ACLU Says Membership Has Doubled — Thanks To Bush Presidency
Surveillance. Rendition. Torture.
By many measures, the Bush administration has been bad for civil liberties.
Yet the past seven years have been particularly good for the American Civil Liberties Union. National membership in the organization, which fights for freedom of speech and religion, equal protection, due process and privacy, has doubled since Bush took office in 2001 - an extraordinary spurt of growth for the 88-year-old institution.
“I think it’s very much a reflection of the fact that there was a very aggressive assault on civil liberties,” said ACLU national deputy executive director Dorothy Ehrlich. “Over the past seven years, many Americans felt their own cherished values were under attack, and they didn’t want to sit by.”
The ACLU counted about 250,000 members in the final year of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Today, the organization has about 500,000 card-carriers, 2,500 of them in Utah.
Fundraising has increased in kind. According the IRS, the nonprofit had about $44 million in annual revenues in the 2000 fiscal year. In the fiscal year ending in March of 2007, it collected more than $80 million.
That’s on top of what independent chapters throughout the country collected from their members. For instance, the organization’s Northern California chapter - one of the nation’s largest and most active - doubled its revenues, from $4.8 million to $9.1 million, between 2000 to 2006.
But it wasn’t only in left-leaning locales like San Francisco, where the Northern California chapter is headquartered, that people flocked to support the ACLU. Five-hundred miles to the right - both geographically and politically - in Utah, ACLU membership nearly doubled, up from from about 1,300 at the start of the Bush administration, according to chapter officials.
Dani Eyer took the helm of the Utah chapter in 2002 and led the organization until late 2006, through a period in which Americans were increasingly becoming aware that the Bush administration’s response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 would include some rather un-libertarian measures.
From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay and from wiretapping to waterboarding, Eyers said Americans of many political persuasions were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the Bush administration’s policies.
“I gave a lot of presentations,” Eyer said of meetings with students, civic groups, attorneys and others. “I kept thinking we’d heard the worst of it, and then something new would come out. I had to change every presentation I gave because something new would happen.”
The revelations were frightening and saddening, said Carole Gnade, who was the Utah chapter’s executive director when Bush took office - and during the months following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But, “it was really was reinvigorating,” she said.
Gnade said many Americans had not thought much about civil liberty issues during the Clinton years, “but the truth of the matter is, there was a downhill slide with Clinton, too.”
As such, Ehrlich said, Americans would be making a mistake if they assumed that under a new administration, the work of the ACLU will be easier. She noted that although many think of the organization as aligned with the political left, it is officially nonpartisan.
And no matter which party assumes control of the executive branch come November, she said, “We’ve still got to fix the damage that has been done.”
By the numbers
* 500,000 people are members of the ACLU today, double the membership of 2001.
* 2,500 Utahns are ACLU members.
* $80 million was collected by the group in the fiscal year ending March 2007, up from $44 million in fiscal year 2000.
© 2008 Salt Lake CityTribune
ACLU Says Membership Has Doubled
Bush gave me a strong reason to join ACLU
and AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL and GREEN PARTY
and AFL-CIO and …
and to avoid christians.
So it’s 1859 and we learn that the Abolitionist Movement has never been more popular across all segments of White America and that the Underground railroad has greatly expanded operations. Is this good news?
Well, yes and no. Just because the citizenry is aroused and sensitized to what is wrong does not change the reality of a do-nothing Senate and House or the effect of the US presidency’s only bachelor, James Buchanen, all of whom effectively twiddled their thumbs as the country lurched on the verge of Civil War.
After what has happened for the past 20 years, our country is in that bad a shape and we are filled with political
“leadership” that thinks all it has to do is whistle a happy tune in order to convince everyone else and even themselves that they aren’t afraid.
Yes, and it was Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the right who convinced everyone that reality was what everyone could be convinced it was.
These idiots are not afraid. How could Ronnie be wrong? Climate change? Economic collapse? Who says so?
