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124-463: Founded as the Daily Pebble , the format of the small daily grew and became The Marion Daily Star . Harding acquired the struggling newspaper in 1884, for $ 300 with Johnny Sickel and Jack Warwick. Not long after the joint purchase, Harding became sole owner, with Sickel exiting out of frustration with the available equipment, and Warwick leaving for work on a bigger city paper. Harding began editing at

248-773: A 501(c)(4) corporation–called ACLU–which is entitled to lobby. Both organizations share staff and offices. ACLU affiliates are the basic unit of the ACLU's organization and engage in litigation, lobbying, and public education. For example, in 2020, the ACLU's New Jersey chapter argued 26 cases before the New Jersey Supreme Court , about one-third of the total cases heard in that court. They sent over 50,000 emails to officials or agencies and had 28 full-time staff. A leaked ACLU memo from June 2018 said that speech that can "inflict serious harms" and "impede progress toward equality" may be

372-545: A July 2002 memo sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency , or JPRA , the military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects, not only referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" but warned that it would produce "unreliable information". In more modern policing, police brutality has involved torture. Police officials have generally described these cases as aberrations or

496-399: A barrage of local ordinances that banned screenings deemed immoral or obscene. Even public health films portraying pregnancy and birth were banned, as was Life magazine's April 11, 1938, issue, which included photos of the birth process. The ACLU fought these bans but did not prevail. The Catholic Church attained increasing political influence in the 1930s; it used its influence to promote

620-539: A confession became a media issue and some courts began to deny obviously compelled confessions. In response to this, " covert third degree torture" became popular, since it left no signs of physical abuse. The publication of the Wickersham Commission 's "Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement" in 1931 highlighted the widespread use of covert third degree torture by the police to force confessions, and led to

744-517: A contentious six-hour debate – Flynn was voted off the ACLU's board. The 1940 resolution was considered by many to be a betrayal of its fundamental principles. The resolution was rescinded in 1968, and Flynn was posthumously reinstated to the ACLU in 1970. The ACLU had a decidedly mixed civil liberties record during World War II. While there were far fewer sedition prosecutions than in World War I, this did not mean that President Roosevelt

868-468: A county demanding the removal of a Ten Commandments display from its courthouse; a second Ten Commandments case in the state, in a different county, led to a $ 74,462 judgment. The State of Tennessee was required to pay $ 50,000, the State of Alabama $ 175,000, and the State of Kentucky $ 121,500, in similar Ten Commandments cases. Most of the organization's workload is performed by its local affiliates. There

992-583: A crime." The De Jonge case marked the start of an era lasting for a dozen years, during which Roosevelt appointees (led by Hugo Black , William O. Douglas , and Frank Murphy ) established a body of civil liberties law. In 1938, Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote the famous "footnote four" in United States v. Carolene Products Co. in which he suggested that state laws which impede civil liberties would – henceforth – require compelling justification. Senator Robert F. Wagner proposed

1116-509: A legal aid society centered on store front offices in low-income neighborhoods. The ACLU directors rejected that proposal. Other ACLU members wanted the ACLU to shift focus into the political arena and be more willing to compromise their ideals to strike deals with politicians. The ACLU leadership also rejected this initiative. The ACLU's support of defendants with unpopular, sometimes extreme, viewpoints has produced many landmark court cases and established new civil liberties. One such defendant

1240-535: A lower priority for the organization. The ACLU opposes any effort to create a national registry of gun owners and has worked with the National Rifle Association of America to prevent a registry from being created, and it has favored protecting the right to carry guns under the 4th Amendment. The ACLU opposes state censorship of the Confederate flag . A variety of persons and organizations support

1364-458: A more active role in protecting civil liberties—was De Jonge v. Oregon , in which a communist labor organizer was arrested for calling a meeting to discuss unionization. The ACLU attorney Osmond Fraenkel , working with International Labor Defense , defended De Jonge in 1937 and won a major victory when the Supreme Court ruled that "peaceable assembly for lawful discussion cannot be made

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1488-801: A new name, the American Civil Liberties Union. Although a handful of other organizations in the United States at that time focused on civil rights, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) and Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the ACLU was the first that did not represent a particular group of persons or a single theme. Like the CLB, the NAACP pursued litigation to work on civil rights, including efforts to overturn

1612-570: A newspaper from publishing, simply because the newspaper had a reputation for being scandalous. The late 1930s saw the emergence of a new era of tolerance in the United States. National leaders hailed the Bill of Rights , particularly as it protected minorities, as the essence of democracy. The 1939 Supreme Court decision in Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization affirmed the right of communists to promote their cause. Even conservative elements, such as

1736-541: A personal friend of Luke E. Hart , the then–Supreme Advocate and future Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus , offered to join forces with the Knights to challenge the law. The Knights of Columbus pledged an immediate $ 10,000 to fight the law and any additional funds necessary to defeat it. The case became known as Pierce v. Society of Sisters , a United States Supreme Court decision that significantly expanded coverage of

1860-627: A report, which took note of the "limited investigation and lack of prosecution" in connection to accusations of torture in Areas 2 and 3 of the Chicago Police Department and called on American authorities to "promptly, thoroughly and impartially" investigate the accusations, and provide the committee with more information. In 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to use waterboarding to force confessions. The complaint said they "subject prisoners to

