Who We Are
Like its parent organization, the ACLU, the NYCLU’s Capital Region Chapter is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization devoted to protecting the civil liberties of all persons, and to extending them to persons traditionally denied fundamental rights. We seek to preserve and enhance the principles embodied in the United States and the New York State constitutions.
The Chapter receives no governmental funding and is supported by individual contributions, grants from foundations, and over 2800 dues-paying NYCLU members in Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Saratoga, Washington, Warren, Columbia and Greene counties.
What We Do
The Capital Region Chapter safeguards the liberties and rights of the people we serve through advocacy, litigation, legislative action and public education. Since our founding in 1991, the Chapter challenges injustice and defends civil liberties on many fronts.
We have opposed racism and police brutality; defended freedom of speech and expression; and protected the right to privacy, including reproductive choice. We have contested discrimination against people of color, women, disabled people, and lesbian and gay people. We have sought to expand the rights of the mentally ill and the homeless, and to establish the right to counsel in landlord/tenant cases. We have fought government censorship in schools.
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A New York State Supreme Court today ruled that Gov. David Paterson’s May memo telling state agencies to recognize the marriages of lesbian and gay couples performed in other states and countries is legal. The decision relied heavily on a landmark New York Civil Liberties Union victory in the case Martinez v. County of Monroe.
In oral arguments today, the American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union urged a federal appeals court to uphold a decision striking down the national security letter (NSL) provision of the Patriot Act.