A leading US group which promotes civil rights. It has tended to use the courts to gain changes based on the rights afforded under the Constitution, and is particularly concerned with freedom of speech and maintaining an open society.
| American Civil Liberties Union | |
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ACLU logo |
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| Headquarters | New York City, New York |
| Membership | 500,000 |
| Official languages | English |
| Secretary-General | N/A |
| Formation | 1920 |
| Official website | www.aclu.org |
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a major American non-profit organization with headquarters in New York City, whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States".
Lawsuits brought by the ACLU have been influential in the evolution of U.S. constitutional law. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases in which it considers civil liberties to be at risk.
Organizational history
In 1917, Roger Nash Baldwin became head of the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB), an independent outgrowth of the American Union Against Militarism, which opposed American intervention in World War I.
In the year of its birth, the ACLU was formed to protect aliens threatened with deportation, and U.S. nationals threatened with criminal charges by U.S. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer for their communist or socialist activities and agendas (see Palmer Raids).
In 1940, the ACLU formally barred communists from leadership or staff positions, and would take the position that it did not want communists as members either.
The September 11, 2001 attacks and the ensuing debate regarding the proper balance of civil liberties and security including the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act led to a 20% increase in membership between August 2001 and December 2002, when total enrollment reached 330,000 . The growth continued, and in August 2004, ACLU membership was at 400,000 .
Leadership, funding and organizational structure
Leadership
Currently, the leadership of the ACLU includes Executive Director Anthony D.
Notably, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a current Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was the first director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project .
Funding
The ACLU receives funding from a large number of sources. For example, the ACLU of New Jersey reported $1.2 million in income to both the ACLU-NJ and its affiliated tax-exempt foundation in the 2005 fiscal year. Smaller affiliates with fewer resources, such as that in Nebraska, receive subsidies from the national ACLU .
Foundations
The ACLU and its affiliated tax-exempt foundation receive annual support from the Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Field, Tides, Gill, Arcus, Horizons, and other foundations .
In October of 2004, the ACLU rejected $1.5 million from both the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The ACLU views this clause, both in Federal law and in the donors' agreements, as a threat to civil liberties.
Court awarded attorney's fees
The ACLU does receive court awarded legal fees, for example the New Jersey chapter reported receiving 18% for awarded legal fees in the fiscal year 2005 . Also, groups such as the American Legion have taken stances opposing the ACLU's right to collect fees under such legislation . The pro-life Thomas More Law Center, for example, generally seeks, and is successful in, recovery of legal fees in the same manner as the ACLU , .
Due to the nature of its legal work, the ACLU is often involved in litigation against governmental bodies, which are generally protected from adverse monetary judgements: a town, state or Federal agency may be required to change its laws or behave differently, but not to pay monetary damages except by an explicit statutory waiver ; Under laws such as this, the ACLU and its state chapters sometimes share in monetary judgements against government agencies
The ACLU has prevailed in numerous church-state cases.
Organizational Structure
The ACLU has its national headquarters located in New York City. Many of the ACLU's cases originate from the local level and are handled by lawyers from the local affiliates.
Affiliates (the state organizations) are the basic unit of the ACLU's organization. In a twenty-month period beginning January 2004, the ACLU's New Jersey chapter, to take one example, was involved in fifty-one cases according to their annual report -- thirty-five cases in state courts, and sixteen in federal court.
Positions
While the bulk of the ACLU's cases involve the First Amendment, Equal Protection, Due Process, and the right to privacy (see, e.g., the Louisiana chapter ), the organization has taken positions on a wide range of important issues. Broadly, the ACLU supports:
Separation of church and state;The ACLU has opposed some campaign finance laws such as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which it considers an inappropriate restriction upon freedom of expression.
While the ACLU does oppose the use of crosses in public monuments , , there have been false allegations that the ACLU has urged the removal of cross-shaped headstones from federal cemeteries and has opposed prayer by soldiers;
Notable historical cases
Since its founding, the ACLU has been involved in many cases (see the List of ACLU Cases for a more complete list).
1920-1960
In 1925, the ACLU persuaded John T. Clarence Darrow, a member of the ACLU National Committee, headed Scopes' legal team. The ACLU lost the case and Scopes was fined $100. In 1942, a few months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the ACLU affiliates on the West Coast sharply criticized the government's policy on enemy aliens and U.S. citizens descended from enemy ancestry. The national board of the ACLU took a mildly pro-government position: it accepted the internment in principle and only demanded that relocatees, once cleared of any suspicion of wrongdoing, be released from the concentration camps in which they were held.
