Even with a ticket, I was unable to get close enough to hear President Obama or see any of the other notable people speaking at the Pettus Bridge in Selma last Saturday. And I was not among those fortunate enough to find space in the historic Brown Memorial Chapel to hear Eric Holder or the host of other celebrated leaders crowding in to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The event was a magnet for the famous, but I managed not to spot a single celebrity in the two days I spent in the welcome warmth of Selma's crowded streets.
But I don't feel cheated at having missed the big names.
Instead, I was reminded about the real heroes of the civil rights movement who are too often unsung. I joined my colleagues from the ACLU giving out posters to marchers and had the honor of meeting an astonishing assortment of people from all over, including scores of students and faculty from Berea College, the Kentucky college founded audaciously as a coed, integrated college 10 years before the Civil War; members of NAACP chapters and church groups, black fraternities, sororities, and motorcycle clubs from all over the South and the nation; Latino farmworkers; Detroit union members; and people of all races who had placed their lives in danger by marching 50 years earlier and had returned to revisit the site. All of these people thronged the area around the site of the marches 50 years earlier. They came not to be a part of the carnival atmosphere that sometime prevailed or to be seen in a place that was fleetingly the center of the world's attention. Instead, they were there because they felt that they needed to be there.
Part of that need came from the desire to honor the courage and fortitude of the marchers 50 years before, who confronted unimaginable danger in order to force the nation to live up to the lofty ideals it espoused but continually and cynically denied to its people of color. But mostly, they came with a strong sense of continuing need. Despite the clear progress that had been made, almost to a person, the people we met voiced the recognition that the hard fought gains that were achieved had yet to reach everyone and were increasingly being subjected to attack.
They commented on the hypocrisy of local and state officials applauding the march while proposing and signing legislation that put more and more barriers in the path of people trying to exercise the right to vote. ACLU staff came prepared with 4,000 posters, worried that there would be insufficient demand and learned that they could easily have distributed four times that number to people drawn to the "Still Fighting for Voting Rights" message that appeared on the poster.
There has been too much bad news on the racial front over the past year. The recent report of the United States Justice Department confirmed what so many knew about Ferguson and cities all over the country, that bias is still deeply ingrained in American society. But any despair that I've felt recently was reduced immeasurably by the sight of so many everyday people dedicated to finishing the arduous job that the Selma marchers and other past heroes started so long ago.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Statement on House AI Task Force ReportACLU Statement on House AI Task Force Report
WASHINGTON — Today, the House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) issued its final report, marking an important step in recognizing the serious risks of discrimination and bias posed by AI systems — particularly in law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. The report recognizes that discrimination and bias may arise in AI systems due to their design, training data, or failures by end users. The report also investigates the complex considerations around deepfakes, open AI systems, and free speech, and urges Congress to pass narrow legislation to address concrete harms. In response to the House AI Task Force final report, Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, issued the following statement: “The ACLU commends the Task Force for recognizing that AI systems are harming people right now through discriminatory outcomes and supercharged surveillance. Curbing those abuses of AI is not a partisan issue, and more concrete action is needed to protect civil rights, while maintaining states’ authority to build on those protections. The Task Force is appropriately cautious when wrestling with issues around deepfakes, open-source AI, digital identity, and other issues, recognizing that legislators should consider a wide array of tailored tools to address real, not speculative, harms while respecting civil rights and civil liberties.” The House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence report can be found here. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Racial Justice
Human Rights
Why the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights IssueWhy the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights Issue
On International Human Rights Day, the ACLU is advocating for a long-sought after reparatory justice to end the continued abuses against Black and brown communities. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
National Security
+2 Issues
ACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key ProtectionsACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key Protections
WASHINGTON — The Biden-Harris administration today released its National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence (AI), establishing guidelines for how the U.S. government uses AI in national security programs, such as counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and defense. The use of AI to automate and expand national security activities poses some of the greatest dangers to people’s lives and civil liberties. Agencies are increasingly exploring the use of AI in decisions about who to surveil, who to stop and search at the airport, who to add to government watchlists, and even who is a military target. While the government’s policy includes some important steps forward — such as requiring national security agencies to better track and assess their AI systems for risks and prohibiting a subset of dangerous AI uses — it falls far short in other critical areas, leaving glaring gaps with respect to independent oversight, transparency, notice, and redress. The policy imposes few substantive safeguards on a wide range of AI-driven activities, by and large allowing agencies to decide for themselves how to mitigate the risks posed by national security systems that have immense consequences for people’s lives and rights. As we have repeatedly seen before, this is a recipe for dangerous technologies to proliferate in secret. “Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems. National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject people in the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “If developing national security AI systems is an urgent priority for the country, then adopting critical rights and privacy safeguards is just as urgent. Without transparency, independent oversight, and built-in mechanisms for individuals to obtain accountability when AI systems err or fail, the policy’s safeguards are inadequate and place our civil rights and civil liberties at risk.” For years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been urging far stronger safeguards and transparency about the AI tools that national security agencies are deploying, the rules constraining their use, and the dangers these systems pose to fairness, privacy, and due process. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and VendorsACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and Vendors
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a roadmap for artificial intelligence (AI) best practices, designed to ensure that emerging technologies such as AI enhance job quality, benefit workers, and comply with existing employment laws when they are used in the workplace. The best practices, pursuant to President Biden’s executive order on the development and use of AI, include recommendations for AI system developers and employers that prioritize workers’ experiences and empowerment throughout the entire AI lifecycle – from design to use and oversight. These practices also call on employers and developers to create standards and processes to identify and mitigate risks from AI systems, such as threats to health and safety, civil rights, privacy, fair labor rights, and labor organizing prior to a developer marketing them or an employer deploying them, and recommend turning to different systems when sufficient mitigation is not possible. “We applaud DOL for issuing best practices for use of AI that center workers’ empowerment, civil rights, privacy, and safety protections and call on developers and employers to adopt critical guardrails in developing, procuring and using AI systems. Employers and developers should take note, as many have been burying their heads in the sand on their risk of legal liability with respect to AI tools,” said Olga Akselrod, senior staff attorney of the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Following these best practices for AI can help employers and developers ensure that they do not violate existing civil rights and other employment laws that protect workers.” The best practices also recommend transparency measures through conducting and publishing impact assessments, notice and recourse for impacted workers, and measures to minimize worker displacement. The DOL also stated that employers should minimize electronic monitoring and avoid unnecessary collection or retention of worker data.