From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [ACLU] Guardian of Liberty: American Civil Liberties Union
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 15:41:34 GMT

[Includes a section on history. Discussion welcome. Access info for
other ACLU papers is enclosed. - Carl]

Published by the Department of Public Education
American Civil Liberties Union
132 West 43rd Street.
New York, NY 10036
(212) 944-9800

ACLU Briefing Paper Number 1
Guardian of Liberty: American Civil Liberties Union


     The American Civil Liberties Union is the nation's foremost
     advocate of individual rights--litigating, legislating and
     educating the public on a broad array of issues affecting
     individual freedom in the United States.  This is a general
     introduction and history to the ACLU, the first in a series of
     briefing papers.  Other briefing papers, produced by the ACLU
     Office of Public Education, explain the organization's position
     on a range of specific civil liberties issues.

The American system of government is built on two basic, counter-balancing
principles: 1) that the majority of the people, through democratically
elected representatives, governs the country and 2) that the power of
even a democratic majority must be limited to insure individual rights.
In every era of American history, the government has tried to expand its
authority at the expense of individual rights.  The American Civil
Liberties Union exists to make sure that doesn't happen, and to fight back
when it does.

The ACLU is not a public defender like Legal Services or Legal Aid.  It
does not handle criminal cases or civil disputes or choose clients
according to financial criteria.  Nor do we take political sides; we
are neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democratic.  The
ACLU is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 250,000-member public interest
organization devoted exclusively to protecting the basic civil liberties
of all Americans, and extending them to groups that have traditionally
been denied them.  In its almost seven decades in existence, the ACLU
has become a national institution, and is widely recognized as the
country's foremost advocate of individual rights.


                           The ACLU Mandate

The mission of the ACLU is to assure that the Bill of Rights--Amendments
to the Constitution that guard against unwarranted government control--
are preserved for each new generation.  To understand the ACLU's purpose,
it is important to distinguish between the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.  The Constitution itself, whose bicentennial we celebrated in
1987, authorizes the government to act.  The Bill of Rights limits that
authority.

What rights are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights?

First Amendment rights:  These include freedom of speech, association
   and assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, including
   the strict separation between church and state.

Equal protection of the law:  The right to equal treatment regardless of
   race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age,
   physical handicap, or other such classification.  These rights apply
   to the voting booth, the classroom, the workplace and the courts.

Due process of laws:  The right to be treated fairly when facing criminal
   charges or other serious accusations that can result in such penalties
   as loss of employment, exclusion from school, denial of housing, or
   cut-off of benefits.

The right to privacy:  The right to a guaranteed zone of personal privacy
   and autonomy which cannot be penetrated by the government or by other
   institutions, like employers, with a substantial influence over an	
   individual's rights.

Expanding those protections:  Although some segments of our population
   have traditionally been denied those rights, the ACLU works to extend
   protection to racial minorities, homosexuals, mental patients,
   prisoners, soldiers, children in the custody of the state, the
   handicapped, and Native Americans.


                          A Brief History

When Roger Baldwin founded the ACLU in 1920, civil liberties were in a
sorry state.  Citizens were sitting in jail for holding antiwar views.
U.S. Attorney General Palmer was conducting raids upon aliens suspected
of holding unorthodox opinions.  Racial segregation was the law of the
land and violence against blacks was routine.  Sex discrimination was
firmly institutionalized; it wasn't until 1920 that women even got the
vote.  Constitutional rights for homosexuals, the poor, prisoners,
mental patients, and other special groups were literally unthinkable.
And, perhaps most significantly, the Supreme Court had yet to uphold
a *single* free speech claim under the First Amendment.

             +---------------------------------------+
             | ``We must remember that a right lost  |
             | to one is lost to all.  The ACLU      |
             | remembers and it acts.  The cause     |
             | it serves so well is an imperative    |
             | of freedom.''                         |
             |            William Reece Smith, Jr.,  |
             |            former president,          |
             |            American Bar Association   |
             +---------------------------------------+

The ACLU was the first public interest law firm of its kind, and
immediately began the work of transforming the ideals contained in
the Bill of Rights into living, breathing realities.  Some highlights:
     
     1920: The Palmer Raids
       In its first year the ACLU worked at combating the
       deportation of aliens for their radical beliefs
       (ordered by Attorney General Palmer), opposing
       attacks on the rights of the Industrial Workers
       of the World and trade unions to hold meetings and
       organize, and securing release from prison for the
       hundreds sentenced during the war for expression of
       antiwar opinions.
     
