The ACLU vs. America

[Bonnie]

Michelle Malkin

March 30, 2005

On April Fools' Day, the American Civil Liberties Union will show us what a joke its commitment to American civil liberties really is.

April 1st, in case you haven't heard, is the launch of the Minuteman Project, an all-volunteer effort by law-abiding American citizens to call attention to the nation's wide open southern border. Hundreds of Americans from New York to Michigan to California will travel down to the U.S.-Mexico border for a month to monitor illegal aliens and alert immigration enforcement officials if they witness law-breaking.


Call it the mother of all neighborhood watch programs.

In doing so, the Minutemen will be exercising their constitutionally protected freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Those would be fundamental civil liberties found in something called the, uh, First Amendment, of which the ACLU is supposed to be the foremost expert and champion. Or so the group and its celebrity supporters say. In sanctimonious new fund-raising ad campaigns, the organization features the likes of liberal actress Holly Hunter, who asks:

"Do you want to be heard without fear? I am not an American who believes that questioning or criticizing my government is unpatriotic."

Uh-huh. "Dissent is patriotic," the Left likes to preach. Except, apparently, if the questioning and criticizing deals with the government's abject failure to enforce immigration laws. Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist has been harassed by open-borders activists at his home. The group is reportedly being targeted by savage illegal alien gangsters from Mara Salvatrucha (a.k.a. MS-13). Mexican government officials are lobbying American law enforcement officials to suppress the Minutemen's rights to speak and assemble.

But instead of coming to the defense of the Minutemen who are challenging our government, the ACLU has warned the 1,000 volunteers that it will send monitors to document the Americans' activities. Moreover, the ACLU has already threatened lawsuits against the American dissenters for exercising their rights.

This bullying of pro-immigration enforcement activists comes as no surprise to those of us who have followed the ACLU's aggressive open-borders agenda -- from its support for driver's licenses for illegal aliens, to its opposition to detaining illegal alien terror suspects after 9/11 and profiling foreign visitors from terror-friendly countries, to its efforts to stop local and state law enforcement officers from helping federal homeland security efforts.

ACLU of Arizona spokesman Ray Ybarra argues that the mere presence of the Minutemen at the border constitutes "unlawful imprisonment" of illegal (excuse me, "undocumented") aliens (excuse me, "migrants"). Ybarra told the Washington Times that the ACLU will have lawyers on standby ready to file civil cases against the volunteers. He warned that the Minutemen could "come to our state as 'vigilantes' and end up leaving as 'defendants.'"

The Minutemen have made it clear on their website and in repeated statements that they "will not violate anyone's civil rights, and will not abuse anyone from any country. . . . We will alert border patrol to the location of illegals, and wait for [the Border Patrol] to come and pick them up. We will follow illegal aliens from a distance and continue spotting them until authorities answer our cell phone and/or back-pack radio calls. All spotting, calls for assistance, and the response from the appropriate authorities will be chronicled and provided to any media representative."

Contrary to the ACLU and mainstream media representations of the group as racists and immigrant-bashers, the Minutemen are a diverse volunteer group that includes Americans of Mexican, Armenian, Russian, Lebanese, Indian and Cuban descent; and black and Native American minorities. Also among the volunteers are 19 legal immigrants from Mexico, Peru, Russia, New Zealand, England, Australia and the Philippines.

more....http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/printmm20050330.shtml

 

[ScreamingEagle]

If this doesn't expose the two-faced, agenda-driven hypocrisy of the ACLU, I don't know what will.

Right on, Malkin.

 

[dilloduck]

If this doesn't expose the two-faced, agenda-driven hypocrisy of the ACLU, I don't know what will.

Right on, Malkin.

No shit----let's get this all out in the open !!!

 

[CivilLiberty]

Sometimes the ACLU is so assinine. I'm all for the minute man project, I think it's a great idea, and I'd be *really* happy if the Bush admin actually CARED about the southern border and took some kind of action.

A

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Sometimes the ACLU is so assinine. I'm all for the minute man project, I think it's a great idea, and I'd be *really* happy if the Bush admin actually CARED about the southern border and took some kind of action.

A

Yeaah. And it'd be cool if the dems didn't want to give illegals drivers licenses.

 

[Bonnie]

Sometimes the ACLU is so assinine. I'm all for the minute man project, I think it's a great idea, and I'd be *really* happy if the Bush admin actually CARED about the southern border and took some kind of action.

A

Welcome back Andy, much better Avatar. I agree, and If I lived in the South West I would probably be volunteering my time as well.

