Second- Anniversary Statement from The Trespass
Project
Two years ago, we set out to help children understand their legal rights. Today, we recognize the greater need of recording how those rights are denied.
Second‑Anniversary Statement from The Trespass Project
Two years ago today, The Trespass Project opened its digital doors with a single vow — to equip children everywhere with the legal acumen they deserve to navigate the powers that define their lives.
For me, that vow is personal. After three years of defending minors in U.S. courtrooms — children my age, and sometimes younger — I have learned that our legal systems are our inheritances, often handed down with almost no explanation. As a then sixteen-year-old high school student, I was marveled by how little the young people I met behind the bench understood about the rules that could remake their lives, and so I created The Trespass Project in efforts to change that for every child across every inch of the planet.
And what is happening in the world right now has kept me up at night. For the past several weeks, I have wrestled with what it means to be the leader of an organization that preaches legal rights — knowing full well they aren’t holding when tested. To instruct children in their protections, knowing the consequences they may face for invoking them… some days makes me feel foolish. Other days it makes me more certain that we must keep teaching anyway because everything that we do now will one day be unearthed as the artifacts of our current oppression.
“Two years ago, we set out to help children understand their legal rights; today, we recognize the greater need of recording how those rights are denied.”
So today’s milestone is not celebration without sorrow. It is a moment to confess the tension:
Global trauma everywhere. Masked, warrantless federal agents detain minors without access to counsel, evading due-process protections in the middle of the night; broken cease‑fire agreements crumble buildings atop human bodies; missiles draw repeating patterns into the sky; humanitarian convoys idle while families wait in block‑long food queues; and dystopian government bodies attack public education, student assembly, and critical inquiry. Children are at risk in every theater of conflict. And across borders, one pattern repeats: the adults exercise their powers unchecked, leaving children as collateral.
In a recent late‑night strategy session on where to go from this reflection with our brilliant team of lawyers and lived-experience experts, we returned to a haunting lesson from global history: the journals of Anne Frank. We recognized how much of what we know about the atrocities she lived through derived from her daring record keeping. How her unearthed pages became the evidence of a primary witness and victim’s era of brutality — proof the world could not unsee. That reflection clarified our next step:
Introducing The Children’s Record
We know that one day historians will sift through the digital dust of our era, looking for proof of how children endured the crises we scroll past. The Children’s Record is our answer — a public, living capsule of anonymous, time‑stamped, location‑pinned witness notes that will one day be found as undeniable evidence for tomorrow’s scholars and today’s advocates alike.
“Contemporaneous records matter,” observes Annette Duncan, Privacy Counsel at The Trespass Project. “…creating space for America’s youth to speak their truth is more important today than it has ever been. Losing a single voice would mean we have lost one too many.”
Phase One of this project is a U.S. prototype — “We begin here, where we can test and refine the mechanism, so it can soon serve kids everywhere.”
While our mission reaches across borders, this archive must grow to match the reach of children’s suffering — and start here at home, especially right now. “In a time where the rights of our youth, especially children of color, are increasingly under threat, transparency is essential,” adds Nicole Martin, Civil‑Rights Attorney and Board Member. “I am reminded of Ida B. Wells, activist and investigative journalist, whose fearless documentation of lynchings exposed the realities of racial violence towards Black Communities through data. The ability to document, access and share these injustices, strengthens our collective capacity to advocate for meaningful change.”
Upon launch in the coming weeks, The Trespass Project will seed the capsule with one verified entry for every U.S. state; the rest is for the public to grow. Teachers, parents, activists, and neighbors will be able to add what they witness — transforming scattered moments of harm into a single, undeniable living archive of truth.
Trespassers, thank you for walking with us these past two years. Hold your joy close, keep your sorrows honest, keep your wits about you, and meet us now in the work of remembering.
Cayden Brown
Executive Director, The Trespass Project
Second‑Anniversary Statement from The Trespass Project
Two years ago today, The Trespass Project opened its digital doors with a single vow — to equip children everywhere with the legal acumen they deserve to navigate the powers that define their lives.
For me, that vow is personal. After three years of defending minors in U.S. courtrooms — children my age, and sometimes younger — I have learned that our legal systems are our inheritances, often handed down with almost no explanation. As a then sixteen-year-old high school student, I was marveled by how little the young people I met behind the bench understood about the rules that could remake their lives, and so I created The Trespass Project in efforts to change that for every child across every inch of the planet.
And what is happening in the world right now has kept me up at night. For the past several weeks, I have wrestled with what it means to be the leader of an organization that preaches legal rights — knowing full well they aren’t holding when tested. To instruct children in their protections, knowing the consequences they may face for invoking them… some days makes me feel foolish. Other days it makes me more certain that we must keep teaching anyway because everything that we do now will one day be unearthed as the artifacts of our current oppression.
“Two years ago, we set out to help children understand their legal rights; today, we recognize the greater need of recording how those rights are denied.”
So today’s milestone is not celebration without sorrow. It is a moment to confess the tension:
Global trauma everywhere. Masked, warrantless federal agents detain minors without access to counsel, evading due-process protections in the middle of the night; broken cease‑fire agreements crumble buildings atop human bodies; missiles draw repeating patterns into the sky; humanitarian convoys idle while families wait in block‑long food queues; and dystopian government bodies attack public education, student assembly, and critical inquiry. Children are at risk in every theater of conflict. And across borders, one pattern repeats: the adults exercise their powers unchecked, leaving children as collateral.
In a recent late‑night strategy session on where to go from this reflection with our brilliant team of lawyers and lived-experience experts, we returned to a haunting lesson from global history: the journals of Anne Frank. We recognized how much of what we know about the atrocities she lived through derived from her daring record keeping. How her unearthed pages became the evidence of a primary witness and victim’s era of brutality — proof the world could not unsee. That reflection clarified our next step:
Introducing The Children’s Record
We know that one day, historians will sift through the digital dust of our era, looking for proof of how children endured the crises we scroll past. The Children’s Record is our answer — a public, living capsule of anonymous, time‑stamped, location‑pinned witness notes that will one day be found as undeniable evidence for tomorrow’s scholars and today’s advocates alike.
“Contemporaneous records matter,” observes Annette Duncan, Privacy Counsel at The Trespass Project. “…creating space for America’s youth to speak their truth is more important today than it has ever been. Losing a single voice would mean we have lost one too many.”
Phase One of this project is a U.S. prototype — “We begin here, where we can test and refine the mechanism, so it can soon serve kids everywhere.”
While our mission reaches across borders, this archive must grow to match the reach of children’s suffering — and start here at home, especially right now. “In a time where the rights of our youth, especially children of color, are increasingly under threat, transparency is essential,” adds Nicole Martin, Civil‑Rights Attorney and Board Member. “I am reminded of Ida B. Wells, activist and investigative journalist, whose fearless documentation of lynchings exposed the realities of racial violence towards Black Communities through data. The ability to document, access and share these injustices, strengthens our collective capacity to advocate for meaningful change.”
Upon launch in the coming weeks, The Trespass Project will seed the capsule with one verified entry for every U.S. state; the rest is for the public to grow. Teachers, parents, activists, and neighbors will be able to add what they witness — transforming scattered moments of harm into a single, undeniable living archive of truth.
Trespassers, thank you for walking with us these past two years. Hold your joy close, keep your sorrows honest, keep your wits about you, and meet us now in the work of remembering.
Cayden Brown
Executive Director, The Trespass Project