1984-590: A subsequent decline in its use over the 1930s and 1940s. During World War II , the U.S. military interrogated high-level Nazis at a secret camp, " P. O. Box 1142 ," outside Washington D.C. The interrogators did not use physical torture, but did use psychological tricks, like threatening to turn the prisoner over to the Soviets. Some captured German U-boat crewmen were subjected to "shock interrogation" techniques, including exhausting physical exercise and beatings, after their capture during Operation Teardrop . After

2108-428: A suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning." The sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison, and the deputies to four years. In September 1997, two former officers from

2232-670: A town, state, or federal agency may be required to change its laws or behave differently, but not to pay monetary damages except by an explicit statutory waiver. In some cases, the law permits plaintiffs who successfully sue government agencies to collect money damages or other monetary relief. In particular, the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976 leaves the government liable in some civil rights cases. Fee awards under this civil rights statute are considered "equitable relief" rather than damages, and government entities are not immune from equitable relief. Under laws such as this,

2356-438: A wall against a shirt with an American flag; the bloodstain left behind was described by one officer as the print of bloody noses and a mouth. Once inside they were threatened with detention for the rest of their lives, verbally abused, exposed to cold, deprived of sleep , and had their hands, cuffed arms, and fingers severely twisted. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court deferred to state secrets privilege when they refused to hear

2480-616: Is at least one affiliate organization in each state, as well as one in Washington, D.C. , and in Puerto Rico . California has three affiliates. The affiliates operate autonomously from the national organization; each affiliate has its own staff, executive director, board of directors, and budget. Each affiliate consists of two non-profit corporations: a 501(c)(3) corporation–called the ACLU Foundation–that does not perform lobbying, and

2604-593: Is believed to have committed suicide to avoid further participation. In 1999, a U.S. court found that the Fifth Amendment does not apply in the case of overseas torture of aliens. Jennifer Harbury , a U.S. citizen whose husband Efraín Bámaca Velásquez had been tortured and murdered by CIA officials in Guatemala , complained that these actions violated her husband's Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law. On December 12, 2000,

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2728-476: Is criminally liable under the command responsibility doctrine. People living as slaves were regulated both in their service and when walking in public by legally authorized violence. On large plantations , slave overseers were authorized to whip and brutalize noncompliant slaves. Slave codes authorized, indemnified or even required the use of violence and were long criticized by abolitionists for their brutality. Slaves as well as free Blacks were regulated by

2852-513: Is found with a broken neck, broken toes and internal injuries following an argument with guards; after one month in a coma he dies from septicaemia . Fire extinguisher sized canisters of pepper spray are used to cover prisoners with chemicals, and they are then left, resulting in second degree burns . Photos are shown of Frank Valdes, a convicted killer on Death Row , who was beaten to death after writing to local Florida newspapers with allegations of prison officer corruption and brutality. Many of

2976-595: Is likely that many more unrecorded lynchings occurred during and after this period which influenced The Great Migration of 6.5 million African Americans away from southern states. A 1970s lynching site found in Noxubee County, Mississippi , a location central to regional mob violence, belies the continuation of lynching as a torture method . Most lynchings were inspired by unsolved crime, racism , and innuendo. 3,500 of its victims were African Americans. Lynchings took place in every state except four, but were concentrated in

3100-567: Is no federal criminal statute against torture specifically within the US . There is a federal criminal statute against committing torture outside the US . However, according to the Committee Against Torture , "despite the occurrence of cases of extraterritorial torture of detainees, no prosecutions have been initiated under the extraterritorial criminal torture statute" . There is a federal criminal statute against assault and battery within

3224-574: The American Bar Association , began to campaign for civil liberties, which were long considered to be the domain of left-leaning organizations. By 1940, the ACLU had achieved many of the goals it set in the 1920s, and many of its policies were the law of the land. In 1929, after the Scopes and Dennett victories, Baldwin perceived that there was vast, untapped support for civil liberties in the United States. Baldwin proposed an expansion program for

3348-618: The American Legion , the National Civic Federation , and Industrial Defense Association and the Allied Patriotic Societies. ACLU leadership was divided on how to challenge civil rights violations. One faction, including Baldwin, Arthur Garfield Hays , and Norman Thomas , believed that direct, militant action was the best path. Another group, including Walter Nelles and Walter Pollak , felt that lawsuits taken to

3472-501: The Black Codes , and had their movements regulated by patrollers and slave catchers , conscripted from the white population, who were allowed to use summary punishment against escapees, which included maiming or killing them. Lynching was a public act of murder, torture, and mutilation carried out by crowds, primarily against African Americans . A form of mob violence and social control, usually involving (but by no means restricted to)

3596-595: The Communist Party USA , leading it to be the primary client of the ACLU. At the same time, the Communists were very aggressive in their tactics, often engaging in illegal conduct such as denying their party membership under oath. This led to frequent conflicts between the Communists and ACLU. Communist leaders sometimes attacked the ACLU, particularly when the ACLU defended the free speech rights of conservatives, whereas Communists tried to disrupt speeches by critics of

3720-501: The Cotton Belt . Forms of violence and torture also included genital mutilation, strangulation, maiming and the severing of limbs. Both police and lawmakers, and later federal agents, were frequently complicit in lynching while affiliated with Ku Klux Klan groups, releasing prisoners to lynch crowds and/or refusing to prosecute the participants in a public act of murder. Despite numerous attempts to do so, federal anti-lynching legislation

