ACLU

The ACLU has filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the National Security Agency over what they say is illegal wiretapping of American citizens in contact with people in other nations. The lawsuit is filed on behalf of numerous journalists, scholars and organizations whose members have reason to believe that their phone calls and emails may have been among those listened in on and read without a warrant from the FISA court by the NSA, including James Bamford, a journalist who was threatened with prosecution in the 1970s while researching NSA wiretapping, Tara McKelvey, the Council on American…
I've written several posts detailing cases where the ACLU has defended the free exercise and free speech rights of Christians, contrary to the delusional religious right rhetoric about them. Attorney Allen Asch has more examples on his homepage. Well worth reading.
A few days ago I wrote about Volokh's use of the phrase "ACLU Derangement Syndrome" in relation to Clayton Cramer, who had claimed that the ACLU was likely to seek a law banning parents from teaching their children about religion. Volokh correctly called Cramer on the carpet for this, saying that there is no evidence that the ACLU would ever take such a position and that it's illogical to infer that they would from their hardline position on establishment clause cases. Now, it should be said, as Volokh did, that he doesn't mean that Cramer is literally deranged. What he meant is that some…
Eugene Volokh has an interesting, and quite accurate, post about what he calls "ACLU derangement syndrome". This notion follows on the heels of "Bush derangement syndrome", "Clinton derangement syndrome" and "NRA derangement syndrome. The idea is that some subjects prompt such anger in some people that they are incapable of thinking rationally about that subject. There are some who are so fanatically opposed to President Bush that they will accept any criticism of him no matter how nutty, and this was also true of many on the right regarding Bill Clinton - the very mention of their names sent…
Eugene Volokh has an interesting, and quite accurate, post about what he calls "ACLU derangement syndrome". This notion follows on the heels of "Bush derangement syndrome", "Clinton derangement syndrome" and "NRA derangement syndrome. The idea is that some subjects prompt such anger in some people that they are incapable of thinking rationally about that subject. There are some who are so fanatically opposed to President Bush that they will accept any criticism of him no matter how nutty, and this was also true of many on the right regarding Bill Clinton - the very mention of their names sent…
A reader gave me the heads up on this hilariously ridiculous rant from Gribbit at StopTheACLU. It can be summed up quickly in the following manner: "The ACLU are evil communists who hate God and God is going to strike them down for it." Needless to say, if you're going to argue for that idiotic conclusion, you're going to have to build quite an edifice of logical fallacies and distortions to justify it. It's your typical simpleminded, Free Republic-style screed, full of those quasi-clever lines equating Democrats with commies and painting with a brush so broad that it has its own zip code. We…
Our old friends at StopTheACLU are back at it again with a new and entirely inaccurate attack. They link to a post by AJ Strata that purports to demonstrate the "stunning hypocrisy" of the ACLU. Here's the specific allegation: What stunning hypocrisy is eminating from the ACLU! They are calling for in investigation into crimes by Bush because he did not follow FISA - a process and set of statutes the ACLU claimed was illegal in 2002 in an amicus brief to the government's first ever challenge to the FISA Court (FISC). As I will show, this statement is so ridiculous that it's hard to know…
Kevin McCullough, a Rush Limbaugh clone radio talk show host and - naturally - columnist for the Worldnutdaily, has a ridiculous column up about the ACLU's "War on Christmas". He actually accuses the ACLU of filing suits against private businesses to prevent them from celebrating Christmas: Rather it is the public assault against Christmas as is initiated each year by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU has taken it upon themselves - as a badge of honor, if you will - to attempt to systematically expunge the terms, definitions, and in many cases the symbols of the holiday from…
Nice to see Eugene Volokh once again taking StopTheACLU to task for their endorsement of the most banal rhetoric, comparing the ACLU to the KKK and to terrorists.
