When The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers it sparked one of the greatest battles for press freedom in US history. In an unprecedented move, the Nixon administration sought to bar The New York Times from publishing further. The Times...

Daniel Ellsberg is the most iconic whistleblower in US history. On our inaugural episode, he joins host Chip Gibbons for an in-depth conversation. On the 50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers release, Ellsberg explains how...

The FBI has long devoted its resources to stamping out dissent. As part of its ruthless war on the Communist Party, the Bureau set its sites on America’s folk singers. In his new book The Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, the Folk Artists a...

In our final episode, we explore the Defending Rights & Dissent’s own origins. Frank Wilkinson was a public housing advocate who was working on an integrated public housing project in Chavez Ravine, The FBI and HUAC working together, hounde...

The Second Red Scare may have been named after the demagogic Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, but no one was more central to it than J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Host Chip Gibbons is joined by renowned historian...