The A.C.L.U. is a radical organiztion. They always take the side of the criminal element over the greater society. The A.C.L.U. believes that any evidence obtained by the police in the search or interrogation of a suspect should be thrown out if the police errored even slightly in obtaining the information or confession of a suspect. The A.C.L.U. is American in name only.

can u talk about the law in mass. there trying to pass that allow police to pull people over who dont have a seat belt.

I see this being abused by police and enabling them another way to harass minority,

or talk about what is going on in oakland ca. about the cop u shot point blank the un-arm black man in the subway station.

Funny picture, nice art piece, a tongue colored like an American flag.

I worked for the Rhode Island Chapter of the ACLU a few years back. Our staff consisted of the Executive Director, who had held the position for about 22 years at that point, myself, and an Administrative Assistant. When the Administrative Assistant requested that the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors mediate a discussion between herself and the ED regarding several issues she did not feel comfortable discussing with the ED alone (including the hostile climate created by the ED’s infatuation with a student volunteer), the ED fired this employee. A few weeks later, I received a written request from the ED to disclose in writing by the end of that day any and all conversations I had had with the chapter’s board members about the recent termination of the Administrative Assistant. When I expressed discomfort with the request and suggested that I would like to consult with an attorney before disclosing private conversations I had had with board members he fired me. The ED fought me for unemployment insurance benefits, and during the hearings the RI ACLU’s attorney actually argued that the ACLU is a private employer, so its employees do not have the right to privacy in the workplace! Eventually, I won that battle and it was decided by the RI Board of Review that I was, indeed, fired for non-performance related reasons. Rhode Island is an “at will” state, hence employees can be fired for any reason at any time, so I had little recourse beyond collecting unemployment benefits.

After the ED terminated his entire staff in the span of two months, the RI ACLU Board of Directors chose not to investigate the actions or motivation of the ED. Instead, some of his closest friends, who just happen to be sitting on the Executive Committee, decided that the ED can fire whomever he wants for whatever reason he wants. Most tellingly, the ACLU’s national board refused to take any action. If I did not live through all this myself, I would not have believed that the ACLU could be so corrupt.

Congratulations to your guest. Kaminar reveals the fraud that the ACLU is. I personally will make sure that her message is going to be disseminalated to others. We in the NRA have long said this about this organization. Now we have proof and we will make sure that any fund raising by the group will be targeted even more so. My professor at university had been sympathetic. We will make sure that Kamina message goes out and shows the duplicity of this organization. A message from the insides always carries more weight. Thank you for publicizing this and THANK YOU, Wendy Kamina for so eloquently denoucing the ACLU. Your message will not go unheard!!!

Question for Wendy Kaminer: Is this an organizational problem or a narrower one that could be solved by getting rid of Anthony Romero and a few of his associates?

Brave to Wendy. Back when the Sandistas were governing Nicaragua, long-time civil rights activists I knew argued that Ortega’s shutting down of the opposition press was reasonable, in terms of the big picture–the means justifying the ends. I argued then that support of the first amendment, of civil rights in general, is easy to do in easy times, hard to do in hard times, but it’s only really important in the hard times. When it puts your beliefs truly on the line. Wendy is right. The ACLU must operate with the highest level of adherence to principles or it is an empty shell. Thank you, Ms. Kaminer.

Tom, what did you mean when you said that the ACLU was allegedly “not just another liberal human rights organization”? What organizations are you referring to? Amnesty International which has denounced human rights violations in both leftist and rightist regimes since its founding? Human Rights Watch which has done the same? Human Rights First? Your comment comes in a context when human rights defenders are regularly called “liberals” in the debate on torture. While I have many disagreements with conservatives, I know that there are conservatives who also oppose human rights violations. I am very disappointed that you fell into this trap (unthinkingly, I think). Words have consequences. Please think about that. Best, Joanna

My father fully supported the ACLU until I was sexually harrassed/attacked at my elementary school by a couple of fellow students. When my father found out what happened he went straight to the school to demand something be done. It came out that perhaps the teachers knew what was going on and was ignoring it. What the boys got was a week of not being able to join us on the playground. My father was livid. He approached the female principal and her words were, “boys will be boys” My father called the ACLU and they said that the would never take our case but would take the case of the boys who were, “deprived of their right to have time on the playground”
That was the end for my father. I have never supported the ACLU because they are more concerned with the “rights” of the criminal element and have no concerns for the victims.

