There are times in this country when we find ourselves at a crossroads - where the path we choose has the potential to define us as a nation for generations to come.

No doubt we've been at a critical juncture since September 11. How we respond to the atrocities...

It is deeply disturbing that the United States government intends to prosecute and seek the death penalty for six detainees held at Guantánamo Bay using a flawed and fundamentally unfair military commissions system. Those accused of planning the 9/11 attacks should be charged and brought to justice before a...

On Thursday, many of us will gather around the table for Thanksgiving dinner. If your family is anything like mine, people will gossip, they'll talk sports and, sooner or later, current events will crop up.

So, what do you do when Uncle Harry blurts out that he's been watching...

Torture is un-American, ineffective, and illegal. That hasn't stopped President Bush, but the next president would be wise to adopt policies that not only adhere to the rule of law and U.S. treaty obligations, but also the strong views of the vast majority of Americans. "America stands against and will...

Former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales' reign in the Bush Justice Department is a sorry story that just won't end.

If you thought the scandals of the Gonzales Justice Department were a thing of the past, here comes today's extraordinary New York Times article revealing that the reality of...

ACLU staff members held a meeting yesterday with Justice Department officials regarding the expanded wiretapping power given to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales under the new warrantless spying law that was hastily passed by Congress before its recess and signed by President Bush two weekends ago. The meeting was...

A government of the people, for the people, and by the people can't survive if it is shrouded in secrecy from the people.

As the 110th Congress wrapped up its first session with every member raring to get away for August recess, the Bush administration bullied a Democratically- controlled Congress...

True American values won a victory yesterday, as a federal court struck down an anti-immigration ordinance in the town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. All of us should welcome this rebuke to scapegoating and fearmongering in a town whose mayor sought to create, in his own words, "one of the most...

"I grew up in the pre-television age, in a family of uneducated but smart, hard-working, caring storytellers. They taught me that everyone has a story. And that made politics intensely personal to me. It was about giving people better stories."

-President Bill Clinton

In Joseph Heller's legendary 1961 novel, Catch-22, the titular military rule -- soon to become a universal catchphrase for an impossible choice -- referred directly to the tortured logic of a bureaucracy at war. Under Catch-22, a pilot didn't have to fly if crazy, but as soon as he said...

July 4th brings thoughts of fireworks, hot dogs, and cold beer, but as you see your ballparks and skylines light up tonight, take a minute to think about another July 4th tradition, the Freedom of Information Act. You might not know this piece of patriotic trivia, but FOIA has been...

It's going to be a busy summer of spying subpoenas for the Bush White House. We'll soon learn whether the president and Dick Cheney will ever come clean with the American public.

In honor of this long-overdue Subpoena Season, the ACLU has launched a new web page called

The times they are a-changing.

Today, thousands of ACLU members and other activists are descending upon the nation's capital for an historic rally and Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice. We are there to make our voices heard: the Bush administration's relentless assault upon our nation's laws,...

I hope you brought candles. Habeas corpus is 792 years young today.

The habeas story began in England's Runnymede meadow on June 15, 1215, when dissident English nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, a contract limiting the power of the king in exchange for his...

An Open Letter to Members of the Senate:

As you move towards the debate and no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the ACLU urges you to carefully review his woeful record on civil liberties and its recurring theme: Alberto Gonzales as George W. Bush's Number One "Yes" Man.

From...

In July 2002, an Ethiopian citizen named Binyam Mohamed, held by the CIA, was strapped to the seat of a nondescript plane, shackled, blindfolded, stripped and secretly flown to Morocco, where he was held for a year and a half. Moroccan security forces, not known for their sensitivity to human...