| Yolo County |
|
Contact Natalie Wormeli for meeting locations natandben@aol.com For the Davis Campus ACLU contact JasonRifkind at (jarifkind at ucdavis dot edu) |
| Hours |
| (24/7) |
| Phone |
| For Yolo County (530)756-1900 For Davis Campus ACLU |
| Website |
![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small} http://www.aclu.org |
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is our nation's guardian of liberty. We work daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Our job is to conserve America's original civic values - the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The American system of government is founded on two counterbalancing principles: that the majority governs, through democratically elected representatives; and that the power of a majority must be limited, to ensure individual rights.
Majority power is limited by the Constitution's Bill of Rights, which consists of the original ten amendments ratified in 1791, plus the three post-Civil War amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth) and the Nineteenth Amendment (women's suffrage), adopted in 1920, and also the ![[wikipedia]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/inter.png){kind=small}
24th.
The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees:
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Your First Amendment rights-freedom of speech, association and assembly. Freedom of the press, and freedom of religion supported by the strict separation of church and state.
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Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.
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Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.
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Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.
Another nationwide group with a local chapter fighting for liberties, but not quite the same set of liberties, is the Campaign for Liberty (C4L). For example, to the extent that C4L supports Ron Paul, it is a "pro-life" organization, whereas the ACLU is "pro-choice". Furthermore, C4L reads the Second Amendment as supporting an individual's right to bear arms, whereas the ACLU takes the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right; the ALCU does not take a position on gun control itself, stating that they do not see it as a civil liberties issue. But both organizations find problems with the Patriot Act.