Remember when GHW Bush proudly announced at some press conference “I am NOT a card-carrying member of the ACLU”….. well he may not but I sure AM !!! Nazi-loving prick.
Remember when GHW Bush proudly announced at some press conference “I am NOT a card-carrying member of the ACLU”….. well he may not but I sure AM !!! And proud of it!!! : )
…
Just because you are a member in an organization does not mean you will not be discriminated against.
Bush will not be in office next year but it is guarnateed more lay-offs and such due mostly to age.
Congress passed legislation that allows businesses to lay off to save money.
Going through any of the organizations is a waste. It is a 3 year process-without positive result.
evelyna May 13th, 2008 9:35 pm
evelyna,
If not for the ACLU, we wouldn’t be having these conversations over the internet or anywhere else!
The GOOD parts of the Bush “legacy” are that he awakened U.S. citizens to what was REALLY going on. A presidency turned into a virtual dictatorship, and the U.S. Constitution either turned into a non-document, or else ignored when it couldn’t be changed. Besides doubling the membership of the ACLU (of which I am, and HAVE been a proud part), I’d guess he’s been the leading reason that there are so many new Democrats (formerly [excuse my cursing] Republicans). GW tried the “Big Lie” on the American public, but apparently lessons WERE learned from the Germans who were misled by the Nazi’s. NEVER AGAIN, NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
Only 8 more months ’til trash day in the White House.
Al Cooper
I just wanted to thank the ACLU, as a card carrying member in good standing for not having the damn decency to answer 1 damn question for me, the only time I truly needed help, the only time I asked for their help. NO ANSWER NO HELP.
I had a lawless lawyer who colluded with persons to undermine my defense negatively affecting a bullshit charge a pig had a hard on for me because of my bumper stickers and I got F$$KED twice. Once by the ?justice system? second by the ACLU.
F$$K YOU ACLU!!!
The thing I find so humorous is that by electing Bush, the
right has increased contributions to the organization they hate most. As “Larry the Cable Guy” would say, “Now that’s
funny.”
Right on. I joined the ACLU when the Patriot Act first passed.
The powers that be always try to limit or inhibit the free exchange of expression and ideas. of course, they also try to stifle freedom of speech at every turn. Look what they tried to do to WIKILEAKS. For crying out loud a Bush appointed Federal Judge actually shut down WIKILEAKS (classified and sensitive document repository) for weeks until many of us including the ACLU and many freedom of speech organizations came to their aid.
WIKILEAKS’ owner write;
Censorship, like communism, seems like a reasonable enough idea to
begin with. While “from each according to his ability and to each
according to his need” sounds unarguable, the world has learned
that these words call forth a power elite to administer them with
coerisive force. Such elites are quick to define the needs of
themselves and their cronies as paramount. Similarly, “from each
mouth according to its ability and to each ear according to its
need” seems harmless enough, but history shows that censorship also
requires an anointed class to define ‘need’ and to make violence
against those who do not agree and continue talking. Such power is
quickly corrupted.
The first ingredient of a democracy is the people’s right to know,
because without such understanding no human being can meaningfully
choose to support anything, let alone a political party. Knowledge
is the driver of every political process, every constitution, every
law and every regulation. The communication of knowledge is without
analog. It is not a piece of furniture and it is not a man throwing
a ball. It is unique and demands its own place at the summit of
society. Since knowledge is the creator and regulator of all law,
it must be placed beyond law.
When speech is not free and knowledge of how society operates is
restricted, each man becomes an atom, unaware of his own destiny
and that of those around him. That the world will change if there
is ever truly free speech is not something to be afraid of, rather
it is a cause for celebration.
Mankind has successfully adapted changes as monumental as electricity
and the engine. It can also adapt to a world where state sponsored
violence against the communications of consenting adults is not
only unlawful, but physically impossible. As knowledge flows across
nations it is time to sum the great freedoms of every nation and
not subtract them. It is time for the world as an international
collective of communicating peoples to arise and say ‘here I am!’.
Thanks to the ACLU for helping us in restoring WIKILEAKS to its deserved prominence.
SRD
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html