Eleven reasons you should make a last-minute donation to the ACLU

Click here to make a tax-deductible gift to the ACLU Foundation.


11. Because you like to swear.
Admit it.  You do.  We all do.  There's nothing quite as cathartic as unleashing a few choice words when a day isn't going your way.  Even certain mayors know the value of a well-timed dirty word.  Trouble is, some people in authority seem to think there's a "no dirty words" exception to the First Amendment.

In the past few years, we've represented a woman arrested for swearing at an inanimate bathroom fixture, a man who was told that calling his business "I Choose Hell" was illegal for being 'blasphemous,' and a whole slew of people who used words that police officers didn't like.  

So if you enjoy the right to legally use every word in the lexicon, or if your family swear jar is filled to the brim, maybe toss a few dollars our way.  Who knows?  We may someday keep you out of prison.

10. Because you own a cell phone.

...and you'd rather the government didn't use it to track your every movement, or go through it when you aren't looking, or charge you as a child pornographer because you took a naked (or near-naked) photo of yourself.  Cell phones are fast becoming a new front in the fight for civil liberties, and the ACLU is working hard to remind the government that you don't waive your right to privacy when you buy a cell phone.

9. Because criticizing the government does not make you a terrorist.
Nor does protesting against natural gas extraction or attending a vegan block party, and yet people engaged in these very activities ended up in intelligence bulletins distributed to the State Police to warn them of potential terrorist activity.  The ACLU has been helping activists from around the state obtain information as to whether they or their organizations were listed, and has called for an investigation into the matter from an independent party.

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Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

The U.S. military and all of our intelligence services are facing a shortage of Arabic linguists - and have been for some time. In 2003, for example (two years after September 11th, for the math impaired), the State Department had only 60 employees fluent in Arabic and only five with skills sufficient to go on Middle Eastern news and talk television programs.

This shortage very well may have contributed to the tragedies of September 11th happening at all. On September 10th, the NSA intercepted two messages from known al Qaeda operatives who were considered "high priority" - "Tomorrow is zero hour," said one; "The match is about to begin," was the other. Because these messages were from high priority targets, they were shunted into the translator's queue to be translated...which, due to the high volume of messages and the low number of translators, took two days. Until September 12th.

Clearly, a reasonable and effective defense strategy would be for our government to actually know what people from the Middle East (including those who mean us harm, those who may be trying to prevent harm, and those who want to engage in an ongoing dialogue about how we can improve international relationships and work together on safety threats) are saying to them and be able to talk back.

Yet despite all the talk of aggressive recruitment of linguists, signing and re-enlistment incentives, and stop-loss measures, our government seems intent on shooting itself in the foot when it comes to developing and employing a pool of desperately-needed Arabic language talent.

First, it rejects the already-established talent of men and women who very much want to use their skills on behalf of their country. Just one year after September 11th, the military discharged six Arabic linguists (along with three additional linguists in other critical languages) solely because they had been found to be gay. These "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" discharges have continued up to the present, including the highly-publicized firing of fluent Arabic speaker and West Point graduate Lt. Dan Choi last year.

Then, it harasses a young college student who is studying Arabic, detaining, handcuffing, and aggressively questioning him over the course of a four-hour ordeal as he tried to make his way back to school in California, because of the Arabic-language flashcards he had in his pocket. Among the questions Nick George was asked was whether he knew what language Osama bin Laden spoke. So now our government has made it suspicious behavior not only to speak a language that hundreds of millions of people around the world speak, but to develop language skills that are in painfully short supply and are needed for defense measures that are significantly more effective than violating the Constitutional rights of airline passengers who pose no threat to flight safety.

Maybe it's just me, but perhaps we need some better strategies.

Becca in Harrisburg