ACLU Head on Bracing for Trump and America's 'Enormous Civil Liberties Crisis'

[babylonsister]

ACLU Head on Bracing for Trump and America's 'Enormous Civil Liberties Crisis'

Anthony Romero discusses his group's plan to limit the damage of a president who's openly hostile to essential liberties
"The same strategy that Republicans used so effectively trying to gum up the Obama machinery is precisely what we're going to be doing," says the ACLU's Anthony Romero.
By Tim Dickinson
18 hours ago

As Donald Trump rises to the presidency, backed by a Republican Congress with little appetite for oversight, millions of Americans are looking to the judicial branch to prevent American democracy from jumping the rails.



115th Congress is off to a chaotic start, with Republicans already focused on gutting Obamacare

The American Civil Liberties Union is eager to leverage the courts and the Constitution to block the most dangerous parts of Trump's agenda. The group is meeting this moment of crisis with swagger: Hours after Trump won the election, it began circulating an image of the president-elect's face superimposed with the message "SEE YOU IN COURT."

Anthony Romero is the ACLU's 51-year-old executive director, a post he's held since shortly before the 9/11 attacks. The civil liberties crisis that followed under President Bush caught the progressive universe flat-footed – it would take years of litigation by the ACLU and others to expose, and begin to roll back, unconstitutional abuses like the CIA's torture program and NSA's warrantless mass surveillance.

Under Trump, the ACLU is braced and ready from day one, anticipating an onslaught of illegal and unconstitutional orders and policies. The group has been using the transition period to staff up and to prepare legal strategies that Romero believes can block many Trump abuses before they begin. It's also sounding the alarm about Trump cabinet picks: The ACLU's national legal director will be testifying at the confirmation hearing of attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions this Wednesday, highlighting the Alabama senator's "hostility to civil rights and civil liberties."

Rolling Stone caught up with Romero to ask how his group understands the Trump threat, its plan for slowing down the new president's 100-day blitz and the long game for limiting the damage of a president who's openly hostile to essential American liberties.

What do Americans need to brace for under President Trump?

We have to take President-elect Trump as his word – and his words have been crystal clear. His policies on immigration, Muslims, torture, freedom of speech and criminal justice all point to very troubling changes in the stance of the federal government. Taken together, they represent an enormous civil liberties crisis.

The challenges cannot be overstated. You're talking about the rights and lives of millions of Americans at stake, whether they be Muslims or undocumented immigrants or women. But given the fact that the Trump agenda affects millions, there's also a great possibility for resistance – citizen action and legislative action and litigation – as a result.

more...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/aclu-head-bracing-for-trump-enormous-civil-liberties-crisis-w460101

[ananda]

1. I donated to ACLU again the other day!

Resist and fight!

[annabanana]

2. I have instituted a small, but repeating donation

to the ACLU through the ActBlue pages.

Great oaks from little acorns grow.