tion. The special emphasis is on the Bill of Rights Amendments to the United States Constitution. The ACLU attempts to curb the power of government to intrude on personal liberty (American Civil Liberties Union 1-4).
Organizational Involvement in Court Actions
The section examines the actions of the ACLU in the pursuit of court decisions to support the protection of civil liberties in the United States. The ACLU recognizes that the ideological composition of the United States Supreme Court, the inner workings of the court, and the interrelationship between the Court, the Congress, and the President affect the impact of the Supreme Court and all lower courts on civil liberties in the United States. These issues are addressed in this section.
This section of the paper also examines four specific issues involving civil liberties wherein the ACLU has pursued court action. In each instance, the examination of the issue includes, in addition to the actions of the courts, the Supreme Court-Congress-President dichotomy surrounding the issue, and the effects of the issue on both individual rights and states' rights. The four specific issues examined are (a) abortion, (b) limitations on the rights of the individual ù habeas corpus, search and seizure, surveillance, and access to counsel ù in the name of the undeclared "War on Terrorism", (c) congressional reapportionment and the application of imputation in United States Census outcomes, and (d) racial bias on the part of police.
Ideological Composition of the United States Supreme Court
With respect to political affiliation, most of the justices of the present Supreme Court are Republican. Ideology, however, divides the court. The ideological composition of the present United States Supreme Court includes polar extremes at each end of the ideological spectrum, with a more moderate center that tends to swing toward one pole or another depending upon the question at issue ...