Welcome, ACLU

I&#x27;ve been a long time supporter of the ACLU. While they&#x27;re being politicized right now as being anti-Trump, the thing I admire most about them is their consistency in fighting for the rights of everyone. They stick to their principles of free speech and human equality no matter how unpopular the issue or unsavory their client.<p>A good example is back in the 1930s when the ACLU simultaneously defended the rights of blacks on behalf of the NAACP at the same time as they were fighting for the rights of the Klu Klux Klan to hold rallies calling for the abolition of those rights.<p>The strength of your convictions are only tested at the extremes. Do you still believe in free speech when it&#x27;s coming from neo-Nazis? The ACLU do and I deeply respect them for that.

It upsets me to read negative comments about initiatives like this. My assumption is that most people agree that it&#x27;d be good for the ACLU to have more funding and to operate in a more efficient, higher leverage manner. If YC can help with that, great! They could be backing other areas instead, or they could be backing nothing. I, for one, am glad they&#x27;re backing something good.<p>I don&#x27;t understand why people often bring up other areas where private money and resources could have gone. When someone says &quot;I support X&quot; (e.g. X = ACLU), they are not saying &quot;I don&#x27;t support anything that&#x27;s not X.&quot; They are just saying they care about X. If <i>you</i> would prefer to donate your time and resources to another cause, that&#x27;s great! I&#x27;m sure you&#x27;d be disappointed if you dedicated yourself to curing diabetes and someone complained because they thought cancer research should be higher priority, or if you offered to hire 10k refugees around the world and people suggested a boycott because they preferred that you hire Americans instead.<p>Let&#x27;s not discourage people from trying to make the world better.

I don&#x27;t know exactly what this means, as the implementation details are hazy, but if this entails substantial support to the ACLU (in terms of lawyers, money, or both), then that is awesome. I donated to the ACLU yesterday and I&#x27;m encouraging everyone I know to do the same.

Does YC have a page of their particular positions on various political matters which guides their decisions on which non-profits to support and which ones not to? I&#x27;m genuinely interested in reading a &quot;platform&quot; as it were on what YC believes and is willing to support.

&quot;The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.&quot; - F. Scott Fitzgerald<p>So between Peter Thiel and the ACLU, I think we have some 1st rate minds at YC.

Thank you YC. Thank you all so much. On this particular issue, I do not think it is worth engaging with people about its merit or timing. This is a critical moment in history and you are doing something. The velocity of decision-making in the oval office means we literally don&#x27;t have time to sit down with the cynics right now.

I used to be an ACLU supporter, but stopped after their main objectives switched to more of what I describe as matters of <i>feelings</i>, E.g., whether a man who identifies as a women can use a women&#x27;s bathroom in Georgia, or whether the term man or women can ever be used at all. In my opinion most the ACLU LGBT agenda has been a useless war on <i>words</i>, yet it&#x27;s taking on a greater and greater importance in the organization.<p>Meanwhile constitutionally-guaranteed personal liberties, such as protection against unreasonable search and seizure, seemed to be getting less and less important.<p>Instead I&#x27;ve switched to funding the EFF, which really does seem at the forefront of constitutional freedoms because it&#x27;s operating in an area where they are seriously under attack. In the grand scheme of things the EFF seems to be doing much more important and historically relevant work.

This is very timely. In particular, I was happy to see the appeal for help from engineers. I&#x27;ve been brainstorming for the last couple of days about what more I can do to defend the America I want to live in, now that it seems clear that such defense will be necessary. But as a programmer, it&#x27;s not obvious to me what is the best way for me to do so in the immediate term.<p>One of the things that&#x27;s appealing to me about the ACLU in particular is the bipartisan nature of their mission. I&#x27;m sure that there are other such organizations out there looking for engineers to help out. Does anyone have such a list?<p>EDIT: here are some, from brandonb&#x27;s response elsewhere in this comment thread: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13532281" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13532281</a>

