Nat Hentoff has a column in USA Today about the internal struggle for control of the ACLU's national board going on right now. As I've said in the past, I am firmly on the side of the dissidents who have formed SaveTheACLU and tried to remove the current leadership. In a battle between true civil liberties advocates like Ira Glasser and David Goldberger and the current leadership led by Anthony Romero, count me on the side of the former.
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The New York Times has an article up about Save the ACLU, a new group formed by dissidents within the group who want the current leadership ousted. I am in agreement with them, as I've said many times in the past. Anthony Romero has been a disaster as the ACLU's executive director, though I am…
The NY Sun has another article about the internal problems at the ACLU, this one focusing on Anthony Romero's tenure as executive director, which began shortly before 9/11. One of the main criticisms, and one I agree with completely, is that Romero had no background as a civil libertarian prior to…
Nat Hentoff has an interesting column in USA Today about a big fight going on within the ACLU over whether to allow members of the board of directors who disagree with a board decision to publicly dissent from those positions. At issue is this policy:
"Where an individual director disagrees with a…
The New York Times reports that the ACLU has a huge internal battle going on over their use of a data mining company to gather information on those who contribute money to the organization, as well as potential legal trouble:
The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to…
Not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck Tony Romero up the ass sideways with a toaster oven.
Steve S
(ACLU member since 2002)
I'm interested in hearing exactly what it is about Romero that members don't like. Do you know that under Romero, state affiliates have become the focal point of the organization? Until Romero, most "small" affiliates didn't have attorneys on staff at all. Now every affiliate has funding for a full time staff attorney. That is a huge step in the right direction.
friend-
Romero is a great fundraiser. That's his background, foundation fund raising. But he's simply not a civil libertarian and never really has been. What he's done inside the organization, violating the ACLU's principles over and over again, intimidating those who question his decisions to the point of trying to purge them from the group, is appalling. There is more than enough to justify having him step down on the savetheaclu.org site.