3844-566: The Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment . In a unanimous decision, the court held that the act was unconstitutional and that parents, not the state, had the authority to educate children as they thought best. It upheld the religious freedom of parents to educate their children in religious schools. Leaders of the ACLU were divided on the best tactics to use to promote civil liberties. Felix Frankfurter felt that legislation

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3968-492: The Garland Fund . Lucille Bernheimer Milner was cofounder of the American Civil Liberties Union. She also served for a time as Executive Secretary. During the 1920s, the ACLU's primary focus was on freedom of speech in general and speech within the labor movement particularly. Because most of the ACLU's efforts were associated with the labor movement, the ACLU itself came under heavy attack from conservative groups, such as

4092-737: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (signed 1977; ratified 1992), and the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (signed 1988; ratified 1994). It has neither signed nor ratified the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture . International law defines torture during an armed conflict as a war crime . It also mandates that any person involved in ordering, allowing, and even insufficiently preventing and prosecuting war crimes

4216-584: The National Labor Relations Act in 1935, which empowered workers to unionize. Ironically, after 15 years of fighting for workers' rights, the ACLU initially opposed the act (it later took no stand on the legislation) because some ACLU leaders feared the increased power the bill gave to the government. The newly formed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) posed a dilemma for the ACLU because, in 1937, it issued an order to Henry Ford , prohibiting Ford from disseminating anti-union literature. Part of

4340-473: The National Organization for Women . The ACLU has been criticized by liberals such as when it excluded communists from its leadership ranks, when it defended Neo-Nazis , when it declined to defend Paul Robeson , or when it opposed the passage of the National Labor Relations Act . In 2014, an ACLU affiliate supported anti-Islam protesters, and in 2018 the ACLU was criticized when it supported

4464-600: The New Deal to combat the depression. ACLU leaders were of mixed opinions about the New Deal since many felt that it represented an increase in government intervention into personal affairs and because the National Recovery Administration suspended antitrust legislation. The economic policies of the New Deal leaders were often aligned with ACLU goals, but social goals were not. In particular, movies were subject to

4588-520: The disfranchisement of African Americans in the South that had taken place since the turn of the century. During the first decades of the ACLU, Baldwin continued as its leader. His charisma and energy attracted many supporters to the ACLU board and leadership ranks. The ACLU was directed by an executive committee and was not particularly democratic or egalitarian. New Yorkers dominated the ACLU's headquarters. Most ACLU funding came from philanthropies, such as

4712-420: The right of LGBT people to adopt ; supporting reproductive rights such as birth control and abortion rights ; eliminating discrimination against women, minorities , and LGBT people; decarceration in the United States ; protecting housing and employment rights of veterans ; reforming sex offender registries and protecting housing and employment rights of convicted first-time offenders; supporting

4836-422: The rights of prisoners and opposing torture ; upholding the separation of church and state by opposing government preference for religion over non-religion or for particular faiths over others; and supporting the legality of gender-affirming treatments, including those that are government funded, for trans youth. Legally, the ACLU consists of two separate but closely affiliated nonprofit organizations, namely

4960-510: The 1890s into the 1910s when it was discontinued. The Hardings retained ownership in the paper until mid-1923 when they sold the business to Brush-Moore Newspapers . For a number of years, the paper was part of the Thompson Newspaper chain based in Canada , who acquired Brush-Moore Newspapers in 1967. Under their ownership, the name was briefly changed to The Star in an attempt to broaden

5084-694: The 1980s. From 1967 to at least 1972, the Central Intelligence Agency coordinated the Phoenix Program , which targeted the infrastructure of the Communist National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam ("Viet Cong"). The program killed 26,000 Viet Cong and captured over 60,000. Critics of the program assert that many of those identified by the program as Viet Cong members were actually civilians, who when captured suffered torture by

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5208-562: The 1980s. Numerous participants in these abuses were trained by the U.S. Army School of the Americas . Americans were present as supervisors in the Mariona Prison in San Salvador, El Salvador, well known for a wide variety of forms of torture. One author, Jennifer Harbury , focussing on Central America, concluded that "A review of the materials leads relentlessly to just one conclusion: that

5332-570: The ACLU Foundation, on average, has accounted for roughly 70% of the combined budget, and the ACLU roughly 30%. The ACLU solicits donations to its charitable foundation. The local affiliates solicit their own funding; however, some also receive funds from the national ACLU, with the distribution and amount of such assistance varying from state to state. At its discretion, the national organization provides subsidies to smaller affiliates that lack sufficient resources to be self-sustaining; for example,

5456-509: The ACLU and its state affiliates sometimes share in monetary judgments against government agencies. In 2006, the Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act sought to prevent monetary judgments in the particular case of violations of church-state separation. The ACLU has received court-awarded fees from opponents; for example, the Georgia affiliate was awarded $ 150,000 in fees after suing

5580-482: The ACLU by a major US newspaper. The ACLU continued to fight for the separation of church and state in schoolrooms, decade after decade, including the 1982 case McLean v. Arkansas and the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District . Baldwin was involved in a significant free speech victory of the 1920s after he was arrested for attempting to speak at a rally of striking mill workers in New Jersey. Although

5704-436: The ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions established by its board of directors. The ACLU's current positions include opposing the death penalty ; supporting same-sex marriage and

5828-427: The ACLU does not always agree on policy decisions; differences of opinion within the ACLU leadership have sometimes grown into major debates. In 1937, an internal debate erupted over whether to defend Henry Ford 's right to distribute anti-union literature. In 1939, a heated debate took place over whether to prohibit communists from serving in ACLU leadership roles. During the early 1950s and Cold War McCarthyism ,

