American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Privacy Information Center

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a not-for-profit organization that defends and works to preserve the constitutional rights of individuals within the United States. It uses lawyers and the court system to ensure the guarantee of rights and to overturn infringing practices and laws. In recent years, the ACLU has partnered with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public interest research center in Washington, D.C., in its attempt to defend civil liberties and to protect privacy. This entry reviews the formation and history of the ACLU and EPIC, examines the groups’ role in defending challenges to civil liberties in the Digital Age, looks at Americans’ evolving view of digital privacy, and concludes with a glimpse of technology advances that have the potential to ...