Laurie’s story is very telling. Free speech seems to alright for Nazis but not for it’s employees.

Tom! You said it again! Please, please do not contribute to efforts to delegitimize human rights defenders around the world by lumping them into “liberal organizations.” Once again, respect for human rights must trump American political categorizations. That’s what all of us human rights defenders are fighting for (and sometimes dying for).

The ACLU and the NRA are the same sort of organization. Well intentioned initially, and dedicated to the bill of rights. Yet they have become steadily more radical and marginalized from the beliefs of mainstream society.

It is my understanding that the most work is done by the state chapters (Civil LIberties Union of Massachusetts) and the national ACLU is really for public communication and, yes, the “high profile” cases. Shouldn’t you be looking at how the state chapters are doing their jobs rather than the national ACLU?

And why did Ms. Kaminer not speak out during the Bush years? Now that President Obama is in, she speaks out? Hello? Something is wrong here.

I have to agree with the author. I worked for the ACLU a few
years back. As I recall, after 911, when Post Offices and City Halls
were posting “God Bless America” signs, the National ACLU sent a memo
to all state affiliates discouraging them from fighting the
constitutionality of the signs because it thought such dissent would
call negative press to the organization as a whole.

I am a natural constituent of the ACLU. But I have been totally turned off by their relentless challenge of laws aimed at illegal immigration. Foreigners do not have the right to sneak across our border. A country that lacks border integrity is like an individual with poorly formed personal boundaries. Mass immigration does take jobs from American citizens and illegal immigration takes jobs from legal immigrants and American citizens. See Nick Kristof’s NYT column of April 9, 2006, “Compassion that Hurts” http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/opinion/09kristof.html?_r=1

The biggest problem we face today is global climate disruption. But mass immigration is going to make it extremely difficult to reduce our emissions by the goal of 80% by 2050, because our population is projected to grow nearly 50%, from 305 million to 438 million by then, 82% of that growth due to mass immigration according to the Pew Research Center. Since the average immigrant to the US increases greenhoiuse gas emissions four-fold upon coming to the US, this is a lose-lose for the US and the planet.

weird the time ms. Kaminer decides to speak out esp since the torture memos came out and pictures will be as well seems she has a deep grudge against romero.

To bad like someone noted she couldnt speak out during the bush years.

I still think the aclu is still a benefit to us and for fighting for freedom and rights even if there is issues within its organaziation. Far greater than the NRA.

Police error all the time its only when a orgaination like (ACLU) or camara and recordings do police have to admit they broke the law themselves. otherwise they just lie and deny any wrong doing the majority of the time. u can youtube or google and find many cases of abuse by law enforcement.

There we go again.

This institution used to represent all the principles and ideals that we stand for as America. Our principles was the most important reason why everybody on this planed respected us and wanted to be an American.

Thanks to Wendy, if you look at the core and the starting point of the corruption in ACLU was Ford Foundation and the pressure and bribes coming from defenders of Israel.

Is it possible that this woman called Lilya was right. We already lost our congress to AIPAC and we are losing our Civil Liberties, just because some of us have supported or defended the Civil Liberties of Palestinians.

What an irony, what a drama!

Wendy is right to expose the failings of the ACLU, and I commend her efforts. However we have to recognize that all non-profits once they reach the size of the ACLU, with millions in their annual budgets are “corporations”, nearly identical to private sector corps. They reward toxic leadership, ignore the unethical behavior of the CEOs ( notice how many non-profit executive directors call themselves “CEOs” these days. Major non-profits with budgets over $2 mil. also attract a different kind of “professional leadership”. The more personally ambitious kind, with big egos – who use the standard corporate command and control management styles – often lying to their Boards ( who have literally NO CLUE about what is going on in an organization the size of the ACLU) and donors. The sad truth is that all of this is NORMAL today in the non-profit sector among the largest groups. I have seen this happen time and again over the past 15 years. These organizations have the worst “corporate cultures” I have observed anywhere, with less accountability because there is minimal scrutiny of the bottom line. We need more whistleblowers, and a lot more public oversight of non-profit corporations, especially the large ones, who have an incentive to place money and ambition before their traditional mission and stakeholders. I support a revocation of NGO’s tax-free status above the $2 mil level – these groups are in every way corporations and need to be taxed as such.

