Rights tough

In his 30 years at Worcester's ACLU, Ronal Madnick has learned every aspect of the Bill of Rights. Today, he warns, our freedom faces more threats than ever.

by Chris Kanaracus

Perhaps the most startling reality concerning government regulation comes not from any particular law, but from their sum. According to libertarian author James Bovard's 1995 Lost Rights, Americans today must comply with 30 times as many laws as were on the books at the start of the century.

The poster boy for First Amendment rights was just a few feet beyond the doors. And Marilyn Manson's fans, with their painted faces, leather boots, and ratty T-shirts, eagerly filed into Fitchburg's Wallace Civic Center in May to witness their "Anti-Christ Superstar" in all his gothic, sex-and-drug-soaked splendor. But barely had they stepped out of their cars when they were accosted by virulent, sign-waving religious protesters.

So perhaps it was no surprise that the Manson devotees mostly ignored Ronal Madnick, the middle-aged, conservatively dressed man who stood in the lobby. Still, he dutifully attempted to press literature upon them; mostly though, he looked horribly out of place.

"We did what we could," says Madnick, executive director of Worcester's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "We handed out some fliers on censorship in music. The kids had a great time [at the show], and the building is still standing," he adds in jest, obviously bemused by the angry reaction that Manson (the androgynous "shock-rocker" known to shred Bibles and to perform simulated sex on stage, and to be blamed for inspiring young America to commit violent crimes) receives on tour.

But attorney Beverly Chorbajian, who was with Madnick that night, relates the events a bit differently. The ACLU, after all, supported Manson's right to perform without incident. So Madnick wasn't going to leave without getting his message across.

"Oh, Ron sure made an impression, all right," Chorbajian says. "When it looked like we weren't going to get anywhere, he got up, started waving his arms around, and saying, `Wait! Wait! This is about your rights! We're trying to help you!'. . . I'd never seen him like that."

Indeed, rare are the times you see the Crown Hill-raised Madnick betray his quiet, polite-to-a-fault semblance, a demeanor that is at odds with the ACLU's reputation for extremism but nonetheless quite fitting. For Manson fans' hesitancy to embrace the "fuddy-duddy" in their midst isn't unlike the general public's perception of the often misunderstood, occasionally vilified, ACLU. For 79 years, the Washington, DC-based organization has attempted to transform the Bill of Rights (which, among other things, protects our freedom of speech, our right to bear arms, and our right of assembly) from mere words in the Constitution into enforced, day-to-day reality.

To that end, the ACLU's strategy has included lobbying efforts and lawsuits against civil rights offenders, which has sometimes called for the defense of morally or politically dubious groups. Who can forget the ACLU's support of the 1979 Nazi parade through Skokie, Illinois, or its continued backing of Ku Klux Klan demonstrations? That willingness to stand up for America's fringe certainly hasn't enhanced the ACLU's image.

But most people don't realize that the bulk of the ACLU's efforts are considerably more mundane. They take place in the trenches, through local chapters like Worcester's. And Madnick, celebrating his 30th year there (18 as its director), is credited with keeping the ACLU's efforts alive throughout Worcester County. It was Madnick who was behind Fitchburg's "ninja" lawsuit, and it was he who pushed the chapter to print the nation's first newspaper ad calling for Nixon's impeachment. But beyond the high-profile fights, Madnick has worked behind-the-scenes, quietly comforting and advising those who believe they've been discriminated against by their landlord, the police, or on the job.

Thanks to Madnick, the Worcester chapter is considered one of the most effective in the state. But Madnick, at 62, is setting his sights on retirement, leaving many in the local chapter to wonder if the ACLU's work will remain as effective -- or even continue at all -- once he departs. Madnick is particularly worried. For while he's satisfied with the chapter's accomplishments, he says, despite the widespread perception that Americans live freer lives than ever, civil liberties continue to be eroded at an alarming pace, leaving the ACLU's mission as critical today as at its birth.

