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New
ACLU Chief Faces War As airplanes were crashing into the World Trade Center last September 11, Anthony Romero was in a Washington, D.C. hotel delivering his first speech as the new executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). At the youthful age of 35, this son of Puerto Rican immigrants is the first Latino and the first openly gay person to head the 81-year-old ACLU. The nightmare of September 11 and the Bush administration's curbing of civil liberties has presented him with challenges that no one could have predicted. But Romero has been equal to the task. The ACLU staff immediately began a critical review of the U.S. government's anti-terrorism and detention policies. On September 20, Romero said, "Security and civil liberties do not have to be at odds. We must take appropriate measures that increase our safety while protecting basic freedoms and liberties." Frustrated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's refusal to provide the names of people who have been detained, the ACLU recently joined a lawsuit against the U.S. government under the Freedom of Information Act. The suit aims to force officials to release the names. Romero also took an unprecedented action-he wrote a letter to the consulates of the 10 countries with the highest number of detained citizens, including Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. In the letter, the ACLU offered legal assistance to detainees and stated that the organization is interested in "highlighting instances of abuse by our government and in developing systematic litigation to challenge its unconstitutional practices." "If
the government is not going to provide us with the names of the people
who are being detained, we have to do it on our own," Romero told
the New York Times. Romero says his goal is to spark "a new dialogue
about the bedrock values of American democracy. My overarching goal is
to promote a new generation of committed civil libertarians and civil
rights activists." |
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