The ACLU: Not just a bunch of liberal hacks

Clive Crook, National Review, Monday:

The ACLU’s stated mission is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Given its record, however, one would be forgiven for concluding that its copy of our charter is incomplete. Unfortunately, the ACLU appears to base its actions on the text of a tattered and torn document, from which the Second and Tenth Amendments are missing entirely, the Fourth was re-written in 1973, and the words “more or less” are appended to each paragraph along with an explicit invitation to interpret the document as broadly as humanly possible.

Emphasis added.

Randy LoBasso, Philadelphia Weekly, today:

Here’s something you weren’t expecting: The ACLU, along with the law firm of McCausland Keen and Buckman have filed a federal lawsuit today against the City of Philadelphia on behalf of Mark Fiorino, a Lansdale resident who was allegedly harassed by Philly cops for carrying a gun, despite his license to carry. Last time Philadelphia Weekly wrote about Fiorino and his ordeals with Philadelphia Police, he noted he was most offended by the officers’ not understanding their own city and state’s gun laws, which state one can obtain an unconcealed weapon license.

The lawsuit alleges Fiorino’s rights were violated when he was repeatedly detained longer than necessary to make sure he had a license to carry. His weapon was also confiscated and not returned for five months; it’s also alleged the police used excessive force against him.

Hey, the ACLU's interpretation of the Constitution is obviously to the left of National Review's. I think that's a good thing. But the ACLU also goes to work on behalf of gun-loving Second Amendment advocates. I think that's also a good thing, frankly. The ACLU frequently advocates for folks who don't necessarily line up ideologically on the left. I wonder: Would the righty ACLJ stick up for anti-gun activists using their First Amendment rights? I'm skeptical.

A Quick Note About The ACLU

Regarding that gun confiscation story, let me note this tidbit near the end:

Mary Catherine Roper, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania's Philadelphia office, said that the cases seem "pretty outrageous."

"This idea of taking people's guns who are carrying them legally and arresting them is absurd," she said. "The police don't get to decide what is a crime - they only get to enforce what is a crime.

"They are simply acting as vigilantes here and deciding they know better than the law."

And:

Roper said that citizens should remain wary of police who arrest people complying with the law and take their property, even if it is a gun.

"The public may be saying, 'You're getting guns off the street,' " Roper said.

"But there's got to come a point where you want your police, of all people, to respect the law.

"This isn't technical, it's fundamental."

Conservatives like to treat the ACLU as if its a lefty special-interest group. Me? I just think it's an organization trying to protect our rights. I'm glad it's there. Maybe conservatives should be, too.

On government eavesdropping: Just because you can't find the body doesn't mean there wasn't a murder

Over at No Left Turns, Justin Paulette drops a bomb in the middle of a complaint about Great Britain:

I've previously mentioned several of his examples on NLT, but Mark Steyn sums up the absurd charade of "rights"-based oppression prevailing in Great Britain. It's shamefully ironic that George Bush was consistently denounced for rights-depleting policies by which (as in the "domestic spying program") not a single American can be located who was in any manner harmed in the slightest - yet Democrats merrily seek to silence conservative talk-radio and liberals would arrest pro-life prayer groups as organized crime syndicates without the slightest sense of contradiction or hypocrisy.

I think the last bit of Paulette's claim here is either overstated or outright wrongheaded, but let's leave that alone for his second. I'm struck by his claim that we can't find a "single American" who was harmed by the domestic spying program.

Well of course we can't. We're not allowed to know who was spied upon! And thus we don't know who might've been harmed. Here's the ACLU's summary of the dismissal of its lawsuit against the program:

In July 2007, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, ruling the plaintiffs in the case - which includes scholars, journalists, and national nonprofit organizations - had no standing to sue because they could not state with certainty that they have been wiretapped by the NSA.

The decision "insulates the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance activities from judicial review and deprives Americans of any ability to challenge the illegal surveillance of their telephone calls and e-mails," said ACLU Legal Director Steve Shapiro. He added the ruling "did not uphold the legality of the government's warrantless surveillance activity. Indeed, the only judge to discuss the merits clearly and unequivocally declared that the warrantless surveillance was unlawful."

Because the appeals court refused to rule on the legality of the program, Americans were denied the chance to contest the warrantless surveillance of their telephone calls and e-mails.

When a group came forward with proof it had been surveilled -- the evidence was accidentally given to them by government lawyers -- the government tried to invoke the State Secrets Act. If there was harm (both the Bush and Obama administrations argued) too bad: It couldn't be talked about in court. It would just have to be swept under the rug.

I don't mind if Justin Paulette is concerned about political correctness swamping the rights to free speech; I even share some of his concerns. But his point is undermined by invoking an example where the absence of evidence a "single American" who was harmed by a government spying program might, in fact, be evidence of the government's overreach.