5952-460: The ACLU from Communism; opposing them were Harry F. Ward, Corliss Lamont , and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn , who rejected any political test for ACLU leadership. A bitter struggle ensued throughout 1939, and the anti-Communists prevailed in February 1940 when the board voted to prohibit anyone who supported totalitarianism from ACLU leadership roles. Ward immediately resigned, and – following

6076-488: The ACLU leadership habitually took the side of labor, and that faction supported the NLRB's action. But part of the ACLU supported Ford's right to free speech. ACLU leader Arthur Garfield Hays proposed a compromise (supporting the auto workers union, yet also endorsing Ford's right to express personal opinions), but the schism highlighted a deeper divide that would become more prominent in the years to come. The ACLU's support of

6200-504: The ACLU lobbied for the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act , which restored some autonomy to Native American tribes, and established penalties for kidnapping Native American children. Although the ACLU deferred to the NAACP for litigation promoting civil liberties for African Americans, the ACLU engaged in educational efforts and published Black Justice in 1931, a report which documented institutional racism throughout

6324-754: The ACLU represents an individual or organization that promotes offensive or unpopular viewpoints, such as the Ku Klux Klan , neo-Nazis, the Nation of Islam , the North American Man/Boy Love Association , the Westboro Baptist Church or the Unite the Right rally . The ACLU's official policy is "... [we have] represented or defended individuals engaged in some truly offensive speech. We have defended

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6448-509: The ACLU to broaden their freedom of speech efforts beyond labor and political speech to encompass movies, press, radio, and literature. The ACLU formed the National Committee on Freedom from Censorship in 1931 to coordinate this effort. By the early 1930s, censorship in the United States was diminishing. Two major victories in the 1930s cemented the ACLU's campaign to promote free speech. In Stromberg v. California , decided in 1931,

6572-654: The ACLU was founded – it had achieved significant success; the Supreme Court had embraced the free speech principles espoused by the ACLU, and the general public was becoming more supportive of civil rights in general. But the Great Depression brought new assaults on civil liberties; the year 1930 saw a large increase in the number of free speech prosecutions, a doubling of the number of lynchings, and all meetings of unemployed persons were banned in Philadelphia. The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration proposed

6696-449: The ACLU was mentioned several times, leading the HUAC to mention the ACLU prominently in its 1939 report. This damaged the ACLU's reputation severely, even though the report said that it could not "definitely state whether or not" the ACLU was a Communist organization. While the ACLU rushed to defend its image against allegations of being a Communist front, it also protected witnesses harassed by

6820-670: The ACLU were hostile towards Nazism and fascism and objected when the ACLU defended Nazis. The ACLU defended numerous pro-Nazi groups, defending their rights to free speech and free association. In the late 1930s, the ACLU allied itself with the Popular Front , a coalition of liberal organizations coordinated by the United States Communist Party . The ACLU benefited because affiliates from the Popular Front could often fight local civil rights battles much more effectively than

6944-489: The ACLU's board of directors, leads fundraising, and facilitates policy-setting. The executive director manages the day-to-day operations of the organization. The board of directors consists of 80 persons, including representatives from each state affiliate and at-large delegates. The organization has its headquarters in 125 Broad Street , a 40-story skyscraper located in Lower Manhattan , New York City. The leadership of

7068-425: The ACLU, focusing on police brutality, Native American rights, African American rights, censorship in the arts, and international civil liberties. The board of directors approved Baldwin's expansion plan, except for the international efforts. The ACLU played a significant role in passing the 1932 Norris–La Guardia Act , a federal law that prohibited employers from preventing employees from joining unions and stopped

7192-611: The ACLU. The ACLU receives thousands of grants from hundreds of charitable foundations annually. Allies of the ACLU in legal actions have included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , the American Jewish Congress , People for the American Way , the National Rifle Association of America , the Electronic Frontier Foundation , Americans United for Separation of Church and State and

7316-551: The Adelanto Police Department, San Bernardino County, California, were jailed for two years on federal charges, after pleading guilty to beating a suspect during questioning and forcing another man to lick blood off the floor in 1994. According to the Innocence Project , about 25 percent of wrongfully convicted innocent people were coerced into making false confessions or false incriminating statements. Most of

7440-521: The American Civil Liberties Union, a 501(c)(4) social welfare group; and the ACLU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity . Both organizations engage in civil rights litigation, advocacy, and education, but only donations to the 501(c)(3) foundation are tax deductible, and only the 501(c)(4) group can engage in unlimited political lobbying . The ACLU is led by a president and an executive director, Deborah Archer and Anthony D. Romero , respectively, as of March 2024. The president acts as chair of

7564-448: The Bible should be interpreted literally in teaching creationism in school. The ACLU lost the case, and Scopes was fined $ 100. The Tennessee Supreme Court later upheld the law. Still, it overturned the conviction on a technicality. The Scopes trial was a phenomenal public relations success for the ACLU. The ACLU became well known across America, and the case led to the first endorsement of

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7688-643: The CIA and related U.S. intelligence agencies have since their inception engaged in the widespread practice of torture, either directly or through well-paid proxies." In 2014, a report by Brazil's National Truth Commission asserted that the United States government was involved in teaching torture techniques to the Brazilian military government of 1964–85. Source: Chomsky, Noam , Herman, Edward S. The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism , Spokesman (1979), ISBN   0-89608-090-0 , pg 361. The Torture Manuals

