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Comment by specialp | Hacker News Reader

They have changed their direction considerably since 2016. The cases they take on now tend not to align with an absolutist stance on freedom of speech and due process.

When Trump got elected, donations poured in to them amd they made a pretty clear turn to liberal causes. I think the days that they would defend the speech of deeply unpopular viewpoints on free speech grounds are over.

This is their plea for donations: "Abortion care, trans people’s right to live freely, people’s right to vote – our freedoms are at stake and we need you with us. Donate today and fuel our fight in courts, statehouses, and nationwide."

Now I am not saying these are bad causes but it seems their priorities have shifted. They don't seem to be defending deeply unpopular people anymore

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And frankly, they always had a very selective list of things they bothered to get involved in. There are a ton of civil liberties they always avoided doing anything about.

But they’re mostly irrelevant anymore - the causes they’ve started going after have a thousand other non-profits doing as much for, or better now.

> But they’re mostly irrelevant anymore

The ACLU war chest has been over $400M the last few years, with many thousands of people in pretty much every state working with the organization in some capacity.

There's absolutely no evidence to support your claims that either the ACLU is irrelevant, nor that it has somehow shifted its momentum considerably since 2016 in what class of cases it handles (especially given the age of the organization and number of shifts vs. overall societal/cultural changes).

On the contrary, I can find many recent examples of legal actions spread headed by the ACLU across dozens of issues all over the country. If you can't find any it's because you're not looking, though you can start with their Annual Reports.

Oh my, their annual reports!

I got my impression from following the actual court cases and related news. Weird eh?

Your multiple statements of the ACLU's irrelevance tells me you don't have reliable sources. I would wager you've spent more time on these comments, than actually reading up on the ACLU and its activities. You're welcome to hold any opinion you want about the organization, though without supporting evidence I doubt anyone else is going to share it with you.

I was a card carrying member for over a decade, and still read their reports.

But go ahead and project all you want.

> When Trump got elected, donations poured in to them amd they made a pretty clear turn to liberal causes. I think the days that they would defend the speech of deeply unpopular viewpoints on free speech grounds are over.

Hard to square this assessment with the last news item I caught about the ACLU: fighting a gag order against Donald Trump on free speech grounds.

This is the pretty standard issue of, as the US drifts further and further to the right, anyone who stays relatively stable is now accused of being liberal or leftist.

That is noble they did that and shows that they still have that element in them. I do not support Trump, and it shows objectivity to defend someone like him when his rights are infringed as they seem to be in that case.

The NY Times has covered the internal friction in the ACLU to take on more progressive causes as well. I was wrong to say they have completely strayed from defending speech absolutely but they do seem to have moved focus away. [1]

1.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html

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