Firewalls for Freedom

THE THREAT:  

Our fundamental freedoms are on the line: Trump and his authoritarian allies seek to control our bodies, ban our books, and silence our voices. They call for mass deportations. They vow to prosecute abortion patients and providers, ban trans health care, attack journalists, imprison their political opponents, and dismantle democracy itself.  

THE SOLUTIONS: 

Without the assistance of state and local governments, an authoritarian presidential administration will find it much harder to act on its worst threats. Massachusetts leaders must build a firewall between state and local resources and federal or out-of-state law enforcement agencies that attempt to violate our constitutional freedoms. When federal or out-of-state agencies request Massachusetts government cooperation to undermine the civil rights of our people, state agencies can and should decline to provide it.  

• Build a firewall for freedom: At the state and municipal level, Massachusetts officials can defend against the use of local resources for the Trump administration’s politically motivated prosecutions and enforcement. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office can issue guidance and training to affirm and enforce these state and local firewalls for freedom. 
• Limit deployment of military on U.S. soil: Separation between the military and civilian government is a foundational principle of American democracy. Trump has vowed to seek to deploy federal or National Guard troops domestically for the suppression of protests, for mass deportation, and other abusive domestic activities. Governor Maura Healey can take steps to prevent and deter misuses of the National Guard.  
• Protect free expression: To protect people exercising their right to protest and peacefully assemble, the governor and mayors should minimize unwarranted federal surveillance of ordinary people by adopting enhanced privacy and civil rights protections at police information-sharing “fusion centers” and other intelligence programs — including those which have been used to monitor and target people expressing their First Amendment rights. Separately, the Legislature should pass legislation to stem the tide of book bans, and adopt critical protections for the journalists who keep all of us informed. 
• Protect our immigrant neighbors: In the face of Trump’s promises of dragnet deportation schemes, targeting children and families and dismantling our nation’s asylum protection system, state and local government can help protect Massachusetts communities from extreme anti-immigrant policies, including by: 
  • Ensuring that Massachusetts resources are used for state priorities, not federal immigration enforcement, by ending the state Department of Corrections’ 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 
  • Helping keep families together by passing legislation to end ICE detention in Massachusetts and prohibit the deputization of local officials to act as ICE agents. 
  • Passing municipal ordinances addressing local police coordination with ICE, and reviewing and strengthening policies in the municipalities where Welcoming City, Trust Act, and similar ordinances have already been passed. 

THE THREAT: 

In 2016, during his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Over the course of his presidency, he did just that — appointing the three Supreme Court justices who voted to reverse decades-long protections for abortion rights and created a pathway for states to ban or severely restrict abortion care.

Now, Trump and his anti-abortion allies have made clear that a second Trump administration will attempt to misuse the Comstock Act to effectively ban abortion nationwide, direct attacks on medication abortion, and endanger access to birth control and IVF. At the same time, he threatens to disrupt and prohibit medically necessary, lifesaving health care for transgender people. 

No one should have to leave the state they call home to access essential medical care. Bans against both abortion and gender-affirming care force people to travel, uproot their families to another state, or ultimately go without this essential health care. 

THE SOLUTIONS: 

Massachusetts has already taken important steps to secure access to abortion, gender-affirming care, and other reproductive health care: In 2020, lawmakers passed the ROE Act to codify the right to abortion in state law, strike archaic provisions that criminalized abortion, and expand access to care. After Roe was overturned in 2022, policymakers passed a best-in-the-nation shield law for abortion and gender-affirming care. Massachusetts leaders should continue to push reproductive freedom forward for patients and providers in our state. 

• Ensure robust implementation of Massachusetts’ shield law: Massachusetts’ shield law offers some protections to patients and providers in our state from out-of-state investigations and legal actions. The Attorney General’s Office can help bolster these protections by issuing guidance and training to police and trial courts in Massachusetts.  
• Ensure access to medication abortion: Last year, in response to attempts to restrict medication abortion, the Healey administration stockpiled 15,000 doses of mifepristone — a medication used for abortion and miscarriage care. To ensure broader access to medication abortion, the administration can make the state-procured stockpile as available as possible to community-based providers, and can explore state-funded grant programs for private providers to purchase mifepristone in the future. 
• Pass the Location Shield Act: Data brokers collect and sell our private, deeply personal, and revealing information — including our cellphone location information. Anyone can purchase this data from brokers — without a warrant or any legitimate reason at all — and use it to harm abortion or gender-affirming care patients, providers, helpers, and more. We’ve already seen this data used to track people visiting nearly 600 Planned Parenthood locations in 48 states, including Massachusetts. We must ask lawmakers to protect Massachusetts residents from abuse of their personal location data. 

THE THREAT:  

In service of his agenda, Trump can exploit the executive branch’s vast power and access to dragnet surveillance technologies to spy on hundreds of millions of people in this country, with virtually zero oversight or checks and balances. The Trump administration inherits mass surveillance programs commandeered by federal agencies with a history of abuses. Given the chance, Trump and his allies could use these overbroad and dangerous authorities to target and hurt people and communities already in his crosshairs — people seeking or providing abortion or gender-affirming care, communities of color, immigrants, journalists, and political opponents.  

THE SOLUTIONS: 

In a second Trump administration, state and local leaders who value civil liberties must do everything in their power to ensure that our municipal and state governments do not assist the Trump administration in improper persecution of Massachusetts people. States cannot control the sprawling federal surveillance and law enforcement infrastructure, but state and local leaders can and must limit the reach of the federal government within their jurisdictions. 

• Pass strong consumer privacy laws: Our everyday activities online create a detailed data trail, revealing almost everything about our private lives. Today, with almost no regulation, companies collect that data en masse and make it available to data brokers, police and immigration authorities, and even foreign governments. Legislators can protect Massachusetts people by preventing companies from collecting more of our data than they need to provide services we request. Strictly curtailing corporate surveillance of our online activities will dramatically reduce the amount of sensitive personal information that might end up in the hands of the Trump administration. 
• Rein in surveillance technologies: Surveillance technologies supercharge policing and have been used to intimidate and control political dissidents, movement leaders and activists, and marginalized communities. As an innovation hub, Massachusetts has an opportunity and obligation to make sure technology works for the people — not against us. Through statewide legislation, Massachusetts can put democratic controls on two surveillance tools currently in use in our state — face surveillance technology and automatic license plate readers — that can threaten people seeking abortions or gender affirming care, immigrants, people of color, and other targets of the Trump administration. 
• Curb police surveillance practices: In Massachusetts, four municipalities have already passed ordinances that transform local decisions about acquiring and using surveillance technologies from a secretive process, unilaterally controlled by the police, into one that is transparent, well-informed, and democratically accountable. Other cities and towns should pass local legislation to help reduce the threat to vulnerable people and groups facing surveillance, harassment, and persecution in their own communities. 
• Protect student privacy: Young people — particularly undocumented students and LGBTQ youth — are vulnerable to Project 2025 threats. To help protect and support families who could be targeted by mass deportation efforts, attempts to criminalize gender non-conformity, and other attacks, legislators can pass laws to prohibit the sale of student data and the use of student information for targeted advertising. At the same time, school boards can take steps to prohibit information sharing and address school surveillance to help keep students safe.  

• Join the ACLU of Massachusetts Action Team 
• Sign up to be a cooperating attorney with the ACLU 
• Become an ACLU of Massachusetts member

RESOURCES:

• Abortion Legal Hotline
• Know Your Rights