7812-631: The CIA's psychological methods were spread worldwide through the U.S. Agency for International Development 's Public Safety program and U.S. Army Mobile Training Teams . Other manuals were prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 for intelligence training courses at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). The manuals were also distributed by Special Forces Mobile Training teams to military personnel and intelligence schools in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. The manuals advise that torture techniques can backfire and that

7936-502: The CLB was on freedom of speech , primarily anti-war speech, and on supporting conscientious objectors who did not want to serve in World War I. In 1918, Crystal Eastman resigned from the organization due to health issues. After assuming sole leadership of the CLB, Baldwin insisted that the organization be reorganized. He wanted to change its focus from litigation to direct action and public education. The CLB directors concurred, and on January 19, 1920, they formed an organization under

8060-602: The HUAC. The ACLU was one of the few organizations to protest (unsuccessfully) against the passage of the Smith Act in 1940, which would later be used to imprison many persons who supported Communism. The ACLU defended many persons who were prosecuted under the Smith Act, including labor leader Harry Bridges . ACLU leadership was split on whether to purge its leadership of Communists. Norman Thomas , John Haynes Holmes , and Morris Ernst were anti-Communists who wanted to distance

8184-708: The MCA as an amnesty law for crimes committed during the War on Terror . In late 2006, the military issued updated U.S. Army Field Manuals on intelligence collection ( FM 2-22.3. Human Intelligence Collector Operations , September 2006) and counterinsurgency ( FM 3-24. Counterinsurgency , December 2006). Both manuals reiterated that "no person in the custody or under the control of DOD , regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with and as defined in U.S. law." Specific techniques prohibited in

8308-466: The NLRB was a significant development for the ACLU because it marked the first time it accepted that a government agency could be responsible for upholding civil liberties. Until 1937, the ACLU felt that citizens and private organizations best upheld civil rights. Some factions in the ACLU proposed new directions for the organization. In the late 1930s, some local affiliates proposed shifting their emphasis from civil liberties appellate actions to becoming

8432-590: The NRA. Conversely, it has been criticized by conservatives such as when it argued against official prayer in public schools or when it opposed the Patriot Act . The ACLU has supported conservative figures such as Rush Limbaugh , George Wallace , Henry Ford and Oliver North as well as liberal figures such as Dick Gregory , Rockwell Kent and Benjamin Spock . Major sources of criticism are legal cases in which

8556-456: The New York-based ACLU. The association with the Communist Party led to accusations that the ACLU was a "Communist front", particularly because Harry F. Ward was both chairman of the ACLU and chairman of the American League Against War and Fascism , a Communist organization. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1938 to uncover sedition and treason within the United States. When witnesses testified at its hearings,

8680-444: The South Vietnamese Army, under CIA supervision. American trainers and intelligence coordination officials supported the internal security apparatus of the regimes of South America's southern cone as those regimes carried out kidnappings, " disappearances ", torture and assassinations during the 1970s and 1980s as part of Operation Condor . Similar support was provided to right-wing governments of Central America, particularly in

8804-493: The South, including lack of voting rights, segregation, and discrimination in the justice system. Funded by the Garland Fund , the ACLU also participated in producing the influential Margold Report , which outlined a strategy to fight for civil rights for blacks. The ACLU planned to demonstrate that the " separate but equal " policies governing the Southern discrimination were illegal because blacks were never, in fact, treated equally. In 1932 – twelve years after

8928-471: The Supreme Court sided with the ACLU and affirmed the right of a communist party member to salute a communist flag. The result was the first time the Supreme Court used the Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment to subject states to the requirements of the First Amendment . In Near v. Minnesota , also decided in 1931, the Supreme Court ruled that states may not exercise prior restraint and prevent

9052-505: The Supreme Court were the best way to achieve change. In addition to labor, the ACLU also led efforts in non-labor arenas, for example, promoting free speech in public schools. The ACLU was banned from speaking in New York public schools in 1921. The ACLU, working with the NAACP , also supported racial discrimination cases. The ACLU defended free speech regardless of espoused opinions. For example,

9176-516: The Supreme court reversed itself. The rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany, Russia, and other countries that rejected freedom of speech and association greatly impacted the civil liberties movement in the US; anti-Communist sentiment rose, and civil liberties were curtailed. The ACLU leadership was divided over whether or not to defend pro- Nazi speech in the United States; pro-labor elements within

9300-504: The U.S. civilian and military intelligence community, with no general consensus as to what practices under what conditions are acceptable. These practices have resulted in a number of deaths. According to Human Rights First , at least as many as 8 detainees have been tortured to death in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The aversion of some military personnel forced to administer torture has been so strong, that one soldier, Alyssa Peterson ,

9424-625: The US Government), there is no practical method of enforcement for torture committed by the US as a violation of international law. This is because the US is not party to the International Criminal Court . The UN Security Council ( UNSC ) can recommend cases to the ICC, but the US can, as one of the five permanent members of the UNSC, veto the recommendation . Torture as a punishment falls under

9548-603: The US, and torture would fall under this, but torture is more than mere assault and battery. There is also a federal law defining torture. There are state laws outlawing torture. Torture is also a violation of international law per the United Nations Convention Against Torture ( UNCAT ). It is a " crime against humanity ", and this has " universal jurisdiction ". However, outside of the "universal jurisdiction" potential avenue for prosecution (i.e. some other country prosecute acts of torture committed by

