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End the Contract Coalition (ECC) is a cross-law school coalition building towards the abolition of prison walls and paywalls. We envision a world where the carceral state and data brokers, like RELX and Thomson Reuters, are obsolete, and where people and knowledge can move freely.

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The Issue

RELX and Thomson Reuters, the parent companies of Lexis and Westlaw, have multi-million dollar data-sharing contracts fueling ICE’s mass surveillance, criminalization, and deportation machine.

RELX and Reuters sell ICE the personal data of over 280 million people, which includes information from automatic license plate readers, DMV filings, property and financial records, jail bookings, voter registration records, and cell phone subscriber rolls. RELX and Reuters’ tools effectively create a loophole to sanctuary city laws by granting ICE access to data from public agencies that are otherwise prohibited from cooperating with ICE. ICE and other law enforcement then use this data to surveil, locate, detain, and deport our community members.

Read our zine for a primer on the issue:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15qMOzuHvVmU-sAAiqFBnGQgjKeegZLaX/view?usp=sharing

Artist: Purvaja

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ECC is resisting the complicity of the legal research duopoly in the deportation machine by agitating and organizing law students, legal educators, and professionals. Our work involves engaging in political education, research, and direct action on law school campuses and in corporate board rooms. As a large part of Lexis and Westlaw’s consumer base, we aim to leverage our power in the market to resist the deportation machine.

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Our Demands

• Law schools must make their contracts with RELX and Reuters public.
• Law schools must commit to educating students about RELX and Reuters’ complicity in the deportation machine in their 1L legal writing curriculum.
• Law school deans must publicly condemn RELX and Reuters.
• Law schools must teach alternative research methods in their legal writing curricula.
• Law schools must end their contracts with RELX and Reuters as long as they have ties to ICE and law enforcement.
• Law schools must prohibit RELX and Reuters sales representatives from advertising their products on campus.
• RELX and Reuters must end their contracts with ICE and law enforcement.
• The state must grant the public free access to legal opinions and other documents.

Artist: Sunzida Ahmed

Resources

When Westlaw Fuels ICE Surveillance: Ethics in the Era of Big Data Policing

Just Futures Law: New Records Provide Details on ICE’s Mass Use of LexisNexis Accurint to Surveil Immigrants

Who’s Behind ICE? The Tech and Data Companies Fueling Deportations Zine

Sabotaging Sanctuary: How Data Brokers Give ICE Backdoor Access to Colorado’s Data and Jails

Interest Form

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZIMXBZzvL1H5S8vZtkAa05eopBV6-hLH6v4LN0M6sr4NFyw/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=114277337967335287529

CONTACT US

[email protected]

http://instagram.com/endthecontractcoalition