For about 10 years, I’ve been a board member of a local chapter of the ACLU in Massachusetts. The chapter has been in existence for about 40 years. We deal with the nitty-gritty cases–e.g., police who drag someone out of a car and beat his head against a curb.

Recently, the state affiliate has taken over our bank accounts, demoted our board of directors to a “board of advisors,” and demanded pre-approval of any action we might take, no matter how trivial. Their demand for total control hinders our ability to respond quickly and appropriately at a local level.

At this point, the state organization seems far more concerned with central authority, organizational control, and bureaucratic structure than with civil liberties. We understand that many state organizations have the same complaints about the national organization that we have about the state level.

The right wing has long understood the importance and effectiveness of grass-roots activism. The ACLU had better learn that top-down authoritarianism will undercut their mission–or they will become a really well-organized dinosaur.

Did a little bit of search on what happened to ACLU.

Looks like the backroom operator and the person who was pulling Anthony D. Romero’s strings was actually ACLU President Nadine Strossen. Additionally there were serious disagreements between Strossen and Romero.

Moreoever, Romero was just pion, running day-to-day operations and were being told what to do. Strossen has stuffed the top 4-5 positions in ACLU with her own loyalists.

Mr. Butz did not receive enough air time to respond to Ms. Kaminer’s points. Several times he was cut off as he was making his point.

Great discussion on an important topic. As a supportewr of ACLU, I hope the ACLU seriously considers the points and charts a way forward more consistent with its mission. I realize this discussion may hurt it in the short run. However,in the long run, it may save an important organization.

Did the ACLU explain why they declined having a representative join the interview? Wouldn’t that have been supportive of their goals of transparency, clarity and truth?

I too have witnessed magnificent and noble intents compromised by their own success. The ACLU is gigantic compared to what it was forty years ago.

Often times local leadership is just a sad example of the “Peter Principal,” of loyal underlings rising to authority a step or two beyond their ability.

But absent the ACLU what organization do we have that will challenge tis humungous government that drains our vitality and reduces our liberties. Without the ACLU we are on a defenseless plain facing great and almighty power that can grind us to nothing.

The ACLU is not perfect but for many it is the only game in town.

Wendy Kaminer raises all the right points, but it does seem a bit strange that she treats this as new material. She might want to investigate “the iron law of oligarchy,” which Michels wrote about in 1911. In a way, this situation of organizational misbehavior is inevitable.

The serious charge, though, is that the organization has been so totally compromised that the ACLU is no longer living up to its core mission. Although she raises important charges, I’m not sure that she is convincing here.

The constant interruption of the guest by the host make this program vexing to listen to. The interview road needs paving.

This was an odd, parochial choice for a national program topic — Ms. Kaminer utterly failed to raise any substantive issues and essentially executed a smear job against Anthony Romero that appears to have nothing more than sour grapes and personal animus at its root.

Ms. Kaminer came off almost like a jilted lover — lashing out at Romero with any stray thought that crossed her mind, and attributing impropriety and shadowy motives to him without a shred of support for her claims.

It’s unfortunate that On Point chose to dignify Ms. Kaminer with such a major platform.

I am sure there is truth in both sides of this argument as any organization of this size and character – they all will have good and bad points. The “bad” does need to be fixed, but it does not negate the “good” being done.

The ACLU has been, is today, and will continue to be extremely important in the battle of protecting our civil liberties as our founding fathers wrote them out.

I would like to recommend the ACLU start doing one thing I don’t see – good marketing!

The ACLU has failed in this hands down.

I recently retired from the AF. I spent over 28 years as an officer and as an ACLU member. I felt like the token liberal amid a conservative hoard. When the ACLU came up the majority trashed it and all it did. I asked them about what they thought the ACLU did – help the liberal, help the criminal, help the trash of the earth, put REAL AMERICANS in the back seat, etc. I mentioned that the ACLU helped protect Christians’ rights and other conservatives and their desires and all loudly stated that was NUTS – No Way. I then asked them if they every looked into it and they all stated that the had not! I recommended that they do and see for themselves if it was true or not.