9672-662: The USSR. This uneasy relationship between the two groups continued for decades. Five years after the ACLU was formed, the organization had virtually no success to show for its efforts. That changed in 1925, when the ACLU persuaded John T. Scopes to defy Tennessee's anti- evolution law in The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes . Clarence Darrow , a member of the ACLU National Committee, headed Scopes' legal team. The prosecution, led by William Jennings Bryan , contended that

9796-569: The United States by a U.S. national or a non-U.S. national who is present in the United States is punishable under 18 U.S.C.   § 2340 . The definition of torture used is as follows: As used in this chapter— In October 2006, the United States enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 , authorizing the President to conduct military tribunals of enemy combatants and to hold them indefinitely without judicial review under

9920-637: The Wyoming ACLU chapter received such subsidies until April 2015, when, as part of a round of layoffs at the national ACLU, the Wyoming office was closed. In October 2004, the ACLU rejected $ 1.5 million from both the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation because the foundations had adopted language from the USA PATRIOT Act in their donation agreements, including a clause stipulating that none of

10044-405: The actions of criminals in police uniform, as New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir described the attack on Abner Louima . Police brutality critics, such as law professor Susan Bandes, have argued that such a view is erroneous and that it "allows police brutality to flourish in a number of ways, including making it easier to discount individual stories of police brutality, and weakening

10168-495: The board was divided on whether to defend communists. In 1968, a schism formed over whether to represent Benjamin Spock 's anti-war activism. In 1973, as the Watergate Scandal continued to unfold, leadership was initially divided over whether to call for President Nixon 's impeachment and removal from office. In 2005, there was internal conflict about whether or not a gag rule should be imposed on ACLU employees to prevent

10292-669: The border and maintains checkpoints and carries out raids in border regions. Human Rights Watch has documented severe human rights abuses by the Border Patrol, "including unjustified killing, torture, and rape, and routine beatings, rough physical treatment, and racially motivated verbal abuse." Detained immigrants, including refugees seeking asylum, at the Esmor Inc. facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey , rebelled after practices of verbal and physical abuse, humiliation and corporal punishment. After

10416-578: The case for any kind of systemic reform." In 1936, the Supreme Court recognized in Brown v. Mississippi that confessions extracted through police violence are inadmissible as evidence. In the 1970s and 1980s the Chicago Police Department 's Area 2 unit under Commander Jon Burge repeatedly used electroshock, near-suffocation by plastic bags and excessive beating on suspects. The City of Chicago's Office of Professional Standards (OPS) concluded that

10540-613: The case of Khalid el-Masri , who was kidnapped and tortured by the CIA under the Bush administration on December 21, 2003. The ACLU said that torture included methods of "forced anal penetration". Certain practices of the United States military , civilian agencies such as the CIA , and private contractors have been condemned both domestically and internationally as torture. A fierce debate regarding non-standard interrogation techniques exists within

10664-513: The censorship of movies and to discourage the publication of birth control information. This conflict between the ACLU and the Catholic Church led to the resignation of the last Catholic priest from ACLU leadership in 1934; a Catholic priest would not be represented again until the 1970s. The first decision that marked the Supreme Court's major shift in policy —no longer applying strict constitutional limits to government programs, and taking

10788-427: The country. Torture is illegal in the United States. The United States came under scrutiny for controversial practices, both from foreign and domestic sources, following the Military Commissions Act of 2006 . After the U.S. dismissed United Nations concerns about torture in 2006, one UK judge observed 'America's idea of what is torture ... does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations'. While

10912-676: The cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution . The text of the Amendment states that: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. The U.S. Supreme Court has held since at least the 1890s that punishments which involved torture are forbidden under the Eighth Amendment. An act of torture committed outside

11036-415: The death of prisoner, shot by the guards. The same fate would be reserved to the loser of duel, only for the guards' fun. A prisoner executed in 2004, Dominique Green, told that two of his row mates were beaten up; the guards then flooded the room, destroying every object owned by one of them: his letters, photos, legal documents, the book he was writing, his typewriter. The date of his execution, en other,

11160-482: The decision was limited to the state of New Jersey, the appeals court's judgment in 1928 declared that constitutional guarantees of free speech must be given "liberal and comprehensive construction", and it marked a major turning point in the civil rights movement , signaling the shift of judicial opinion in favor of civil rights. The most important ACLU case of the 1920s was Gitlow v. New York , in which Benjamin Gitlow

11284-427: The distribution of sex education information based on the premise that it was obscene and led to promiscuous behavior. Mary Ware Dennett was fined $ 300 in 1928 for distributing a pamphlet containing sex education material. The ACLU, led by Morris Ernst, appealed her conviction and won a reversal, in which judge Learned Hand ruled that the pamphlet's primary purpose was to "promote understanding". The success prompted

11408-497: The illegal hanging and burning of suspected criminals, lynch law cast its pall over the Southern United States from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. Victims were usually black men, often accused of acting uppity (being insolent) towards, assaulting, having sex with, or raping white people. The documented murders of 4,743 people who were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968 were not often publicized. It

11532-465: The intelligence collection manual include: Torture in all forms is banned by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which the United States participated in drafting. The United States is a party to the following international treaties that prohibits torture, such as the 1949 Geneva Conventions (signed 1949; ratified 1955), the American Convention on Human Rights (signed 1977),