Heads-up: This going to be a long-ish, semi-OT rant:<p>To be honest, I feel kind of dumb these days. How I <i>hate</i> admitting that.<p>I read all the outrageous things Trump said during the Primaries and his election campaign, and I did not really take them seriously, or him. Otto von Bismarck, a German politician once said (or at least I&#x27;ve seen the quote attributed to him, but it seems like something he would say): &quot;People never lie as much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.&quot; I was hoping that if he got elected, Trump would turn it down a notch. I mean, <i>damn</i>, for once a politician does as she&#x2F;he promised to, and it&#x27;s gotta be <i>this</i> guy.<p>What makes me feel dumb is <i>that I could have seen it coming</i>. There&#x27;s enough people that said so. Smart people, smarter than me, certainly. I hate pulling a Godwin, but I fear lots of people in Germany must have felt like this after you-know-who rose to power. It&#x27;s scary.<p>And I am a German, living in Germany. Let me point out, as an example, that guy in Hungary, whose name I keep forgetting. Hungary is <i>much</i> closer than any US territory (unless you count the military bases in Germany), and quite frankly, I don&#x27;t really give a damn who is president of Hungary. Or prime minister or whatever.<p>With the USA, it is different. They are the most powerful country on earth, for better or worse. The risk of a military confrontation with Russia is going to be a lot lower than with Hillary, I think. But that seems to be about the only glimmer of hope[1]. Besides that, Trump turns out to be <i>even more</i> disgusting than I would have expected.<p>Y Combinator got quite a bit of flak when Peter Thiel donated more money to Trump&#x27;s campaign than some people make in a lifetime, and with good reason, IMHO. So at least it&#x27;s good to read about this. I hope the ACLU makes the best of this and makes life as uncomfortable for Trump and his circle of &quot;advisors&quot; as they are able to within the boundaries laid down in the US constitution.<p>The world has seen much worse people than Trump come and go, and in the long run it&#x27;s all water under the bridge. But in the short run, people have suffered and died in quantities that boggle the mind. Let&#x27;s hope the world gets lucky this time.<p>[1] &#x27;bout the only other positive aspect I can make out right now is that reading the news is not going to get boring anytime soon.

Pre-inauguration, discussion of Trump&#x27;s immigration policies and their logical conclusion would have been shut down under the &quot;no politics&quot; rule.<p>Seems it only takes ~10 days of this stuff being real for folks here to admit that politics affects everybody and is a valid topic of discussion.

People who want to use their tech and coding skills to enable and enact progressive change should consider getting involved in the ProgressiveCodersNetwork (Progcode)[0]. They are a dedicated organization that is all about facilitating and organizing efforts, not dictating projects.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;progcode.co" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;progcode.co</a>

Peter Thiel insists that the immigration EO is does not constitute a religious ban [1], but Rudy Giuliani says this is exactly what the President asked for [2] (Also, we heard him say as much many, many times).<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;ryanmac&#x2F;2017&#x2F;01&#x2F;28&#x2F;peter-thiel-says-immigration-order-does-not-constitute-a-religious-test&#x2F;#41bb68a63795" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;ryanmac&#x2F;2017&#x2F;01&#x2F;28&#x2F;peter-thiel-s...</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehill.com&#x2F;homenews&#x2F;administration&#x2F;316726-giuliani-trump-asked-me-how-to-do-a-muslim-ban-legally" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehill.com&#x2F;homenews&#x2F;administration&#x2F;316726-giuliani-t...</a>

I am sure this is a good thing, but I can&#x27;t help but feel that YC is overcompensating for the fact that one of their partners played a pivotal role in Trump&#x27;s victory and they did nothing to oppose it.<p>But then again, maybe I am just cynical.

The ACLU defended a Republican city councilor in my parent&#x27;s small home town for having his signs taken down by the Democratic mayor. You wouldn&#x27;t think they&#x27;d even notice such a tiny thing, but they were there, and they won.