In 1954, the ACLU filed an amicus brief in the case of Brown v.
1960-1990
In 1968, the ACLU successfully argued against state bans on interracial marriage, in the case of Loving vs.
In 1973, the ACLU was the first major national organization to call for the impeachment of President Richard M. That same year, the ACLU was involved in the cases of Roe v.
In 1977, the ACLU filed suit against the Village of Skokie, Illinois, seeking an injunction against the enforcement of three town ordinances outlawing Nazi parades and demonstrations. The ACLU's action in this case led to a rift between the Jewish Defence League and the ACLU. According to David Hamlin, executive director of the Illinois ACLU, "...the Chicago office which chose to provide legal counsel to neo-Nazis who have been planning to march in Skokie, has lost about 25% of its membership and nearly one-third of its budget."
In the 1980s, the ACLU filed suit to challenge the Arkansas 1981 creationism statute, which required the teaching in public schools of the biblical account of creation as a scientific alternative to evolution.
In 1982, the ACLU became involved in a case involving the distribution of child pornography (New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 .) In an amicus brief, the ACLU argued that the New York state law in question "has criminalized the dissemination, sale or display of constitutionally protected non-obscene materials which portray juveniles in sexually related roles," while arguing that child pornography deemed obscene under the Miller test deserved no constitutional protection and could be banned . In a 2002 letter, the ACLU stated that it "opposes child pornography that uses real children in its depictions," but that material "which is produced without using real children, and is not otherwise obscene, is protected under the First Amendment."
1990 to present
In January 2006, the ACLU filed a lawsuit, ACLU v.
The ACLU and other organizations also filed separate lawsuits around the country against telecommunications companies.
After the town of Hazleton in Pennsylvania passed an ordinance to punish landlords who rented to illegal immigrants and businesses who hired illegal immigrants, the ACLU and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued Hazleton, saying the ordinance was unconstitutional .
Controversial stances
First Amendment rights
The organization's policy is that free speech rights must be available to all citizens and residents of the United States. In these and other cases, the ACLU has defended the free speech rights of people and organizations even when the content of that speech is in conflict with the ACLU's own positions and goals.
The ACLU defended Frank Snepp, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency, from an attempt by the government agency to enforce a gag order against him.
The ACLU also defended Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, whose conviction was tainted by coerced testimony—a violation of his fifth amendment rights.
The ACLU has come out against Megan’s Law, a law designed to protect children from sex offenders . Though the ACLU has fought Megan’s Law(s) in many states, it has been unable to attain significant victories in these cases. The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws" expressly criticizes the ACLU. David Bernstein argues that the ACLU would choose to undermine expressive rights when they are found to be in conflict with antidiscrimination laws, as in the 2000 Supreme Court case of Boy Scouts of America v.
Affirmative action
Civil libertarian and former ACLU member Nat Hentoff has criticized the ACLU for promoting affirmative action and for supporting what he sees as government-protected speech codes on college campuses and in the workplace .
Gun control
The ACLU officially declares itself "neutral" on the issue of gun control, pointing to previous Supreme Court decisions such as United States v.
Regarding gun control laws, the official policy of the national ACLU argues that the Second Amendment is "intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government" and is not intended to "confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons." Furthermore, the ACLU states "The national ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control.
Spam
The ACLU's stance on spam is considered controversial by a broad cross-section of political points of view. In 2000 Marvin Johnson, a legislative counsel for the ACLU, stated that proposed anti-spam legislation infringed on free speech by denying anonymity and by forcing spam to be labeled as such: "Standardized labeling is compelled speech." already by 1997 the ACLU had taken a strong position that nearly all spam legislation was improper , although it has supported "opt-out" requirements in some cases. The ACLU opposed the 2003 CAN-SPAM act suggesting that it could have a chilling effect on speech in cyberspace.
Patriot Act I and II
The ACLU has been a vocal opponent of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, the PATRIOT 2 Act, and associated legislation made in response to the threat of domestic terrorism that it believes violates either the letter or the spirit of the U.S. Bill of Rights. In response to a requirement of the USA PATRIOT Act, the ACLU withdrew from the Combined Federal Campaign. The requirement was that ACLU employees must be checked against a federal anti-terrorism watch list. The ACLU has stated that it would rather "reject $500,000 in contributions from private individuals rather than submit to a government "blacklist" policy .
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