> At the ACLU, we have always recognized that, during a disease outbreak, individual rights must sometimes give way to the greater good. After all, when it comes to disease, we are not just individuals but also one big bio-mass. That is why people can sometimes be deprived of their liberty through quarantine, for example. And this is as it should be, provided — and this is a crucial and sometimes violated condition — that the science supports the effectiveness and proportionality of measures such as quarantine. And even if a quarantine is imposed, people do not lose their due process rights, which at a minimum require that they be able to challenge their quarantine.
Unfortunately the ACLU is slowly going down the path that SPLC and NRA (to pick one example from both sides of the isle) went down. They used to be a strong special interest advocate organization but they're becoming more and more corrupted by partisan politics.
Likewise a statement of "we know it's not what our organization stands for but y'all need to get on board with what the government is telling you to do" is kind of to be expected. If they really wanted to stay true to their mission they would have either come down on the side of being pro-liberty or they would have said nothing at all.
WHO and the CDC also count as organizations that were more ideologically neutral that have lost their neutrality over time.
My understanding is that it was the CDC's partisan scope creep that put it in the crosshairs when the new administration came in. Instead of sticking strictly to infectious bacteria and viruses, they started quixotic quests to classify gun violence and obesity as epidemics. Those distractions allegedly cost them their edge in this pandemic.
Based solely on their own emails and mailings, ACLU these days is a pale shadow of its former self. They have successfully convinced me to cancel my membership... instead of being about civil liberties, these days it's just another generic left-leaning group (no judgment on whether generic left leaning groups are good or bad).
This just shows that I was right.
They used to sue to protect the civil liberties of nazies for gods sake, and now they can't even take an unequivocal position on this simple (civil rights wise) issue because they have to toe the line. The lockdown, regardless of its merits, has more than enough cheerleaders already. We need someone to also focus on civil liberties, not what might be "necessary".
- https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/can-we-trust-the...