"I'm very, very worried about the way things are going in this country," he says.

IF YOU WONDER JUST HOW BUSY the ACLU's Worcester chapter is, visit Madnick's Main Street office. It's not a slick, well-staffed war room, but instead a tiny, cluttered office more akin to Philip Marlowe's or Jake Gittes's. Anti-death penalty, police-brutality, and pro-choice posters plaster the walls, and assorted dog-eared news clippings, fliers, and newsletters, wilted from the weight of time, overhang piles of loose paper strewn over the bumper-to-bumper desks. But Madnick's seeming lack of organization is not from absentmindedness, it's from sheer workload.

The phone rings, and Madnick finds himself calming down a desperate man who faces criminal charges for beating his teenage daughter. In low, persistent tones, Madnick lays out his options (his chances in court aren't good), then ends the conversation by adding yet another name to the chapter's mailing list. A pithy comment from a guest toward the departed caller prompts Madnick to say, "Even people like that are entitled to know their rights." And you know he means it.

Almost immediately, the phone rings again. This time, a Spencer man claims harassment by members of the police department (a department that was temporarily taken over by State Police and eventually gutted due to charges of rampant corruption). The man wants to know what he can do. Again, Madnick listens carefully, interrupting only occasionally. He records the caller's name and address and promises to send out his latest project, "What To Do When You're Stopped By the Police," wallet-size information cards being distributed in Worcester by his office.

Throughout the course of an afternoon, similar scenarios occur again and again, and Madnick's courtesy and patience never waver.

"I'm committed to this. It's what I believe in, and what I enjoy doing," he says. "I've always had empathy for the powerless, and besides, someone has to do it."

Except for the gray hair, Madnick looks a decade younger than his 62 years. He can be elusive, tremulously soft-spoken, meandering, and even a bit shy. But when speaking on an issue close to his heart, a subtle transformation occurs, and Madnick delivers his argument with a quiet and inviting force.

"I believe strongly in freedom. I believe that what I do is no one else's business, unless I'm hurting someone else," he says. "Frankly, I want the government to leave me alone. I feel by protecting the rights of others, I've protected my own. When something's really wrong, it gets my adrenaline flowing, because the more wrong something is, the less likely someone is going to correct it."

He began working at the ACLU in 1969, performing clerical and organizational duties, but his profile didn't stay low for long. In 1972, Madnick convinced the chapter board to print the nation's first newspaper ad (it ran in the Worcester Telegram) calling for the impeachment of President Nixon. He also flirted with politics, making an unsuccessful state Senate bid in 1974.

But Madnick decided not to run again. Instead he became more involved with the ACLU, taking over the director's chair from retiring member Leonard Rubenstein in 1981 (he continued to work as a local high-school teacher until 1994). Madnick's wife, Deena, also a local teacher, remains on the job.

Despite his longtime contact with constitutional law, Madnick is not a lawyer -- and says he has no desire to be one. Yet you can't help but sense an slight tug between that assertion and an eager interest he shows when discussing ongoing cases. Madnick admits he'd love to litigate, but says he doesn't have the patience for law school. "Besides, our legal panel is more than capable."

Many of those who serve on the chapter's legal panel (which ultimately decides the cases the ACLU will back) say their work couldn't be done without as stalwart an administrator as Madnick. Local attorney and longtime legal-panel member, Russ Chernin goes so far to say that "without Ron Madnick, this chapter wouldn't exist."

Indeed, all indications are that Madnick is the lifeblood of the local chapter, trafficking all calls into the ACLU office, coordinating mailing efforts, producing the chapter's monthly newsletter, tracking the news, and screening complaints for potential ACLU action.

"This place was a mess before Ron took over, and in danger of going under," says Chernin, who points out that Madnick's efforts go beyond the office -- he is a visible presence in the community.

"Every meeting, every hearing, every rally, every function you can think of, Ron is there . . . he has put in time and energy beyond anyone's comprehension, receiving less than part-time pay for full-time work," Chernin says. "He's the one on the front lines."

