One of the staunchest privacy protectors in Congress has vowed to block President-elect Donald Trump from running wild against Americans’ civil liberties.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who helped lead opposition to the FBI’s push for law enforcement’s backdoor access to encrypted communications, declared on Sunday, “the RESISTANCE to any unconstitutional crazy shit from President Trump begins now.”
I just became a monthly donor to @ACLU. Because the RESISTANCE to any unconstitutional crazy shit from President Trump begins now.
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 14, 2016
Lieu’s support of the American Civil Liberties Union follows the civil rights group’s promise after Trump’s election victory last week to take the Trump administration to court for violating citizens’ rights.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, called out specific Trump proposals as particularly problematic, including his plans “to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression.”
“These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional,” Romero continued. “They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step.”
As a result of this stance, the ACLU received a flood of online donations totaling more than $940,000 in the days following Trump’s election.
