Defending rights

From teenage protests against McCarthyism and organizing demonstrations against racial segregation on the streets of Baltimore, to Distinguished Professor and founder of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers Law School and General Counsel of the ACLU, Frank Askin has spent a lifetime battling for political and civil rights in the USA. In these pages Askin tells his own story; of his time on the streets, in the courts, in the legislative and political arenas; of his struggle against anti-democratic policies and practices. He writes of his legal challenges to the surveillance practices of the US Army, the CIA, and the FBI and of the struggle for affirmative action and racial justice. He describes how civil liberties lawyers work to make police agencies honor constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures, and how constitutional protections for free speech protect the rights of grass roots organizations. He describes efforts to restrain government abuse of individual rights from both within and without, and of how he helped shape the ACLU's aggressive campaign against unreasonable government regulation of individuals' thoughts and deeds. From his view as a consultant to Congressional committees he describes the contest over labor's rights as well as the ongoing battle between the legislative and executive branches for hegemony in matters touching national security.