After serving as the head of Vermont Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union for the past 12 years, Allen Gilbert will be stepping down this summer. Gilbert says the biggest issue during his tenure at the ACLU has been growing role of government surveillance in people's lives.
During Gilbert's tenure, the Vermont ACLU office added staff and took an active role in a number of issues at the Statehouse.
Over the past 12 years, the organization has been a strong advocate for same-sex marriage, it has opposed an expansion of DNA testing, it has fought against residency restrictions for convicted sex offenders and it has worked for greater government transparency and accountability.
Gilbert says there is one overarching issue that has been a major concern for his office over the past dozen years.
"How surveillance and privacy and the police role in our lives, government's role in our lives, has really grown," says Gilbert. "I think it was largely because of 9/11 — the terror attacks, and all the measures that were taken after that to try to get more information about people and prevent things from having happened."
Gilbert says the ACLU released a 2013 report that examined surveillance issues along the northern border of Vermont. The report's conclusion was that many privacy rights were being eroded.
"Where much more information is being gathered about us now than there was even 10 years ago and you put it all together it painted a different world that we are living in now than we were in 2004." — Allen Gilbert, head of Vermont chapter of the ACLU
"Where much more information is being gathered about us now than there was even 10 years ago and you put it all together it painted a different world that we are living in now than we were in 2004 when I started this job," Gilbert says. "And that's been an ongoing theme and I think it's going to continue to be over the foreseeable future."
During the 2016 legislative session, Gilbert says the ACLU urged lawmakers to pass a comprehensive privacy bill that restricted government access to personal electric communications and limited the use of law enforcement drones.
The bill, which won final approval, also addressed concerns with automatic license plate readers. Gilbert says he expects to stay on the job until at least July 1. The ACLU has launched a national search for his successor.
