Non-Partisan Website Launched to Monitor the Department of Justice

Contact
Jo-Ann Mort, OSI: jmort@sorosny.org, 1-212-548-0655
Amy Weil, OSI: aweil@sorosny.org, 1-212-548-0381

NEW YORK—Today marked the entrance of a new non-profit government watchdog: www.watchingjustice.org, the most comprehensive site on the Web dedicated to tracking activities of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The mission of "Watching Justice" is to keep a vigilant, long-term, and non-partisan eye on the way the DOJ and other federal agencies—including those offices in the Department of Homeland Security that used to be based in the DOJ—are administering justice in the United States.

The new site is intended to be a useful public education tool for researchers, journalists, and others who are interested in an ongoing analysis of DOJ activities. Watching Justice is a project of the Open Society Institute and draws on the work of numerous civil rights, civil liberties, and advocacy groups nationwide including the Alliance for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, OMB Watch, and People for the American Way.

The Department of Justice has a $20 billion budget and employs more than 100,000 people. It is the nation’s chief law enforcement agency and represents the United States in legal matters while also providing advice and opinions to the president and heads of government agencies.

The website features extensive analysis of the policies implemented and enforced by key divisions in the department and describes the federal government’s policies in critical issue areas, ranging from civil rights to civil liberties to the reproductive rights of women in the United States. Watching Justice will constantly be updated to reflect important developments, and will feature policy analyses from many experts and organizations, as well as regular “talking points” on key issues in the news. The website is intended to be a public information resource that will monitor DOJ activity for years to come.

The site will track federal government activities relating to, among other areas: civil liberties; civil rights; courts and judicial selection; criminal justice, sentencing disparities, death penalty; environmental protection; gun violence prevention; immigration, detention without charge; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues; rights of women; and government transparency.

In addition, the site serves as an information clearing house, directing the reader to the many civil rights, civil liberties, and advocacy groups that specialize in every issue area Watching Justice surveys. Users may also sign up for regular email updates on key issues.

Watching Justice is a project of the Open Society Institute’s U.S. Programs, which is part of the Soros foundations network. The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating and grantmaking foundation based in New York City that serves as the hub of the Soros foundations network, a group of autonomous foundations and organizations in more than 50 countries. OSI's U.S. Programs seeks to strengthen democracy in the United States by broadening public discussion about barriers to opportunity and justice and by assisting marginalized groups to participate equally in civil society. U.S. Programs is headquartered in New York and has a special focus on justice-related issues. OSI's Washington office also focuses on domestic civil and criminal justice reforms, civil liberties, and human rights abuses, among other issues.