The ACLU has let the government increase surveillance, force mask usage, and now enforce vaccine usage across millions during the pandemic.
They're staying silent because they agree with the policies - and you may too - but there is no denying that in terms of invasion of personal freedom it's very great and they're turning a blind eye to it.
The ACLU is a finite organization that needs to chose which battles to fight. Suggesting their not doing enough because they don’t prioritize your issues generally means you should be funding some other organization.
The odd thing about civil liberties is they also curtail other freedoms. The right to own property means the right to exclude others from your property. Trial by a jury of your peers means jury duty etc.
If you have fundamental disagreements around these issues you really can’t blame the organization for not doing enough. Them doing more or less isn’t the problem, them having other priorities is.
The GP is not arguing against your political positions, but pointing out that an organization which use to focus & care about one position no longer seems to.
It’s clear the ACLU is internally conflicted, but that’s completely normal. “It split over decisions to represent the Nazis in the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s, and the Nazis in the 1970s.”
The real change has been mostly how individuals say things that the organization may disagree with. Still, I am concerned US politics has become so divisive that the right wing is viewed how the Nazis where back in the 70’s.
As to my politics, I don’t support the ACLU. Requiring locations to host rallies they disagree with isn’t a free speech issue anymore than allowing protesters to block a freeway in rush hour would be. Protests at government buildings are different, but rallies don’t need to be allowed to block public streets.
There are ways to address that conflict. I'm not trying to join the trope of criticizing the contemporary ACLU, but rather pointing out that rights aren't purely relative constructions. Negative liberty (prohibitions on government infringing rights) and tradition (eg property rights) are two ways of non-relatively reasoning about rights. And of course when rights are in balanced tension on a topic, it's possible to simply not advocate.
For example on the topic of employment discrimination, one could stay silent and thus not be advocating against the right to earn a living nor the right of free association. Furthermore, one can advocate for freedom from the employment treadmill that makes most everyone need continuous centralized-flow employment in the first place (this would be necessary for the negative rights construction to have good results).
Many things don’t have a neutral middle ground. What can governments or other employers require of their employees?
Can cops lie to suspects is another tricky one. At one end is a flat no, at the other is misrepresent themselves as the defendants lawyer or pretend to offer immunity in exchange for turning on other suspects.
The ACLU chose its case mostly in terms of the impact they will have. This is why the ACLU used to defend the KKK's 1st amendment rights even as recently as 2012. Now many of its members, even high profile ones, are arguing for the suppression of speech; justified by the Marxist ideological thinking that it mostly benefits "those in power" (https://archive.is/tL7Rj)
All the way back in “the 1930s, the ACLU started to engage in work combating police misconduct and supporting Native American rights.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union So it’s been about far more than free speech for the vast majority of it’s history. And it still defends such causes, one example is even in the article:
“In August 2017, officials in Charlottesville, Va., rescinded a permit for far-right groups to rally downtown in support of a statue to the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Officials instead relocated the demonstration to outside the city’s core.
The A.C.L.U. of Virginia argued that this violated the free speech rights of the far-right groups and won, preserving the right for the group to parade downtown.“
So while it’s scope has increased over time which has created increased internal tension, that’s always been the case. “The A.C.L.U. has in fact often gloried in its internal contentions. It split over decisions to represent the Nazis in the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s, and the Nazis in the 1970s.”
Frankly the organization has never been filled 100% with defenders of free speech the Twitter age combined with a wider scope has brought this internal tension to the general public. The important work they do is generally in the courtroom which is far more focused.
With the pandemic you have it exactly backwards, the goal of mask and vaccine mandates is actually to increase personal freedom and civil liberty, by preventing spread of the virus that has already claimed many lives.
They're staying silent because they agree with the policies - and you may too - but there is no denying that in terms of invasion of personal freedom it's very great and they're turning a blind eye to it.