This is the text of an email sent to members of a religious right group called Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital concerning the ACLU and engaging in the usual hyperbolic rhetoric we've come to know and loathe: WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 /Christian Wire Service/ -- The Reverends Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) and Patrick J. Mahoney will visit ACLU headquarters today to hand-deliver more than 20,000 petitions demanding that the left-leaning liberal attack group back off of terrorizing communities and individuals who seek to affirm America's Judeo-Christian values. Schenck, who heads up Faith…
Shawn Miller stopped by the blog last evening to let us know that the charges against him have been dropped. The prosecutor decided not to pursue the case. He left the text of an email from the ACLU counsel. It reads: Dear Shawn, Good news: The D.A. issue a "nolle prosequi" in your case, which means she "will no further prosecute" it (you may hear it called a "NO LE PROS"). More informally, it is generally taken to mean that a district attorney either did not feel pursuing the case was in the interest of justice or that there wasn't enough there substantively to pursue it. Technically, they…
Shawn Miller stopped by here last night and left a comment with a link to this story about his trial. Miller, you may remember, is a street preacher who is being defended by the ACLU in New Mexico after being arrested and spending more than 3 months in jail on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest when a police officer tried to stop him from standing and preaching on an empty street corner. This is one of hundreds of examples of the ACLU defending the religious freedom and free speech rights of Christians. Contrary to the lies told by the religious right, when it doesn't involve…
If the goal of the ACLU is to destroy Christianity and drive all religion from the public square, as so many fevered demagogues on the right would have us believe, they sure are doing a lousy job of it. They're so incompetent at it that they keep defending the rights of individuals to express their religious views in public (as opposed to government endorsement of them, a distinction that the demagogues like to pretend doesn't exist). Here's the latest example: The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey announced that it filed a motion yesterday to participate as amicus curiae (friend-…
I want to call my readers' attention to this comment left by Shawn Miller, a preacher from New Mexico who spent 109 days in jail for preaching on a street corner. The ACLU of New Mexico intervened at the request of Miller's wife and they managed to get the preacher released from jail, where he has been held for nearly 4 months: "Mr. Miller has a guaranteed right to stand on a street corner and proclaim his faith in God to all who pass by," said ACLU of New Mexico Executive Director Peter Simonson. "He wasn't harassing or intimidating anyone. He certainly should not have spent time under…
Our fevered friends at StopTheACLU have issued a "Code Red Alert" because the ACLU is trying to get the courts to allow people of different religions to be able to swear on something other than the Bible when taking an oath in court (they don't have specific links, so you'll have to scroll about halfway down to find it). They've filed suit in North Carolina, which forbids people from taking an oath in court on anything other than the Bible. And naturally, the anti-ACLUers are up in arms over it. And their reasoning is quite amusing: We are a Judeo-Christian country, not a Muslim one. The…
Radley Balko is picking up where Eugene Volokh left off the other day, blasting StopTheACLU for its utterly dishonest portayral of ACLU positions. StopTheACLU hammers the ACLU for turning down money from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations rather than sign a statement declaring that they have no involvement with anyone on a terrorist watch list. But as Balko notes, the ACLU can't do that because they represent people who are on the terrorist watch list and shouldn't be. And given that the FBI has admitted that the watch list contains innumerable errors and that they no longer have any…
One of the standard arguments we hear from the Hate the ACLU crowd is that the ACLU is that they are "getting rich on taxpayer money" because, in some cases, Federal law allows plaintiffs who sue government agencies successfully to recover their legal fees. It's an argument based primarily on ignorance, of course, because most cases in which the ACLU represents the plaintiffs, the case is handled not by ACLU attorneys but by law firms who work pro bono. In the Dover, PA "intelligent design" case, for example, the ACLU is representing the plaintiffs but the actual legal work is being handled…
The ACLU is planning to appeal a Federal judge's ruling in Nevada that upheld a Clark County school rule banning religious messages on students' clothing:"We said from the very beginning this is a decision that would be made at the Court of Appeals," Nevada ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein said Thursday. Lichtenstein said he will appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco... The ACLU argues that federal constitutional issues are at stake. It filed the case in October representing high school junior Kim Jacobs. She was suspended at Liberty High School in Las Vegas in…
Anyone who has spent any time in Vegas - and let's just say I've been there a time or ten - has run the porno gauntlet down the strip having fliers for escort services and strip clubs shoved into their hands. But Jim Webber and Tom Griner can also be found among them, holding signs with messages like "Jesus died for your sins". That is, until they got arrested a couple of weeks ago for violating a city ordinance against holding signs up that are wider than your body. And guess who is defending these preachers? The ACLU. And rightfully so. And this is a great example of how the anti-ACLU crowd…
As many of my longtime readers know, I am generally a supporter of the ACLU. That doesn't mean I support everything they've ever done or will do - I do think they take on some cases that are pointless and even damaging to the cause of liberty - but on the whole, I think it's a very valuable organization that has done much to keep America free. And I occassionally find myself being even more supportive of them just because many of the attacks on them that come from the right are so utterly dishonest and emotionally overwrought. The ACLU has become the favorite whipping boy of the religious…