11656-517: The landmark case United States v. One Book Called Ulysses in 1933, which reversed a ban by the Customs Department against the book Ulysses by James Joyce . The ACLU only achieved mixed results in the early years, and it was not until 1966 that the Supreme Court finally clarified the obscenity laws in the Roth v. United States and Memoirs v. Massachusetts cases. The Comstock laws banned

11780-482: The late 1960s and became active members of the prison's chapter of the Black Panther Party , where they organized petitions and hunger strikes to protest conditions at the prison and helped new inmates protect themselves from rape and enslavement. C. Murray Henderson, one of the wardens brought in to clean up the prison, states in one of his memoirs that the systemic sexual slavery was sanctioned and facilitated by

11904-688: The marketability of the paper beyond the Marion County region. Now, again known as The Marion Star , the paper is owned and operated by Gannett , who purchased the paper from Thomson in 2000. Under Gannett, editorial, business offices, and retail advertising are maintained in Marion, while printing and classified advertising operations have been moved to a regional press house in Mansfield, Ohio . The Marion Ohio Public Library and The Ohio Historical Society maintain microfilm libraries of newspaper for public research;

12028-406: The money would go to "underwriting terrorism or other unacceptable activities". The ACLU views this clause, both in federal law and in the donors' agreements, as a threat to civil liberties, saying it is overly broad and ambiguous. Due to the nature of its legal work, the ACLU is often involved in litigation against governmental bodies, which are generally protected from adverse monetary judgments;

12152-511: The newspaper right after he acquired it and continued to until at least 1920. The dubious financial position of The Marion Daily Star improved following the marriage of Harding to Florence Kling DeWolfe, who promptly set about to straighten out the accounting, and increase circulation. American Civil Liberties Union founder and Socialist candidate for President Norman Thomas worked for the Daily Star while growing up in Marion. Under Harding

12276-476: The newspaper's editorial position leaned toward the Republican Party platform, but remained somewhat neutral because of its position of the daily newspaper and record for Marion County. However, Harding also launched The Marion Weekly Star , a once-a-week summary newspaper designed for mail delivery and rural circulation, which showed less restraint in its Republican stance. The Weekly Star was published from

12400-546: The paper is also accessible for a monthly subscription fee through Ancestry.com and NewspaperArchives.com. Starting April 2024, the newspaper will switch from carrier to postal delivery. American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. , and Puerto Rico . The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties at risk. Legal support from

12524-546: The physical abuse was systematic and, "The type of abuse described was not limited to the usual beating, but went into such esoteric areas as psychological techniques and planned torture." In 1997, Abner Louima was sodomized with a plunger by New York City police . The officer was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. In May 2006 in Geneva, Switzerland the United Nations Committee against Torture released

12648-402: The practice of outlawing strikes, marriages, and labor organizing activities with the use of injunctions. The ACLU also played a key role in initiating a nationwide effort to reduce misconduct (such as extracting false confessions) within police departments by publishing the report Lawlessness in Law Enforcement in 1931, under the auspices of Herbert Hoover 's Wickersham Commission . In 1934,

12772-707: The prison guards. From the year 2000 onwards, the Supermax facility at the Maine State Prison was the scene of video-taped forcible extractions that Lance Tapley in the Portland Phoenix wrote "look[ed] like torture." Additionally, audio recordings were made of the torture of Lester Siler in Campbell County, Tennessee. Officers involved in the incident were convicted in court and sentenced to 2–5 years in prison The U.S. Border Patrol interdicts people crossing

12896-443: The publication of internal disputes. In the year ending March 31, 2014, the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation had a combined income from support and revenue of $ 100.4 million, originating from grants (50.0%), membership donations (25.4%), donated legal services (7.6%), bequests (16.2%), and revenue (0.9%). Membership dues are treated as donations; members choose the amount they pay annually, averaging approximately $ 50 per member. In

13020-457: The reactionary, anti-Catholic, anti-black Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a frequent target of ACLU efforts, but the ACLU defended the KKK's right to hold meetings in 1923. There were some civil rights that the ACLU did not make an effort to defend in the 1920s, including censorship of the arts, government search and seizure issues, right to privacy , or wiretapping . Government officials routinely hounded

13144-472: The segments in the documentary were several years old, e.g. from 1996, and were originally released to lawyers seeking justice for the victims of the offenses shown. Several lawsuits was filed against the prison which resulted in the inmates favor. Other prison officers involved in the incidents were suspended from duty or discharged from their employment. A 2010 memoir by Wilbert Rideau , an inmate at Angola Prison from 1961 through 2001, states that "slavery

13268-638: The speech rights of communists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, accused terrorists, pornographers, anti-LGBT activists, and flag burners. That's because the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if they're going to be preserved for everyone." The ACLU developed from the National Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB), co-founded in 1917 during World War I by Crystal Eastman , an attorney activist, and Roger Nash Baldwin . The focus of

13392-415: The term "torture" has a variety of definitions and cultural contexts, this article addresses only those practices qualifying as torture under the definition of that term articulated in the codified law (primarily statutory ) and case law of the United States. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative gives the US a score of 3.6 out of 10 for the right to freedom from torture and ill-treatment. There

13516-445: The terms of habeas corpus . Testimony coerced through humiliating or degrading treatment would be admissible in the tribunals. Amnesty International and others have criticized the Act for approving a system that uses torture, destroying the mechanisms for judicial review created by Hamdan v. Rumsfeld , and creating a parallel legal system below international standards. Part of the act