     1925: The Scopes Case
       When Tennessee's new anti-evolution law became
       effective in March 1925, the ACLU at once sought a
       test of the statute's attack on free speech and
       secured John T. Scopes, a young science teacher,
       as a plaintiff.  Clarence Darrow, a member of the
       Union's National Committee and an agnostic, headed
       the ACLU's volunteer defense team.  Scopes was
       convicted and fined $100.  On appeal, the Tennessee
       Supreme Court upheld the statute but reversed the
       conviction.
     
     1933: The _Ulysses_ Case
       Federal Judge John M. Woolsey in New York rendered a
       historic anticensorship decision that admitted James
       Joyce's _Ulysses_ into the U.S. after a long legal
       battle supported by the ACLU.
     
     1939: Mayor Hague
       Mayer Frank (``I Am the Law'') Hague of Jersey City
       claimed the right to deny free speech to anyone he
       thought radical.  The ACLU took Hague to the Supreme
       Court, which ruled that public places such as
       streets and parks belong to the people, not the
       mayor.
     
     1942: Japanese Americans
       Two and a half months after Pearl Harbor, 110,000
       Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were
       citizens, were evacuated from their West Coast
       homes and relocated in a series of inland U.S.
       concentration camps.  The episode was a national
       tragedy, rightfully called by the ACLU ``the worst
       single wholesale violation of civil rights of
       American citizens in our history.''  The strongest
       voices against evacuation and relocation came from
       the ACLU affiliates on the West Coast.
     
             +---------------------------------------+
             | ``The ACLU's 60-year guardianship of  |
             | the Bill of Rights has done much to   |
             | advance the cause of working men and  |
             | women.''                              |
             |                   Douglas Fraser,     |
             |                   former president,   |
             |                   United Auto Workers |
             +---------------------------------------+
     
     1950: Loyalty Oaths
       During the Cold War era after World War II,
       Congress and many state legislatures passed
       loyalty-oath laws requiring one group or another,
       particularly public school teachers, to swear that
       they were not Communists or members of any
       ``subversive organizations.'' Throughout the decade
       the ACLU fought a running battle against the
       government's loyalty-security program.
     
     1954: School Desegregation
       On May 17, 1954, in _Brown_v._The_Board_of_Education_,
       the Supreme Court issued its historic decision that
       segregation in public schools violates the 14th
       Amendment.  The ACLU joined the legal battle that
       resulted in the Court's decision.
     
     1960: Civil Rights Movement
       From the first lunch counter sit-in in 1960
       through the freedom rides and later mass marches,
       the ACLU supported the civil rights movement's
       goal of equality and its means of achieving that
       goal through peaceful demonstrations.
     
             +---------------------------------------+
             | ``We in business applaud and share    |
             | the ACLU's commitment to preserving   |
             | the fundamental principles which have |
             | made this country work for over 200   |
             | years.''                              |
             |              John H. Filer,           |
             |              former chairman,         |
             |              Aetna Life and Casualty  |
             +---------------------------------------+
     
     1973: Impeach Nixon
       The ACLU was the first major national organization
       to call for the impeachment of President Richard
       Nixon.  The Union listed six grounds for
       impeachment affecting civil liberties--specific,
       proved violations of the right of political
       dissent; usurpation of Congressional war-making
       powers; establishment of a personal secret police
       that committed crimes; attempted interference in
       the trial of Daniel Ellsberg; distortion of the
       system of justice; and perversion of other federal
       agencies.
     
     1973: Abortion Decriminalized
       In _Roe_v._Wade_ and _Doe_v._Bolton_, the Supreme
       Court held that the constitutional right to privacy
       encompasses a pregnant woman's decision whether to
       bear a child or have an abortion.  The ruling struck
       down state laws that had made the performance of an
       abortion a criminal act.  The ACLU was and remains
       active in the courts to protect that right.
     
     1981: Creationism in Arkansas
       In Arkansas, 56 years after Scopes, the ACLU
       challenged a statute that called for the teaching
       of the biblical story of creation as a ``scientific
       alternative'' to the theory of evolution.  The
       statute, which fundamentalists saw as a model for
       other states, was ruled unconstitutional by U.S.
       District Judge William R. Overton.  Creation-science,
       he said, was not science but religion, and could
       not constitutionally be required by state law.
     
