Page
11 of 17
8) ACLU holds convention as post-Sept. 11 interest in group surges
By
Dick PolmanPhiladelphia InquirerWASHINGTON _ Even in the best of times, it's never easy to be a card-carrying member of the American CivilLiberties Union.
The
group
is
often reviled
for
defending
the
constitutional rights
of
pornographers, Klansmen,native-born Nazis, common criminals
_ all
kinds
of
undesirables.
So
you can guess what
it's
like for the ACLU these days, defending immigrants in the post-Sept.11era, andcontending that Attorney General John
Ashcrofthas
invaded
Americans'
privacy rather than making citizens safer.Sure
enough,
critics
contend that the
ACLU
isundercuttingthe waragainstterrorism.
But
as
ACLU members from across
the
nation
met
here Wednesday
for the first
grass-roots convention
in the
group's 83-year history,
its
leaders stressed
the
upside.
As
ACLU president Nadine Strossen remarked, "The half-emptyglass is also half
full."
Translation:
In
what
the
ACLU views
as a
dark hour
for
civil liberties, when Americans
may be
tempted
to
tradesome
of
their rights
for
personal safety,
it
nevertheless
is
experiencing
a
historic surge
in
membership
_
topping400,000,
a
record high.
The
ranks have swelled
by
more than
25
percent since
the
autumn
of 2001,
whenAshcroft made
his
first pitch
for the new
surveillance tools that
are now
codified
in the USA
Patriot Act.Backed
by a $50
million
budget, the
ACLU
is
juggling
33 lawsuits on the
terrorismfront.
It also
starts
production
Monday
on a
national
TV ad
that
will
target
Ashcroft's
current push
for
expanded powers beyond
the
Patriot Act.
He
wants more authority
to
jail suspects without bond before trial,
and he
wants
a
looser
definition
of
"materialsupport"
for
terrorism
_ a
move,
the
ACLU claims, that would allow federal agents
to go
after political protesters."Basically," said Stephen
Schulhofer, an
ACLU member
and a
former board officer
in
Illinois,
"the ACLU
has
never been stronger _ yet it has never been weaker, and on the defensive, than it is now. It has a very tough jobin
the
current environment because
its
issues touch
a raw
emotional nerve. What should
be
embarrassing about
trying
to
defend
the
Bill
of
Rights?
But for a lot of
Americans,
it
probably looks like
it's
'in
league with Osama
bin
Laden.
1
"
Its critics would
not
totally dispute that.
Paul
Kamenar, chief counsel with
the
conservative Washington LegalFoundation, which has jousted in court with the ACLU, said Wednesday: "We're in dangerous times that call forincreased law-enforcement powers.
We
can't
be
such sticklers with
the
Constitution that
we
allow
our
enemies
to
do us in. The ACLU is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. They're going after thisadministration
for
political reasons."Actually, the ACLU is going after both parties. Anthony Romero, the executive director, triggered a roar ofapproval Wednesday when,
in a
speech,
he
skewered "the timidity,
the
reticence,
the
complicity
of the
Democrats"
who
helped pass
the
Patriot
Act
with scant scrutiny
_
thereby demonstrating that Democrats would"rather stick their heads
in the
sand than stick their necks
out for the
Bill
of
Rights."
The
ACLU is not without allies, however. The group that was used as a
political
football by presidential candidateGeorge H.W. Bush in 1988 (he said the ACLU's "card-carrying members" were "out in left field"), is now attractingsome high-profile conservatives, such
as
Phyllis
Schlafly,
former Rep.
Bob
Barr,
and key
Capitol Hill Republicans,
who
fear that expanded federal surveillance is intruding on citizen privacy.That still won't help
the
ACLU
win a
popularity contest,
not
when
it
continues
to
assail
the FBI for
targeting
Middle
Eastern immigrants, arresting hundreds
in
secret, hiding their identities,
and
detaining them
for
months withoutcharges.
In
polls, most Americans
don't
seem concerned about these moves.
But
for the ACLU _ founded in 1920 when a Democratic administration swept up nearly 6,000 immigrants duringthe
Red
Scare,
and the
sole group
to
defend
the
interned Japanese Americans
during
World
War II _ the
targetingofimmigrants since Sept.11 ismerelytheleading indicatorof a newnational-security regime. Thankstothe Patriot Act, for example,
it's
a lot easier for the feds to scrutinize a citizen's Internet habits and library books.ACLUpresident Strossen, in an interview on the eve of the gathering, acknowledged the ACLU's image problem:"When the government invokes security and safety, that appeals to the gut. There's an instinctive wish, anunderstandable human desire, to trust the government, to believe that if it's doing something, then it must be for a
6/12/2003
Leave a Comment