Allen Gilbert Wants You … to Hold Government Accountable | 20/20 Hindsight | Seven Days | Vermont's Independent Voice

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Allen Gilbert Wants You … to Hold Government Accountable 

Published March 9, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. | Updated March 15, 2016 at 8:10 p.m.

click to enlarge Allen Gilbert - FILE: JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR
  • File: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
  • Allen Gilbert

Originally published April 10, 2013. 

Allen Gilbert has been thinking a lot about drones lately. Not the ones that rain Hellfire missiles on militants in remote parts of the Middle East and Asia. But spy drones that could monitor the movements of Vermonters — and, indeed, of all Americans — here at home.

“I think we’ll have drones flying overhead in Vermont within a year,” predicts Gilbert, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.

“Over the last 10 years, Vermont has been transformed into a state where we are being watched,” Gilbert wrote in the Vermont ACLU’s 2012 annual report. “Vermont, with little or no public discussion or acknowledgment, has become a surveillance society.”

Now state lawmakers are finally taking an interest in these issues — owing in large part to Gilbert’s lobbying skills. More than anyone else, the mild-mannered advocate has watchdogged the police and other public officials in the name of accountability.

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About The Author

Andy Bromage

Andy Bromage

Bio:
Andy Bromage was a Seven Days staff writer from 2009-2012, and the news editor from 2012-2013.

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