Northampton, MA in the immediate aftermath of the passage of the
PATRIOT Act. Attendees at a Women's Congress for Peace gathering concerned with PATRIOT Act attacks on the
First Amendment and
Fourth Amendment decided to form an advocacy organization opposing the PATRIOT Act on the local level. BORDC conducted local education, hosted debates about federal policy, and advocated for a city council resolution condemning the PATRIOT Act and instructing law enforcement to avoid infringing upon civil liberties. As a result of this activism, the City of
Northampton unanimously passed a city council resolution establishing a "civil liberties safe zone.” Following this success, BORDC became a national organization. On the national stage, BORDC coordinated networks of local groups and provided resources for local activism against the PATRIOT Act. By August 2005, 396 local governments had enacted resolutions. By 2007, eight states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Vermont) and the District of Columbia had passed state-wide resolutions. According to DRAD, when BORDC became a national organization, it expanded its purview to include advocacy against the expansion of NSA, FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS, and DOJ surveillance authorities. As part of the campaign, BORDC ran a paid advertisement in the
New York Times entitled "A Declaration for Our Times,” which was signed by over six hundred people from across the country. Written in the same format as the
Declaration of Independence, the document was designed to draw attention to the Bush administration's secret wiretapping of American citizens, detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and other policies which, in the view of BORDC, "establish tyranny through false promises of greater security.” Through the 2010s, BORDC continued its strategy of pushing local governments to pass resolutions limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal intelligence agencies. In 2011, BORDC successfully pushed Northampton City Council to unanimously pass a resolution withdrawing local enforcement from cooperation with the
Secure Communities program, a controversial information sharing initiative used by federal officers conducting immigration enforcement.
DRAD In 2015, the Defending Dissent Foundation merged with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee to form Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD). The organization has supported bills amending the Espionage Act to better protect journalists and require the government to prove that whistleblowers acted with an intent to harm national security. In 2022, DRAD's foundation partners included the
Craigslist Charitable Fund, CS Fund/Warsh-Mott Legacy,
Stewart R. Mott Foundation, Victor & Lorraine Honig Fund (Common Counsel Foundation), and Tikva Grassroots Empowerment Fund. {{cite web ==Leadership==