Several former ACLU leaders, including former executive director Ira Glasser, have started Save the ACLU to:

restore its integrity, and its consistency of principle and remedy its failure to apply to itself core civil liberties principles that it insists everyone else observe. The failure to practice what we preach—until publicly embarrassed—has already done grievous injury to the ACLU and ultimately threatens its historic mission.

Sasha Volokh asks “Is there any overlap between what libertarians find problematic about the modern-day ACLU and the reform agenda of this group?” A quick glance through their archives indicates that the participants in Save the ACLU appear to be focusing on internal problems at the ACLU, mainly recent attempts by the ACLU to stifle dissent within their own ranks.

They are probably good reforms. I would argue, however, that they don’t address root causes. I think that a civil rights organization that is willing to argue that the right of the people is really a power of government will inevitably slide into arguing that they need to restrict freedom in order to save it.

As Save the ACLU says in their mission statement, “Our credibility and effectiveness depend upon our consistency of principle.”