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Palmer raids
the aclu secured the releaseof hundreds of activists imprisoned for their antiwar activities -
Brown vs. Board of Education
The ACLU, having joined the NAACP in the legal battle for equal education, celebrated a major victory when the Supreme Court declared that racially segregated schools were in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Reproductive rights
After decades of struggle, the Supreme Court held — in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton — that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses a woman's right to decide whether she will terminate or continue a pregnancy. But the fight still continues and the ACLU struggles to protect women's right to reproductive choice. -
Internet Free Speech
In ACLU v. Reno, the Supreme Court struck down the 1996 Communications Decency act, which censored the Internet by broadly banning "indecent" speech. Since then, Congress has passed numerous versions of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a federal law that would criminalize constitutionally protected speech on the Internet. Each time the law has been challenged by the ACLU and declared unconstitutional. -
keep America Safe and Free
Since 9/11 terrorist attacks, the ACLU has been working vigorously to oppose policies that sacrifice our fundamental freedoms in the name of national security. From working to fix the Patriot Act to challenging NSA warrantless spying, our advocates are working to restore fundamental freedoms lost as a result of the Bush administration policies that expanded the government's power to invade privacy, imprison people without due process and punish dissent. -
Equal treatment for lesbians and gay men
In Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the ACLU's argument that the court had been wrong when it ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that the right to privacy did not cover lesbian and gay relationships. It struck down a Texas law that made same-sex intimacy a crime, expanding the privacy rights of all Americans and promoting the right of lesbians and gay men to equality. -
exposing torture
After a five-year legal battle, the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit compelled the release of critical documents detailing the extent of the Bush torture program, including long-secret legal memos justifying waterboarding and other abuses and an Inspector General's report highlighting CIA abuses. The ACLU is leading the demand for full accountability for those who authorized or condoned torture.
