American Civil Liberties Union

About the author: The ACLU is a national organization that defends Americans' civil rights as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, the federal government has exercised new and unnecessary powers that severely undermine civil liberties. Federal authorities have jailed more than one thousand immigrant noncitizens without providing justification for their detention, and the USA PATRIOT Act and other laws have granted broad new surveillance powers to the FBI, CIA, and other agencies, which are being used to invade the privacy of citizens and noncitizens alike. Worst of all, an air of secrecy permeates much of the government's homeland security measures. The federal grab for new and overly broad powers, performed in the name of homeland security, threatens to erode the fundamental American ideals of liberty...