13640-508: The threat of pain is often more effective than pain itself. The manuals describe coercive techniques to be used "to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist." These techniques include prolonged constraint, prolonged exertion, extremes of heat, cold, or moisture, deprivation of food or sleep, disrupting routines, solitary confinement, threats of pain, deprivation of sensory stimuli, hypnosis , and use of drugs or placebos . In

13764-688: The uprising, two dozen of them were beaten, stripped, forced to crawl through a gauntlet of officers, and made to chant, "America is number one." A report by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General on the experience of 762 post-9/11 detainees found confirmed the physical and verbal abuse of detainees. On arrival at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York , the detainees were slammed face first into

13888-418: The victims were threatened by the terror of harsher sentences if they remained non-compliant. In 2005, a Channel 4 documentary "Torture: America's Brutal Prisons" showed video of naked prisoners being beaten, bitten by dogs, forced to crawl like worms, kicked in the groin, stunned with Taser guns and electric cattle prods. The guards also had them fight in a deadly duel: the refusal to duel would result in

14012-510: The war, in 1948, the United States Air Force invited German Luftwaffe interrogator Hanns Scharff to brief them on his interrogation techniques, which did not use physical means to obtain information. American officials were involved in counter-insurgency programs in which they encouraged their allies, such as the ARVN to use torture, and actively participated in it, during the 1960s to

14136-399: The year ending March 31, 2014, the combined expenses of the ACLU and ACLU Foundation were $ 133.4 million, spent on programs (86.2%), management (7.4%), and fundraising (8.2%). (After factoring in other changes in net assets of +$ 30.9 million, from sources such as investment income, the organization had an overall decrease in net assets of $ 2.1 million.) Over the period from 2011 to 2014,

14260-431: Was a growing willingness to protect freedom of speech and assembly via court decisions. Starting in 1926, the ACLU expanded its free speech activities to encompass censorship of art and literature. In that year, H. L. Mencken deliberately broke Boston law by distributing copies of his banned American Mercury magazine; the ACLU defended him and won an acquittal. The ACLU went on to win additional victories, including

14384-500: Was a nickname for seven training manuals that had excerpts declassified to the public on September 20, 1996, by the Pentagon. One was the 1963 CIA document, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation , which describes interrogation techniques, including, among other things, "coercive counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources." The CIA techniques involved were used in the CIA's Phoenix Program in South Vietnam . Eventually

14508-466: Was an amendment that retroactively rewrote the War Crimes Act , effectively making policymakers (i.e., politicians and military leaders ), and those applying policy (i.e., Central Intelligence Agency interrogators and U.S. soldiers ), no longer subject to legal prosecution under U.S. law for what, before the amendment, was defined as a war crime, such as torture. Because of that, critics describe

14632-661: Was arrested for violating a state law against inciting anarchy and violence when he distributed literature promoting communism. Although the Supreme Court did not overturn Gitlow's conviction, it adopted the ACLU's stance (later termed the incorporation doctrine ) that the First Amendment freedom of speech applied to state laws, as well as federal laws. The Oregon Compulsory Education Act required almost all children in Oregon between eight and sixteen years of age to attend public school by 1926. Associate Director Roger Nash Baldwin ,

14756-520: Was commonplace in Angola with perhaps a quarter of the population in bondage" throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. The New York Times states that weak inmates served as slaves who were raped, gang-raped, and traded and sold like cattle. Rideau stated that "The slave's only way out was to commit suicide, escape or kill his master." Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, members of the Angola 3 , arrived at Angola in

14880-438: Was consistently defeated. In 2022, lynching became recognized as a federal hate crime in the United States . The use of " third degree interrogation" techniques in order to compel confession, ranging from "psychological duress such as prolonged confinement to extreme violence and torture", was widespread and considered acceptable in early American policing. In 1910 the direct application of physical violence in order to force

15004-411: Was fixed for the following day. Other police officers hit a man, Nanon Williams, macing him in eyes: the subsequent beat-up resulted, for him, in a partial loss of sight. In one case a prisoner is strapped to a restraint chair and left for sixteen hours; two hours after being unshackled he dies from a blood clot. In another, mentally ill prisoner Charles Agster is suffocated to death. Another prisoner

15128-613: Was more tolerant of dissent than Wilson had been. The primary explanation was that prosecutors, working under similar laws, had fewer plausible targets because almost everyone rallied to the war effort after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Torture and the United States There are cases, both documented and alleged, that involve the usage of torture by members of the United States government , military , law enforcement agencies , intelligence agencies , health care services , and other public organizations both in and out of

15252-615: Was the Jehovah's Witnesses , who were involved in a large number of Supreme Court cases . The most important cases involved statutes requiring flag salutes. The Jehovah's Witnesses felt that saluting a flag was contrary to their religious beliefs. Two children were convicted in 1938 of not saluting the flag. The ACLU supported their appeal to the Supreme Court, but the court affirmed the conviction in 1940. But three years later, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette ,

15376-448: Was the best long-term solution because the Supreme Court could not mandate liberal interpretations of the Bill of Rights. But Walter Pollak , Morris Ernst , and other leaders felt that Supreme Court decisions were the best path to guarantee civil liberties. A series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1920s foretold a changing national atmosphere; anti-radical emotions were diminishing, and there

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