"Larger numbers of American people have realized that the ACLU is fundamentally a patriotic organization,'' executive director Anthony Romero said. There are now 330,000 dues-paying members, 50,000 of whom joined after the [9/11/01] attacks.
The group has been in the thick of legal challenges to the government's broadening anti-terror powers.
Last week, in response to an ACLU lawsuit, the government agreed to tell the group by mid-January which documents it is willing to release about its increased surveillance activities.
Especially notable among the new enthusiasts are conservatives who once thought the ACLU represented everything that was wrong with the left.
"They are very useful and productive force in jurisprudence,'' said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill.
Conservatives such as Hyde are mindful of the history of an organization that was lonely in its defense of positions now accepted as universal: Blacks who suffered spurious prosecutions in the 1930s, Japanese interned in the 1940s, books banned as obscene now regarded as part of the literary canon. [...]
"When you have the highest ranking law enforcement official in the country saying either you're with me or against me, and that your tactics aid the terrorists, that rubs people the wrong way,'' Romero said.
That includes conservatives who bridle at government intrusions into privacy.
Whatever happened to the conservative calls for less, and less intrusive, government? Invasions of privacy will affect not only liberals, but also South Park Republicans, Log Cabin Republicans, and all the other cutely named (and unnamed) factions that have something personal to hide from the electronic gaze of Ashcroft and/or Poindexter.
No matter who's in power, liberal or conservative, some official is always disapproving of something you're doing – whether it's political, aesthetic, financial, or sexual – and that's why we Americans invest part of our identity in having this wonderful thing called privacy.
What kind of social hell are you waiting for? Join the ACLU. Right now.
