Issues

The rights guaranteed to criminal suspects, defendants, offenders and prisoners are not mere technicalities. They are fundamental political rights that protect all Americans from governmental abuse of power. These rights include the guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, the right to reasonable bail, the right to due process of law and the right to be free from cruel and unusual treatment—and they are indispensable to a free society. Yet crime control policies all too often assume that harsher law enforcement policies and longer prison sentences can solve the problem. The ACLU works to puncture this “tough on crime” rhetoric, safeguard fundamental liberties, and advocate for sensible, evidence-based reforms of criminal justice policies.

D.C. is the only national capital in the democratic world whose citizens don't have equal voting and representation rights. Granting D.C. statehood is needed, constitutional, and the only way to enfranchise more than 700,000 Americans who have been denied their full voting rights for over 200 years.

The First Amendment protects our freedom to speak, assemble, and associate with others. These rights are essential to our democratic system of governance. The Supreme Court has written that freedom of expression is "the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom." Without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would cease to exist. Since its founding, the ACLU has advocated for broad protection of our First Amendment rights in times of war and peace, to ensure that the marketplace of ideas remains vigorous and unrestricted.