American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU is the foremost defender of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU has played a major role in nearly every critical civil liberties battle of the last century -- in courtrooms, in Congress and in the public arena.That proud tradition continues today. And in the midst of the government’s efforts to curtail freedom in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the ACLU has taken on an unprecedented workload and become even more important. As we work to protect rights and liberties immediately at risk in the current crisis environment, you can also count on the ACLU to continue defending core liberties that are still at risk, but that have nothing to do with national security concerns. We don’t have the luxury of putting other core issues on a back burner as we fight new battles.

We now know from long experience that we can never let our guard down when it comes to protecting fundamental rights including keeping the government out of religion, freedom of speech, the right to choose, and equal rights for lesbians and gay men.

For it is in times like these, when attention is naturally focused elsewhere, that the foes of liberty are most likely to take advantage of a climate of fear and nostalgia to push an anti-liberty agenda that has nothing to do with the concerns at hand.