The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)Where do you go if someone threatens your personal rights? Do you go to the police, or maybe the government? What happens if the police and government threaten your rights? Just call the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). It looks like an advertisement, doesn't it. The ACLU covers the United States with its legal protection. She is involved in so many aspects of the fight for civil liberties that it is difficult to cover everything. To fully understand what the ACLU has done for the United States would take much longer than I do. Therefore, I have selected a few incidents that, to me, illustrate what the ACLU is and how they have affected our society. The ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, is an organization that began the fight to protect America's civil liberties. The American people. The ACLU is defined as a nonpartisan American organization providing legal aid and other assistance in cases of civil liberties violations. (Websters) Civil liberties contain a substantial body of laws, including: freedom of speech and press, separation of church and state. , free exercise of religion, due process, equal protection and privacy. (Walker 3) The Encyclopedia of the Constitution defines civil liberties as “the rights that a citizen can assert against the government.” In the formal sense, the ACLU is a private voluntary organization dedicated to defending the Bill of Rights. Officially created in 1920, the ACLU now claims more than 270,000 members. With offices in most states and the District of Columbia, the ACLU rightly bills itself as "the nation's largest law firm." (Walker 4) The ACLU, despite its noble purpose, has a terrible public image. The reason for this hatred or support is the fact that civil liberties cases usually involve moral and personal issues. These questions are the ones that arouse feelings in every corner of society. The rights that the ACLU generally protects are those of those segments of society who are least in agreement with dominant society. The ACLU promised to protect everyone's rights. These rights include the right to free speech of hated groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis and Communists. The Skokie case is an example of the classic free speech case the ACLU would take on. This publicized case on April 28, 1977 concerned the right of American Nazi Frank Collin to demonstrate in Skokie, Illinois. (Walker 323) This case, like many others before and after, defended the rights of someone espousing one of the country's most universally despised ideologies..