As America is taking time
this week to remember Senator Kennedy, I wanted to share this tribute
from our national office, which reminds us of his commitment to the First
Amendment, civil rights, government accountability, immigration reform and
abolition of the death penalty. I did not know that Senator Kennedy had been a
sponsor of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and mention of
that sent me into the archives of the hearings on that bill (which included
witnesses Morton
Halperin and John
Shattuck, then staff members at the ACLU), where I found these words from
Senator Kennedy: “The abuses of Presidential power in the surveillance area
reached their zenith under the Nixon administration. . . Both the importance of
wiretapping, and the dangers inherent in such surveillance—governmental
intrusion into the private lives and conversation of Americans and interference
with the Constitutionally protected rights of privacy, association and
speech—dictate that Congress take quick, effective action.”
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