By Camille T. Taiara

During a year that saw San Francisco break new ground in the move toward legalizing same-sex marriage, it seems appropriate that the nation's premiere civil liberties organization would hold its national convention here starting July 6.

Few organizations have been as steadfast or effective in safeguarding our most basic freedoms as the American Civil Liberties Union has, a role that's become even more important since the Bush administration took office.

ACLU-Northern California – one of the largest chapters in the country – has taken the federal Transportation Security Authority to task over its controversial no-fly list (see "Flight Risk," 12/24/03). More recently, its staff convinced California attorney general Bill Lockyer to investigate the Fresno County Sheriff's Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation's role in spying on and infiltrating antiwar group Peace Fresno.

Nationally, the ACLU has played a critical role in opposing the secret detention of more than 1,000 mostly Muslim immigrant men in the months following Sept. 11, 2001, and contesting some of the most invasive sections of the USA PATRIOT Act.

The organization has also acted as one of the principal litigators in three recent Supreme Court cases brought on behalf of "enemy combatants" Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla and of the Guantanamo Bay detainees – and is widely acknowledged as having posed the greatest challenge so far to the Bush administration's self-asserted, and hitherto unchecked, power to sidestep domestic and international law in its "war on terrorism."

Now the venerable institution is holding its annual membership conference right here in San Francisco – giving locals a rare opportunity to hear from, and engage with, some of the nation's leading attorneys, lobbyists, media figures, and activists in the struggle to protect human rights and individual freedoms.

"The notion that your freedoms are somehow the price you have to pay for security is almost always a false bargain, but it's one that governments often like to strike," ACLU legal director Steven Shapiro told the Bay Guardian. Shapiro will discuss the issues involved in the Hamdi, Padilla, and Guantanamo Bay detainee cases at the conference and prove an analysis of the Supreme Court's decisions.

Laura Murphy, the ACLU's chief lobbyist in Washington, D.C., and an expert on the PATRIOT Act, told us she'll also be on hand.

Other highlights include sessions on racial profiling and law enforcement; domestic spying; the First Amendment and threats to free speech; organizing in immigrant communities; the civil liberties implications of recent medical and telecommunications technologies; same-sex marriage; and the attack on reproductive rights.

Special guests include FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley, former National Security Council member Richard Clarke, New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Rev. Cecil Williams, and numerous other national and local political figures, attorneys, activists, and artists.

"I think that there's a real watershed time in the country," Shapiro said. "There are relatively few moments in history where you feel like there absolutely is this critical national discussion going on about [basic] principles.... We're not talking about esoteric issues that are on the fringes here. We're talking about the basic relationship between the individual and the government and the degree to which we're going to allow our rights to be eroded by our fears."

For details on the conference, which takes place July 6-8, go to www.aclu.org/2004memberconf/Welcome/welcome.htm.

E-mail Camille T. Taiara