One of the reasons I came close to defending the ACLU recently is that I like to think that when the chips are down and government rides roughshod over people's constitutional rights, the ACLU can at least be counted on to do something. (Even if it's just making a little noise in the press.)

In New Orleans, the doctrine of "A Man's Home is His Castle" has been completely abrogated and the government is removing people from their houses with force. Now they are additionally using force to take away their lawfully owned firearms. (Via Glenn Reynolds, who also links to Cam Edwards and Eugene Volokh.) It would be bad enough if this had been done -- under an emergency theory -- to save people from Hurricane Katrina, but instead, the government forces waited until it was safe for them to enter, and only then decided to use force to remove people from their homes.

After, not before the emergency. Am I alone in thinking something is a little anomalous in the fact that nothing was done to evacuate these people in time to save them from the hurricane, but once that had past, the levees repaired and the water pumped out, only then was it time for door-to-door "rescue" -- at gunpoint?

If this doesn't raise eyebrows of those normally in the business of defending constitutional rights, I don't know what will.

Expecting to see some denunciation of these wholesale Fourth Amendment violations, I just visited the ACLU's web site, and I see nothing. Nothing about the illegal entries and searches without warrants. Nothing about confiscation of legal firearms without warrants or due process. Nada.

They're kvetching about Roberts while expressing regrets on Rehnquist's passing, so it's not as if they're not updating the site.

Should I look again tomorrow?

Or is this another example of the ACLU's Second Amendment recalcitrance? Well, OK, suppose we give them the benefit of the doubt, and chalk it up to the fact that many of their contributors hate guns. What about the Fourth Amendment?

If the ACLU has given up on the Fourth Amendment in addition to the Second, I'd say we're all in trouble.

MORE (09/08/05): Via CNN, I'm now seeing conflicting reports about whether people are in fact being forcibly removed. An Louisiana official [Lt. Gov. Landrieu] is denying it despite the evidence.

(That video footage of the elderly woman being tackled is rather tough to deny, I'd say...)

UPDATE (09/09/05): Still nothing at the ACLU website. However, Glenn Reynolds links to Dave Kopel, who just completely nails New Orleans Police Superintendant Edwin Compass (who declared without authority that "No one is allowed to be armed" and "We're going to take all the guns") -- along with anyone assisting his illegal orders:

The Compass order appears to be plainly illegal. Under section 1983 of the federal Civil Rights law, any government employee who assists in the illegal confiscation would appear to be personally liable to a civil lawsuit. Moreover, higher-ranking officials--such as the National Guard officers who have ordered their troops to participate in the confiscation--would seem to be proper subjects for impeachment or other removal from office (and attendant forfeiture of pensions), depending on the procedures of their particular state.

All police officers, National Guard troops, and U.S. Marshals take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws. It appears that carrying out an illegal order to confiscate lawfully-owned firearms from homes would be inconsistent with the oath, contrary to sworn duty, and perhaps a criminal act.

First they ordered a mandatory evacuation which they failed to carry out despite a huge yard full of perfectly good buses. Next, when people were flooded and desperate, they were not allowed to leave the city and the Red Cross was prevented from helping them. Finally, with the water pumped out and the emergency beginning to subside, residents are forced to leave and subject to illegal door to door searches and illegal firearm confiscation. I hate to sound so cynical, but with government actions like these, who needs hurricanes?

And where was the ACLU?