The American Civil Liberties Union is the foremost defender of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU has played a major role in nearly every critical civil liberties battle of the last century — in courtrooms, in Congress and in the public arena.

The ACLU is the only national organization that has been defending liberty in America for more than 80 years. From the internment of some 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II to the abusive domestic spying, blackmail and harassment by the FBI during the McCarthy era, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, the ACLU has successfully defended the basic rights and freedoms of everyone in America when they were at their most vulnerable.

Since the September 11th attacks on our country, the Bush administration has unequivocally and arrogantly pushed an agenda that claims unilateral power to ignore the Constitution in an astonishing number of ways.

Americans are fighting back. The ACLU’s membership — everyday people coming together to defend their rights — has more than doubled in recent years. Today’s battle for liberty is being fought in courtrooms and statehouses across the country, forums in which the ACLU has proven it has no equal.

The threat we face today, however, is greater than any we have ever encountered. We are now fighting countless battles to uphold liberty, justice and equality and we need the support of committed individuals to help share the load. Our strength is entirely dependent upon our 550,000 members. Our efforts to defend liberty — legal, legislative and educational — are made possible by donations from concerned individuals.