MADNICK CERTAINLY HAS much work ahead of him, for the march against civil liberties has not slowed under Bill Clinton's administration. In fact, his presidency has been distinguished by several of the most brazen and unsettling assaults on personal freedom: the federal government has attempted to censor Internet content, make it easier for the FBI to wiretap our phone lines, and has fought against software programs that would improve e-mail encryption.

And for two decades now, America's war on drugs has paved the way for a series of assaults on civil rights, all in the name of fighting crime.

Los Angeles has enacted curfews against known gang members, who are prohibited from being on the streets after a certain hour and from entering designated areas of town. The ACLU recently defeated a similar initiative in Chicago, challenging its constitutionality -- such laws deny citizens, gang members or not, the right to free assembly.

And then there's the ongoing, nationwide effort to build a DNA sample database. Most states now require DNA samples from violent criminals. But some politicians have gone even further; New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has suggested that newborns be sampled -- an alarming prospect when you consider that behavioral problems and potential diseases are now detectable in an individual's DNA. Critics fear such information in the government's hands could lead to citizen classification and profiling from birth. But the ACLU is fighting the Brave New World-esque measure on different grounds -- arguing that it violates prisoners' privacy rights granted by the Fourth Amendment.

Search and seizure laws have never been more draconian. While police officers are required "probable cause" to conduct a search, that rule is often, and easily, circumvented. If, for instance, an individual simply refuses to be searched, that's grounds for suspicion, and, therefore, probable cause. Property seizure has also reached new heights. Since 1979, state, local, and federal officials have seized more than $5 billion in assets from suspected drug offenders. But as much as 80 percent of all asset-forfeiture cases never make it to court. Even more insane is current law that allows police to hold on to assets after charges are dropped or a suspect is acquitted.

There is some hope, however. In June, the House passed a bill, advanced by a Congressional coalition (ranging from Henry Hyde to Ted Kennedy), that requires a more stringent burden of proof before assets are seized.

But the list goes on. Freedom of speech has always been one of the most bullied amendments, and the latest attack involves a constitutional amendment effort underway in Congress that would allow criminal punishment for flag burning, an act awarded First Amendment protection in innumerable court cases. While admittedly a touchy subject, many defenders (including the ACLU) of the right to burn the flag point out that the act itself is a testament to its symbolic value. Madnick has a slightly different angle: "By passing that law, they are essentially saying that the freedom to express one's political views is no longer protected by the Constitution."

Perhaps the most startling reality concerning government regulation comes not from any particular law, but from their sum. According to libertarian author James Bovard's 1995 Lost Rights, Americans today must comply with 30 times as many laws as were on the books at the start of the century.

Madnick says he sees danger on the horizon, and in the foreground: disinterest and blind trust on the part of the general public. "Too much of the policy in this country comes from the top down," he says. "There's a natural tendency of government to gather power unto itself."

Yet his voice betrays not a hint of paranoia. If anything, Madnick sounds a bit weary: "We've been here for a long time, and we'll continue to be here, doing our best to preserve basic personal rights and freedoms."

OF COURSE, MOST OF Madnick's efforts take place in Worcester County, and a typical, though sweltering, Wednesday afternoon in May is a great opportunity to see Madnick at work.

At four o'clock (and after a full day at the office), Madnick makes an appearance on local activist Delanot Bastien's WCUW radio program (Voice to the Voiceless) to discuss racial profiling, a growing practice, critics say, among police nationwide, in which skin color factors in traffic stops. Madnick speaks with urgency, partly due to the serious nature of the topic, but also because the clock is ticking; he's late for a downtown conference where he's scheduled to speak about the city's Human Rights Commission.

Madnick is so late, in fact, he does what you might think is the unspeakable: an illegal U-turn on a traffic-choked Main Street. It does cross this spectator's mind to point out the irony. But late is late.