 

[manu1959]

Yeaah. And it'd be cool if the dems didn't want to give illegals drivers licenses.

the whole drivers license thing cracks me up ..... you are in a nation illeagaly .... which means you are a criminal .... and instead of expecting to be arrested and jailed and deported as would happen to you in any european country or any other country in the world for that matter .... you expect to be given the right to drive a car and have an identification card which would represent to citizens of that country that you have the legal right to be there ..... amazing logic

 

[Bonnie]

the whole drivers license thing cracks me up ..... you are in a nation illeagaly .... which means you are a criminal .... and instead of expecting to be arrested and jailed and deported as would happen to you in any european country or any other country in the world for that matter .... you expect to be given the right to drive a car and have an identification card which would represent to citizens of that country that you have the legal right to be there ..... amazing logic

Well let's be fair to Hollywood here afterall they need their illegal help to be able to drive their SUV's around town! How can WE be so incensitive to their NEEDS????

 

[5stringJeff]

Sometimes the ACLU is so assinine. I'm all for the minute man project, I think it's a great idea, and I'd be *really* happy if the Bush admin actually CARED about the southern border and took some kind of action.

A

Dude! Where ya been?

 

[freeandfun1]

Dude! Where ya been?

Speaking of where people are.... where is SPIKESMYGOD?

 

[CivilLiberty]

Welcome back Andy, much better Avatar.

Thanks Bonnie - I'm playing with my image... The other one was too...er...something...

I think this one isn't as conservative as I want, but I hope to find a happy medium somewhere...

I agree, and If I lived in the South West I would probably be volunteering my time as well.

It's all about weak links. The heightened security at airports is pointless when you can freely walk across the border from mexico. It's like trying to keep flies out of your house by putting screens on the windows, but then leaving the door open.


A

 

[CivilLiberty]

Well let's be fair to Hollywood here afterall they need their illegal help to be able to drive their SUV's around town! How can WE be so incensitive to their NEEDS????

They don't drive the SUVs much but they do tend the gardens in Beverly Hills...


A

 

[CivilLiberty]

Dude! Where ya been?

Hey Jeff,

I've been doing investigative research into tort reform for a series of upcoming articles and thus I've been *busy*...


Cheers!


Andy

 

[Merlin1047]

Thanks Bonnie - I'm playing with my image... The other one was too...er...something...

Dorky???

Anyway, welcome back and I share your assessment that this is not a problem attributable exclusively to the ACLU. Pres. Bush gets the lion's share of the blame for the porous condition of our borders due to his continuing inaction on this matter.

If something effective is not done and soon this will cost the Republicans dearly in the next presidential election. Hopefully the intransigence demonstrated by GW and his administration will not cost the lives of more Americans due to terror attacks.

 

[Bonnie]

Thanks Bonnie - I'm playing with my image... The other one was too...er...something...

I think this one isn't as conservative as I want, but I hope to find a happy medium somewhere...

You want to look more conservative??? I don't know but i think the longer hair and image kind of works better. JMO

 

[CivilLiberty]

Dorky???

Well, I was *trying* to look conservative...

If something effective is not done and soon this will cost the Republicans dearly in the next presidential election. Hopefully the intransigence demonstrated by GW and his administration will not cost the lives of more Americans due to terror attacks.

One big concern I have is terrorists making their way across the *open* border, and inflicting an at of terror here in Los Angeles, or San Diego, etc.

If AQ had a mind to, they could mass 100s of terrorists across the border for a blitzkrieg of terrorism.

And yea, if that happens, bye bye Repubs, hello Hillary. (As we know I really don't like Bush, but Hillary makes me ill...)


A

 

[CivilLiberty]

You want to look more conservative??? I don't know but i think the longer hair and image kind of works better. JMO

Hmmm... I may go with this more then - I am getting a haircut shortly, and I took these to capture the longer hair for my headshot collection...

The last one was taken in a rush for my About.com column, and I never really liked it, and have been meaning to change it for awhile... thanks for the comments, hard for me to be objective and all...



Cheers


Andy

 

[manu1959]

If AQ had a mind to, they could mass 100s of terrorists across the border for a blitzkrieg of terrorism.

A

my money would be on the compton lads

 

[Bonnie]

Andy..If AQ had a mind to, they could mass 100s of terrorists across the border for a blitzkrieg of terrorism.

Scary reality!!

 

[dilloduck]

Scary reality!!

The ACLU would love it----by defending the "rights" of Americans they have already shown the world how vulnerable our system is to judicial activism. A terrorist invasion would certainly be the end of Bush and the ACLU could step in and " save" the US by imposing the promised bliss of a comminist state as is their stated goal. Do Americans realize what living under a communist state is like? Perhaps some former victims of communism would like to share their experiences.