This should not be so. When I search the history of cases many are for the ones who bash the ACLU the most, but that never gets out to them – why?

Now on your show I hear they helped Rush L…. and some other conservative crusader. Why do I and many more of us hear it this way? Where is the marketing of the true(?) story – why keep it so hidden? Word of mouth works but only as a part, not the whole!

And ACLU, please, continue doing your critical job for this great nation! Thanks.

Plus, thanks Mr Ashbrook for your great show!

Steve King, Hampton Roads of VA

Dear On Point,

I was disappointed with the show on the ACLU. That organization has a solid history of good works. The ACLU is needed now more than ever, as we see our civil liberties eroded and confused by recent political forces. I thought the argument was really too small a matter to spend an hour on, when so much needs to be looked at and discussed regarding the law and its execution at high levels of government and in foreign policy. When we use torture as official policy with our foreign enemies, we move closer to accepting it for domestic suspects. It’s as if we know better, but we have no power to stop this insidious fear-based decline. I am seriously more fearful of my own government than of a terrorist attack. Just contemplate the statistical probability of being injured by a terrorist vs. a thousand more common things and you realize that we’re paying a huge price for a negligible safeguard. What is more serious from the point of a citizen? ACLU in-house politics or the compromise of our Constitutional protections?

Please stop trying to be the replacement for the Connection and return to the seriousness of your origins – 9/11. We can get fun subjects a lot of other places, but where else can we get the in-depth news analysis that you provide for WBUR listeners. I realize Jack Beatty can be a little dramatic and zealous in speaking for progressive ideals, but some times I think he’s the only one on the show that realizes how seriously we’ve fallen as a polity

Thank you

As often happens, your attempt to appear “balanced” simply resulted in having a spin person in opposition to the main guest. He failed to respond to any of kaminer’s points, either her specific anecdotes or her larger overview concerning the extreme right turn that the ACLU is taking, both in its inner organization and in its work.

The ACLU has always been timid, see its blacklisting of communists during the late forties and fifties,but it did serve some good functions. Now, the current board and romero have taken it down the path of support for government survelience, support for the use of what are basically loyalty oaths as a precondition for receiving grants and funds, extreme secrecy and dishonesty.

Your opposition speaker simply attacked kaminer as being overly pro-civil liberties and made general claims that the ACLU is wonderful and does wonderful work. But he did NOT respond to any of the specific and factual anecdotes that kaminer described in support of her claims.

By the way, kaminer certainly was vocal during the bush administration. It was the ACLU that chickened out and took a dive in those years.

One of my hobbies is considering “corporate mottos” for the human race. One of the leading contenders is the truism “power corrupts.” Another is “a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.”

The human talent for self deception often expresses itself in a confusion between self interest and benefit to a higher purpose; e.g., Nixon’s inability to distinguish between his political success and national interest. Individuals, organizations, and nations all tend down a path from idealism to self-justification to corruption. I recommend Michela Wrong’s excellent and heart-breaking book “In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz” for insight into this process in post-colonial Africa.

We all need to be vigilant in our own lives and in the organizations (and nations) that we identify with. Once we know we are right (and that the NRA/ACLU is right/true/good), our natural self deception tends to blind us to the possibility that we have gone astray from our original intentions.

I listened to the program and read all the comments and did a little research, and yet I still struggle to understand the core issue of why ACLU is truly being compromised.

I am sure there is truth to both sides, but I just don’t get it.

Thank you for your posting, Laurie-Marie. That clinches it. I will not be renewing my RI ACLU membership.

I have been an ACLU member for decades. I was disgusted with the national organization after hearing the Wendy Kaminer interview, and then reading past NY Times archive articles. But I assumed the local branch was ok. Now I know better.

I’ve tried to listen to the April 28 program on the ACLU, but can’t find a link that activates it. Please advise.

Having worked for several board governed non=profit organizations — I conclude that it is common for them to behave badly within their organizational structures, to cover up this bad behavior and to more or less abuse their employees. They expect that employees should be SO dedicated to the “CAUSE” that they should put up with abysmal pay, broken promises, harassment, lack of benefits, abuse of power, and incredible internal political wars between director, board-members, volunteers at all levels and paid staff.

The inherent structure of board governed non-profits is unstable and impractical. I would never work for one again.