Prepared by Ira Glasser, ACLU Executive Director, 1982
The American system of government is built on two basic principles:
This second principle is codified in the Bill of Rights and in federal and state legislation implementing the Bill of Rights. While the rest of the Constitution authorizes the government to act, the Bill of Rights limits the government’s Authority to Act. It sets the ground rules for individual liberty, which includes the freedoms of speech, association and religion, freedom of the press, and the right to privacy, to equal protection of the laws and to due process of the law. The ACLU exists solely to defend and secure these rights and to extend them to groups that traditionally have been excluded from their protection. Our work an be summarily categorized as follows:
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