Ariel Dorfman Speaks Out at the ACLU Membership Conference

From blocking unconstitutional orders to mobilizing millions, here’s how we fought back and what comes next.

President Donald Trump is threatening to invoke the act, which is a rarely used power that Congress intended only for extreme emergencies. We break down what this means for our civil liberties.

This case asks whether government officials who intentionally violate the law are immune from damages suits under a state statute governing such suits, and if so, whether the statute itself violates the Open Courts Clause of the Utah Constitution. Utah’s Open Courts Clause, like similar provisions in thirty-nine other states across the country, protects an individual’s right to seek judicial remedies for wrongs committed against them. It therefore serves as an important tool that does not exist in the U.S. Constitution to hold government actors accountable.

Representing Common Cause and two D.C. voters, the ACLU Voting Rights Project and has filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit over the federal government’s demand that D.C. turn over its entire voter registration rolls, including voters’ sensitive personal data such as drivers’ license numbers and partial social security numbers.