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The Pamer Raids
In its first year, the ACLU championed the targets of attourney General A. Mitchell Palmer including politically radical immigrants. They also supported the right of trade unionists to hold meetings and organize, and secured the release of hundreds of activists imprisoned for their antiwar activities. -
Fighting the internment of Japenese Americans
The ACLU stood almost alone in denouncing the federal government's internment of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps.
They were one of the only groups to do so -
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. -
Protecting Free Speech
In Tinker v. Des Moines, the ACLU won a major Supreme Court victory on behalf of public school students suspended for wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War, a major First Amendment victory. -
Creationism in Arknsas
Fifty-six years after the Scopes trial, the ACLU challenged an Arkansas statute requiring that the biblical story of creation be taught as a "scientific alternative" to the theory of evolution. A federal court found the statute, which fundamentalists saw as a model for other states, unconstitutional. That fight continues today as they take on the "intelligent design" movement with cases like their 2005 victory in Dover, Pennsylvania. -
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. -
Keeping America Safe and Free
Since 9/11 terrorist attacks, the ACLU has been working vigorously to oppose policies that sacrifice their fundamental freedoms in the name of national security. From working to fix the Patriot Act to challenging NSA warrantless spying, thier 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. -
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.