     1982: Voting Rights Extended
       More that 15 months of grassroots lobbying by the
       ACLU and other groups paid off when the Senate,
       following the example of the House, overwhelmingly
       voted to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
     
     1987: Block Bork
       The ACLU, changing a 51-year-old policy of
       neutrality on Supreme Court candidates, mounted
       a national campaign to defeat the nomination of
       Judge Robert Bork.  Bork, the ACLU said, posed
       an extraordinary threat to fundamental liberties
       guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and to the role
       of the Supreme Court as the guardian of those
       rights.  A majority of Senators agreed and rejected
       his nomination.
     
     1989: Siege of ACLU
       After being made an issue in an election campaign
       for the first time in its history, when presidential
       candidate George Bush attacked the ACLU in the fall
       of 1988, the organization found later that its
       membership had risen by over 50,000 in response to
       the attacks.
     

                   How the ACLU Chooses Its Cases

Time after time, the ACLU is asked, ``Why did you defend that person, that
group?  Why did you represent the Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, the Ku Klux
Klan *and* the Black Panthers?''  The ACLU does not defend the *person*
per se, but the *right* to express unpopular views--in the belief that once
the government is empowered to violate anyone's rights it will use that
power against all of us.

Historically, those most vulnerable, most controversial, or those least
aware of their rights are most frequently the first victims of government
repression.  The ACLU works to stop the erosion of liberties *before* it
spreads out of control.

The ACLU cannot take every case, no matter how legitimate.  But the
organization itself selects cases that will have the widest impact on
the greatest number of people--cases that have the potential to break new
ground or establish broad precedents, that in some way can strengthen the
freedoms that we all enjoy.


                           How the ACLU Works

The ACLU has approximately 2,000 attorneys--66 paid staff members,
the rest volunteers--handling about 6,000 cases annually, making it
the largest private law firm in the country.  Indeed, the ACLU appears
before the U.S. Supreme Court more often than any other organization
except the U.S. Justice Department.

The ACLU is made up of a network of 51 state affiliates and hundreds
of local chapters guided and coordinated by a national office in New
York.  The organization also has a legislative office in Washington,
DC that handles congressional lobbying, and regional offices in
Atlanta and Denver.  The ACLU has special projects devoted to specific
civil liberties issues: the Reproductive Freedom Project, the Lesbian
and Gay Rights Project, the AIDS and Civil Liberties Project, the National
Prison Project, the National Security Project, the Children's Rights
Project, the Capital Punishment Project, the Privacy and Technology
Project, and the Immigration and Aliens' Rights Task Force.

             +---------------------------------------+
             | ``So long as we have enough people    |
             | in this country willing to fight for  |
             | their rights, we'll be called a       |
             | democracy.''                          |
             |           ACLU Founder Roger Baldwin  |
             +---------------------------------------+

The ACLU is governed by an 81-member Board of Directors which has one
representative from each state affiliate and 30 at-large members elected
by the affiliate and national boards.  The affiliate boards, in turn,
are elected by all ACLU members within the state.  On a day-to-day basis,
each affiliate is autonomous and makes its own decisions about which
cases it will take and which issues it will emphasize.  All collaborate
regularly with the national ACLU in carrying out common goals.

These goals are scheduled in a 430-page policy guide that is continually
revised by committees of the national Board. In an emergency, decisions
are made by the Board's Executive Committee.


                           The Financial Picture

The ACLU depends exclusively on contributions from its 275,000 dues-paying
members and grants from foundations and individuals for its support.
The ACLU does not receive and would not accept government funding.

If you believe your civil liberties have been violated and you need
assistance, contact the *local* ACLU office listed in your telephone
directory.  If you are interested in joining the ACLU or want more
information, contact either your local affiliate or the national ACLU.



ACLU
American Civil Liberties Union
132 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

================================================================

(The README document is available on-line. Access information follows.)

=================
civil-liberty/README
=================
* Civil Liberty Archive
  [part of the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
     [part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Archive]]

This is an on-line collection of civil liberty statements. It includes
Briefing Papers from the American Civil Liberties Union. (The ACLU
material is made available by permission of the American Civil
Liberties Union)

If you have gopher, the archive is browsable with the command:
  gopher -p academic/civil-liberty gopher.eff.org

The archive is also accessible via anonymous ftp and email. Ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4). It is in directory
"pub/academic/civil-liberty".  For email access, send email to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the line:

send acad-freedom/civil-liberty <filenames>

where <filenames> is a list of the files that you want. File README is
a detailed description of the items in the directory.

For more information, to make contributions, or to report typos
contact J.S. Greenfield (greeny@eff.org).

=================
=================

If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command
   gopher gopher.eff.org

These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):

  pub/academic/civil-liberty/README

To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):

send acad-freedom/civil-liberty README
-- 
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,soc.history,talk.politics.theory