After years of misrepresentation and pillorying by a variety of groups like the A.C.L.U. that ended up making a lot of money by opposing it and developed a lot of membership by opposing it, its renewal passed by 89 votes in the Senate.

They didn’t oppose the Patriot Act in order to make money, or as some kind of marketing scheme.

If you think they don’t care about membership, I think that’s a naïve understanding of the way politics works in America.

I find this assertion deeply dishonest and offensive. I expect this kind of tripe from mindless conservative koolaid drinkers but from a former public official its really not acceptable.

First, and foremost, the ACLU did not oppose the Partiot Act. They had a very limited list of specific reforms, that mostly related to requiring better oversight for the powers granted rather than curtailing them, and centered around a specific provision that has been found unconstitutional by a federal court.

Second, the people who work at the ACLU are not "in it for the money" as there is no money in it. These are mostly lawyers who could walk away from the 30-40k they make a year to jobs in the 100-200k range at the snap of a finger, but they are so devoted to the causes they are fighting for that they cannot do it. They are like civil liberties nuns. Of course they "care about membership." Show me an organization that doesn't "care about membership" and doesn't promote membership! The black and white politicizing of the Patriot Act came first from John Ashcroft, and second from certain Democrat politicians.

The bottom line is that there is a subset of the Republican party that simply does not beleive in civil liberties. They do not beleive in freedom of speech, nor of religion, and they absolutely do not beleive in the right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure, etc... They beleive in unrestrained majoritarian power and state coersion, and these rights stand in the way of that.

The first step in getting rid of those rights is to demonize people who've devoted their lives to defending them. This is, of course, a bit like shooting fish in a barrell, as civil liberties are by definition a check upon the power of the majority, and are apt to come up in unpopular circumstances. Once the majority is totally convinced that the ACLU is a corrupt organization and that the court system is activist and radical, they won't be concerned when these people complain about decisions that are made, and in the long run the structures that make the United States a free society can be disassembled under the approving eye of most of it's people. Unlike the people who maintain the website linked above, John Ashcroft is too smart to be confused about this, and so he must be complicit.

For God and Country - Questions for John Ashcroft