Hacker News Reader

Comment by ivraatiems | Hacker News Reader

I continue to support the ACLU and I agree with the argument that even if it's lost its way on some things, its overall mission remains important, and it continues to do a lot of really great work.

However, if you feel you can't support the ACLU, there are a couple of related organizations you can and should support instead:

The EFF - https://www.eff.org/ - the ACLU but for computers

The FIRE - https://thefire.org/ - the ACLU but for college campuses

Would love to hear from people here who might know of others. My personal criteria would just be that they're genuinely non-partisan (no "the ACLU but for people I agree with), and that they fill a niche the ACLU doesn't already fill (though a more general "competitor" might be a good thing too).

View on HN

The Rutherford Institute [0], which defended Brandon Raub against forced psychiatric "treatment" (imprisonment) after he posted naughty FaceBook messages [1], is the best civil liberties organization today.

John Whitehead hosts 10-minute podcasts about every other week. [2]

Wendy Kaminer has written WSJ articles and even a book, Worst Instincts, about the ACLU's illiberal decline. [3] [4] [5] [6]

[0] https://www.rutherford.org/

[1] https://www.rutherford.org/issues/free_speech/brandon_raub

[2] https://www.rutherford.org/podcast

[3] https://reason.com/volokh/2018/06/25/wendy-kaminer-responds-...

[4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-exp...

[5] https://www.amazon.com/Worst-Instincts-Cowardice-Conformity-...

[6] https://reason.com/2018/06/26/will-the-aclu-defend-controver...

I'll add another:

The Institute for Justice - https://ij.org/ - a "libertarian" ACLU

I consider their core focus to be on issues that are universal and non-partisan like Free Speech, Police Abuse, Civil Forfeiture, while also veering into more partisan issues like Educational Choice. I haven't found any truly non-partisan organizations like you are asking for, but feel that the IJ fills in some gaps in cases that ACLU used to or should be focusing on, and the areas where I disagree with it "balances" out the areas where I disagree with the ACLU.

I realized that the ACLU had lost its way many years ago, and went looking for alternatives. The most direct alternative I could find at the time was the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, which has since merged with another group to become Defending Rights and Dissent.

https://www.rightsanddissent.org/about/

While their tight focus on individual rights might appeal to those who identify as libertarians, I personally favor organizations that acknowledge the existence of threats to liberty other than government, and that consequently balance their concern for individual/corporate rights with concern for things like justice and equality. In that context, I find the Center for Constitutional Rights much more amenable and perhaps others will too.

https://ccrjustice.org/

I would also add:

Institute of Justice - https://www.ij.org

The Cato Institute - https://www.cato.org

FIRE has historically been associated with conservatives, but I don't know if that's changed in recent years.

Looking through their website, it doesn't look right-leaning (to someone unfamiliar with FIRE before just now).

They recently started organizing against Florida's "Stop WOKE Act": https://www.thefire.org/fire-calls-on-florida-institutions-a...

If you go to their college free speech rankings page [0] most of the comments are about how conservative students don't feel comfortable on colleges and universities (private and public, to my slight surprise).

I can see how someone might make take that as conservative friendly since they are mostly featuring conservative students expressing fear about talking about conservative ideas.

I'm not making a judgement on any of that.

[0] https://rankings.thefire.org/

Disclaimer, I have no context about FIRE. But, I feel there are a few possible reasons for this:

If the culture on a college campus has little-to-no bias towards sharing or suppressing conservative ideas, them singling out conservative ideas being suppressed would give you enough of a signal that they are conservative leaning.

If the culture on a college campus biases towards sharing conservative ideas, them singling out conservative ideas being suppressed would give you enough of a signal that they are conservative leaning.

If the culture on a college campus biases towards suppressing conservative ideas, them singling out conservative ideas being suppressed wouldn't generate enough of a signal to justify calling them conservative leaning.

TL;DR: whether or not you consider their stance as conservative leaning will be strongly influenced by how you perceive discourse on a college campus.

That's just due to the nature of who finds themselves on the wrong side of college administrations. They are non-partisan though, see some of the sources posted in this thread.

College administrators themselves, are typically hostage to the views of students/donors/board of directors/governors, etc. these days- otherwise they don't last too long. They walk a fine line.

FIRE absolutely does speak up for liberals, as seen e.g. here:

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/03/16/oklahoma-christian-univ...

Yeah. If ACLU is too biased for someone, I really can't see FIRE being much better.

But the EFF is excellent in my experience. They're probably most known for Certbot / Let's Encrypt

EFFs mission is very limited which is a good thing given whatever it is that Mozilla Foundation keeps doing

The ACLU has historically been associated with nazis :^)

the ACLU has been historically associated with nazis and terrorists. FIRE, to my knowledge has not discriminated in their advocacy for the plaintiffs in title ix disputes which is one of their primary areas of focus so it seems like a reach to call them a conservative-aligned organization

The litmus test for that would be if they're defending Palestinians.

Nice

Reply on news.ycombinator.com