Back at CUW, Bastien relays why he has so much respect for Madnick. "He is out there doing it for everybody and in a positive way." Some years ago, Bastien himself sought out Madnick's help, by way of a police brutality claim against the Worcester Police Department.

One would expect Madnick's colleagues, and activists like Bastien, to support him, but even law enforcement officials, those who Madnick has butted heads with in the past, offer praise. County Sheriff John Flynn, for one, says that while he and Madnick "have had their differences in the past, Ron's always been a gentleman." By "differences," of course, Flynn refers to a successful ACLU lawsuit filed against the Worcester County Jail and six of its officers after five of the jail guards pleaded guilty to masterminding the assault of inmate Michael Corrazini; the suit was settled in 1997.

And by all accounts, Madnick's chapter enjoys an excellent relationship -- or, at least, a more productive one than the Telegram & Gazette -- with the beleaguered local police department. The department is under siege for refusing to release unedited copies of citizen complaints (see "Cents and sensibility," July 30), though other departments, including Fitchburg's and Leominster's, have made the records available to the public.

Though relations with the public and Worcester police have been strained for years, Madnick's dealings with police (despite his arrest, in 1994, for reading and taking notes in court) have remained civil.

"We sat down several years ago to discuss where each side stood," says Chief Ed Gardella. "And we came to a very good understanding, I think. Ron can do more with a single letter than with a dozen angry phone calls."

One recent example is the flap over the police Web site, on which photos of suspected prostitutes and johns were displayed prior to their conviction. After Madnick sent a letter of protest to Gardella, the Web page was quietly shut down.

But Madnick has not been without his detractors, however few. Probably the most protracted and public confrontations came during his dealings with former city clerk Robert O'Keefe, well-known for his vise-like adherence to the rulebook. "They [ACLU] think that if they want it, you've got to do it. . . . They want to change policy, without going to the legislature and changing the law," says O'Keefe, who retired as city clerk but maintains a private law practice in Worcester.

O'Keefe says one of his most heated battles with Madnick occurred during the mid-1970s, when the ACLU attempted to provide voter registration forms at the local welfare office. "The office was a block away. There was no provision in the law saying we had to, or even that we had any right to do that," says O'Keefe. "They filed their case, they lost, they appealed, they lost, they appealed again, and they lost."

O'Keefe insists he holds no grudge toward Madnick. But it is apparent that he doesn't like his attitude. "I'm a lawyer. He [Madnick] might be able to teach in the public schools, but he's not going to dictate the law to me."

Critics aside, Madnick has been quite successful.

In the early '80s, he mediated a dispute between the then-owners of the Worcester Center Galleria (now Common Outlets) and Operation Fair Share, which wanted to hold a petition drive inside the mall.

Then there was the Worcester County Jail case, which, Madnick says, "sent a message. The message that you can't just use your authority to silence someone."

But the chapter has also seen crushing defeats, the most recent and most notable of which was Fitchburg's notorious "ninja case," where masked, heavily armed members of the city's SWAT team rousted a group of minority youths for breaking the local loitering ordinance.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit, litigated by Fitchburg attorney John Bosk, in 1994 on behalf of nine of the teens. But in June, the US Appeals Court ruled in favor of the police. "There was just no way we could have avoided that case," says Madnick. "We cannot have unmarked vans with no lights on [as it was alleged in court] full of masked police officers roaming the streets in the United States. . . . We were hoping that some judge would be outraged by what happened. They weren't."

But it is obvious that Madnick is outraged, both by the initial injustice and by the indifference demonstrated by the court. Perhaps it is that quality, that fiery sort of conviction, that has brought him his success.

Madnick, though, won't be around forever. He plans to retire by age 70, and no successor is in sight. Like his colleagues on the legal panel, Madnick is a bit nervous about the future of the chapter after he signs off.

"I've brought [the chapter] to a plateau. It may be up to someone else to take it to another level."

For even after Madnick retires, there's no indication that threats to our civil liberties, at the local and national level, will abate -- especially if people aren't paying attention.