1	FILM & TV Hispanic talks with actors Eduardo Verastegui and Julie Gonzalo about their bright futures. read more...
2	MUSIC Bobby Sanabria serves as a musical conduit between past and future. read more...
3	BOOKS ACLU’s Anthony Romero explores civil liberties in the modern world. read more...
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THE LATIN FORUM

books

Endangered Rights

In his new book as well as in his everyday life,
ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero
comes to the defense of basic civil liberties.

The events of September 11 forever transformed how we regard civil liberties in the United States. Anthony D. Romero, who assumed the executive directorship of the American Civil Liberties Union only days before the attacks, has been at the forefront of the fight to protect these basic rights. Now, with award-winning author and journalist Dina Temple-Raston, Romero has published In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror (Morrow, $24.95). The book introduces readers to ordinary Americans caught up in the struggle to protect constitutional freedoms.
Hispanic spoke with Romero about his book and other issues.

HISPANIC MAGAZINE: Are civil liberties really in peril in America, or is there some mild hysteria out there?
ANTHONY ROMERO: When you look at some of the most fundamental rollbacks that have happened in the last five or six years, there are things we would not have thought possible before.
The idea of the repeal of habeas corpus for a group of detainees, which we talk about in the book in terms of the Military Commissions Act and the torture and detention in Guantanamo, I would have thought unthinkable six years ago.
It’s a fundamental right that goes as far back as the Magna Carta, before the creation of the Republic. It’s one of the cornerstone rights of modern democracy.
The idea that we would have the government assert the right that it could pick up American citizens on American soil, not charge them with a crime and not grant them access to a lawyer ... The idea that the president could feel that he could completely circumvent Congress and bypass the system of checks and balances in the federal judiciary is astonishing.
The idea that our government would be having explicit discussions on how we rewrite the definitions of torture, and whether or not we would pick up people off the streets and render them to countries where we know they will be tortured as part of the interrogation.
If you had told me all of that when I first took the job September 4, 2001, I would have said that can’t happen in America.
The war on terror is going to affect the way we experience the rights and responsibilities of citizenship for generations to come. So what we are willing to give up now in the name of the war on terror is likely to redefine the way we experience life in our democracy.

HM: You are of Puerto Rican descent and you are openly gay. How have these features of your identity affected your professional choices?
AR: I think in some ways they make real the fact that the struggle for dignity and equality is yet not achieved. I remember my dad struggling to get a promotion as a waiter, his frustration in the fact that his employers would use arguments against his ethnic background and language skills that were just cloaked racism.
And he stood up and he fought them—and I remember that a union filing grievances on his behalf. He got that promotion and we had a much better life as a result. And it was probably one of the turning points in our lives: We moved out of the Bronx, we got a car, a first stereo, new living room furniture, and we all became much more relaxed because we weren’t struggling for money as much.
One thing about being Latino and openly gay, even though I live kind of a gifted life, and I have a great partner, and I work in a place that respects and honors who I am, who I love and what I believe in, the fact is I still don’t have all the rights of an individual in this democracy. I can’t get married. If I get killed tomorrow, my partner doesn’t inherit what we own together, unless we’ve privately transacted for it. If one of us ends up in the hospital, it’s not certain if one will be able to visit the other.
Having lived to see my parents’ struggle, and having seen a little of the unfinished struggle for equality for gay people gives you a humbling sense of the work that needs to be done.
HM:Should Hispanics feel more, or less, urgency about preserving civil liberties?
AR: I think we should feel more urgency for protecting civil liberties. Latinos understand discrimination. We understand prejudice. We understand the importance of the equal protection of the law and the fight for equality. As we grow to be among the largest, most important minority groups in the country, there is also a role of leadership for us. And it’s not just about the backlash against immigrants, and it’s not just about English as a Second Language, and it’s not just about national origins. It’s about being leaders for the equality of all people. We—as a people who understood discrimination and who are still living it and now possess more political power than we have ever had before—can play a very constructive role in reclaiming some of that.

HM: Why don’t we just accept the fact that we have to give away some of these civil rights in a post-9/11 environment, that we don’t have the resources to give every terrorist suspect due process, that some people are going to have to be seriously inconvenienced so the rest of us can be safe?
AR: I think that’s too cynical a view of America. America does have the resources to live up to her ideal. The idea that we have about 340 individuals in Guantanamo who have not been afforded due process is unacceptable.
We are the richest nation in the world, the last remaining superpower, one of the great democracies in the world. We certainly have the resources. If we have the political will, then we certainly have the resources to provide justice and equality for all people, even the accused and even those who are guilty.
And it’s not just about the guys in the orange jumpsuits, it’s about who we are as Americans when we look in the mirror, what type of nation do we want to be. What are the core values that define us as a people?
If we don’t have a unifying culture, a unifying language or a unifying religion, the one thing that brings us together as a people is our belief in certain core rights and the rule of law. And that’s what it means to be patriotic. That’s what it means to be a great leader in the human rights struggle throughout the world.
And for Latinos, many of whom fled countries that had dictators and civil wars, who understood torture, and we see that those countries are still reeling from it years later—like in Argentina, or Chile—we have a unique perspective, and we can say that when you begin to violate these basic rights you can really harm us as a nation.
I’m reminded of a quote from the Israeli Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak who said, ‘Even when democracies fight with one hand tied behind their backs they always have the upper hand.’