News & Commentary

Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy. The ACLU and other groups are challenging the 2008 FISA Amendment Act which gives the NSA almost unchecked power to monitor Americans international communications without a warrant.  The Supreme Court will hear arguments in this case, Amnesty v. Clapper on October 29.

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My summer communications and policy internship here was eye-opening in more ways than I was initially expecting. I knew that the ACLU of Maine's staff of seven people was relatively small, and I knew that the ACLU cares about a seemingly endless list of issues and sub-issues related to civil liberties, but it had never really sunk in for me what that meant until I began interning here. Every time this summer when a civil liberties issue came up in the state, I participated in staff meetings and did research so that the staff here could respond--whether it was about Voter ID or marriage fairness or solitary confinement. I always knew that the ACLU was a guardian of civil liberties, yet my internship made me realize what an active role this was. Seemingly every time there was going to be a local news story about anything related to protecting people's rights, our phone would ring asking for comment. When I did legal intake -- taking phone calls or summarizing requests for legal assistance -- it made me realize that the work is about more than ideology; it's about making sure the Constitution's protections apply to everyone in practice as well as in theory.   I wr

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