[ACLU] ranks have swelled by more than 25 percent since the autumn of 2001, when Ashcroft made his first pitch for the new surveillance tools that are now codified in the USA Patriot Act.
Backed by a $50 million budget, the ACLU is juggling 33 lawsuits on the terrorism front. It also starts production Monday on a national TV ad that will target Ashcroft's current push for expanded powers beyond the Patriot Act. He wants more authority to jail suspects without bond before trial, and he wants a looser definition of "material support" for terrorism - a move, the ACLU claims, that would allow federal agents to go after political protesters.
Anthony Romero, the executive director, triggered a roar of approval yesterday when, in a speech, he skewered "the timidity, the reticence, the complicity of the Democrats" who helped pass the Patriot Act with scant scrutiny - thereby demonstrating that Democrats would "rather stick their heads in the sand than stick their necks out for the Bill of Rights."
Hmm... A membership surge. Sounds like voters, maybe? Those Beltway Dems... When are they going to get up off their knees?