The enclosed report from the James Irvine Foundation focuses on strategies for arts and cultural workers to more deeply connect with communities. Continue reading Engaged Art
Category Archives: Backgrounders and Toolkits
Handy Resources
Asset Forfeiture Report from Dept of Justice
An investigation into asset forfeiture from the Department of Justice.
It states: “We believe it is important for the Department to assess 1) whether these types of seizures benefit law enforcement efforts and 2) the extent to which these types of seizures present potential risks to civil liberties. We found that the Department neither formally collects nor evaluates the data necessary to determine whether its seizures and forfeitures advance or relate to federal investigations. As a result, the Department and its investigative components cannot fully evaluate and oversee their seizure and foreiture activities to ensure that they are used to advance investigations that help to dismantle criminal organizations and that they do not present a potential risk to civil liberties”.
Continue reading Asset Forfeiture Report from Dept of Justice
The Color of Freedom Report
The Media Action Grassroots Network (www.mag-net.org) met in Washington DC to grapple with surveillance and the police state and how to center the issue with the most deeply impacted communities and use racial justice strategies to fight surveillance and tracking.
Climate Accountability Scorecard
This helpful report from the Union of Concerned Scientists ranks fossil fuel companies on climate deception, disclosure and action.
With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law and American Democracy
A report co-authored by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch that focuses on the impact of US surveillance on journalism, law and the exercise of democracy in the United States.
The Drone Report from Stop LAPD Spying
This report was written by Stop LAPD Spying on drones in LA and the community response.
White House: Big Data and Privacy Report
White House report on the era of Big Data and review of the policy challenges in managing the sea of data without replicating across new platforms the same old discriminations and divides that have been with us for way too long.
Video Visitation
Update: Wisconsin senator Tammy Duckworth is trying to get a bill going to regulate video visitation and preserve in-person visitation rights.
Sign the petition to show support for her efforts.
A case study by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and Grassroots Leadership.
In September 2014, a group of Dallas-area advocates led a fight against an initiative that would have introduced video visitation capability to the Dallas County jail. The company proposing to provide services to Dallas had buried in its contract a requirement that the jail eliminate in-person visitation, thus leaving those who wished to visit prisoners only one option – visit by video. Or, don’t visit at all.