The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday released a "roadmap" to how the organization plans to counter potential "abuses of executive power" by former President Donald Trump if he wins a second term in the White House this November.
The ACLU's memo, titled "Trump on Surveillance, Protest, and Free Speech," was written by the organization's experts on privacy, surveillance, and the First Amendment.
The group cites "Trump's own campaign promises, his track record, and the detailed policy proposals of Project 2025," a controversial series of proposals from The Heritage Foundation that Trump has disavowed, as evidence that a second Trump administration would employ "attacks on democracy" such as "leveraging federal law enforcement for attacks on journalists and protestors," spying on American citizens using "Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333," and by "Targeting political opponents with investigations and prosecutions" with the Justice Department and other agencies.
"The ACLU has always worked to stop the executive branch from abusing its power at the expense of individual freedom and vulnerable communities," Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement.
"Our memo that's being released now is really a story about a loaded gun that we've left in the hands of any president," Wang told NPR on Thursday.
"There are so many levers that the American people and their representatives in Congress and in local governments can pull in order to stop Donald Trump from trampling on people's civil rights," she added.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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