On nearly every front, this has been one of the ACLU of Southern California's most difficult years in our duty to protect civil rights and civil liberties.
We envision a society that invests in very individual by providing all children with a good education and other necessities for success. No society can neglect such an investment without reaping the terrible fruit of exclusion: division, despair, and fear.
Since September 11, 2001, our government has embarked on a wholesale revision of our basic rights: discrimination against immigrants, detentions, domestic spying, and government secrecy have been carried out in the name of security.
Mindful of the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty, which reads in part, "I lift my lamp beside the golden door," we seek to open the door of opportunity ever wider by linking civil liberties to social justice.