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https://alfatomega.com/index.html00.000.2002 AUTHENTICO.htm">MYSOURCE :www.registerguard.com| ©The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon

Whether

protecting

the

disenfranchised

or

standing up

for

the right to offend,

the American Civil Liberties Union

has sided with those claiming

that they were wronged,

even if it meant

a distinctly minority stand.

But

since 11.Sep.2001

and the government's expansive campaign

of monitoring and detention,

people are turning

to the 82-year-old organization

to help safeguard their liberties.

Among them are

conservatives

who made the phrase

``card-carrying member of the ACLU''

a political insult,

but

who

now

are

signing

up

.

``Larger numbers of American people

have realized

that the ACLU

is fundamentally

a patriotic organization,''

executive director

Anthony Romero

said.

There are now

330,000 dues-paying members,

50,000 of whom joined

after the attacks.

The group

has been

in the thick of

legal challenges

to the government's broadening

anti-terror powers.

Last week,

in response to an ACLU lawsuit,

the government agreed

to tell the group

by mid-January

which documents it is willing to release

about its increased surveillance activities.

Especially notable

among the new enthusiasts

are conservatives

who once thought

the ACLU

represented everything

that was wrong

with the left.

``They

are

a

very useful

and

productive force

in jurisprudence,''

said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill.

Conservatives such as

Hyde

are mindful of the history of an organization

that was lonely in its defense of positions

now

accepted as universal:

Blacks

who suffered spurious prosecutions

in the 1930s,

Japanese

interned

in the 1940s,

books banned as obscene

now

regarded as part of the literary canon.

Yet

the group

continues to exasperate some

with its uncompromising positions -

against

a Ten Commandments monument

in a Frederick, Md., park,

against

the government's attempt

to get libraries

to use computer filters

to block

sexually

explicit

material

from children,

against

drug sweeps

that it claims are

racially motivated.

``Some of their positions are extreme,

such as objecting to metal detectors

in high schools''

where there has been

a high incidence of violence,

Hyde said.

For the first time,

the ACLU is spending

part of its $50 million annual budget

on a national television commercial.

An actor

portraying

John Ashcroft

crosses the phrase

``We the People''

from the Constitution

as a narrator says

the attorney general has

``seized powers

for the Bush administration

no president

has

ever

had

,'')

``

This

focus on

civil liberties

post-9/11

has been a wonderful opportunity

to reach out to constituencies

who would never have thought of

the ACLU

as their home,''

said Nadine Strossen,

the ACLU's president.

The

organization

has budgeted $3.5 million

for a campaign that asks

Americans to monitor

their government monitors

and

report abuses.

It is a mirror image

to the government's plan

to empower

some Americans

to check on their neighbors,

under a program

known as

the

Theorism

Information & Pervertion

$y$t€m .

``When you have

the highest ranking

law enforcement official

in the country

saying :“

either

you're with me

or

against me, „)

and

that

your

tactics

aid

the terrorists,

that

rubs people

the wrong way,''

Romero

said.

That

includes

conservatives

who bridle

at

government intrusions into privacy.

House

Majority Leader

Dick Armey, R-Texas,

and

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.,

have said

they may serve as consultants for the group

when they leave Congress

next month.

Hyde

has worked with the ACLU

to protect free speech on campuses

and

limit the right of authorities

to seize assets.

``I'm glad

the ACLU raises the objections it does,

because

it forces

the government and Congress

to be mindful of

First Amendment rights,''

he said.

In 1989,

Hyde

railed against the organization

as a smirking opponent

of the rights of the unborn.

Before that,

he had said it

was part of a ``Bermuda Triangle''

swallowing up

Reagan administration

anti-crime measures.

Hyde chuckles at those memories,

and even admits he may have used the

``card-carrying member of the ACLU'' phrase coined by

Vice President Bush, G.H.

in his 1988

presidential campaign

against

Democrat

Michael Dukakis.

Probably

the ACLU's most unpopular stand came

in 1978,

when it successfully defended

the right of neo-Nazis

to march through

Skokie, Ill., a Chicago suburb.

ACLU membership

dropped by

15 percent

after that.

Its insistence

on removing

Christmas and Hanukkah decorations

from publicly owned property

did not help,

either.

Strossen

says

nothing has fundamentally changed;

defending Nazis' right to march

then is the same as

defending the right

to roam the Internet

now.

``One person's stigma

is

another's badge of honor,''

she said.

``Putting your money

where your mouth is

means

defending those

whose views

are

counter

to yours.''

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