How do startups already part of YC feel about this? What are the ramifications of having your name tied with and being part of an organization that backed something that has as much to do, if not more, with politics than technology?

I feel the pain of the underprivileged americans, in particular our African-American brothers and sisters. However, there is a difference however between the top leadership of our country making explicit decisions to pass legislation to exclude groups of people that is at odds with the constitution and established legislation, and local government and law enforcement running cities in an unfair way.<p>ACLU is valuable in both situations, but in particular to fight the current executive branch that requires massive manpower, knowledge and dedication.

Politics aside, the ACLU is experiencing hyper growth. They received the equivalent of six years of donations in 48 hours. I&#x27;m interested in seeing how YC helps them.

Does the ACLU have any new product&#x2F;entrepreneurial goals for the future? Without, it would seem this is a somewhat unusual association.

Technical issue with the Wufoo form [0]: on iOS Chrome, the input fields somehow end up triggering autofill with first name &#x2F; last name. The second field is for email address, not last name, however.<p>Looking at the source, the best I can come up with is that the email field&#x27;s &#x27;id&#x27; attribute is set to &#x27;title2&#x27;, and maybe that&#x27;s used elsewhere on the internet in a context where I&#x27;ve entered a last name?<p>Also, when I hit &#x27;back&#x27; and corrected the name, the submit button became a (clickable) no-op. Reloading the form and re-submitting worked fine.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com&#x2F;forms&#x2F;q42uszl19i1mu6&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com&#x2F;forms&#x2F;q42uszl19i1mu6&#x2F;</a>

So when did YC decide to do this? Was it in the works for a while or purely knee jerk response to the past week?

I remember when HN did not have a political agenda. Right or wrong, this used to be mainly about startups. Now its become a highly political message board

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;8Liu7" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;8Liu7</a> for anyone having trouble loading the page

The ACLU was founded in 1920. It seems wierd to include it in a YC batch.

This would be a lot easier for me to digest if YC could ask their companies going forward to pledge to treat all user data as PII.

Any word on whether or not this was planned, or is this a reaction to recent events? If the latter, then I can&#x27;t help but feel that this is just politically conveninent. The alternative is worse (not giving any funding), but hey, I feel what I feel.

I hope they build their startup into a large independent entity and don&#x27;t just accept the first acquisition offer they get from Google or Facebook.

&quot;This is awesome, good luck!&quot; or something similarly supportive should be the bulk of comments in here. Cynicism for something like this, especially given the time we&#x27;re in, is not helpful.

How long till Peter Thiel breaks ties with y-combinator?

What will they present at Demo Day?<p>Not that I&#x27;m against helping the ACLU (or any non-profit for that matter), but they don&#x27;t seem like a good fit, as an organization, to an accelerator of tech startups - it&#x27;s not entrepreneurial, not technology oriented, far older then YC and doesn&#x27;t seek (and can&#x27;t really accept) VC funding.

Great job! I am Canadian and donated to ACLU this weekend. Fantastic decision, guys.

Why is Ycombinator involved in politics now? This didn&#x27;t used to be the case.

I applaud anyone supporting the ACLU, but perhaps it would send a less partisan message if the YC also supported the NRA.<p>Of course, YC may <i>intend</i> to send a partisan message. In that case I guess it&#x27;s better to only defend the rights that &lt;ingroup&gt; are interested in defending.

Was this association in the works before the events of last weekend?

Happy to hear this! I just became an ACLU member yesterday and I&#x27;m grateful to have an organization like them around in our current frightening times. The amount of support they&#x27;ve been getting is pretty awesome! :)

Why, oh why, has this been posted here? Is there possibly a single institution that serves as more of a lightning rod for anger in the USA, in any political direction, than the ACLU? Would a similar article be posted about the NRA, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, or Southern Poverty Law Center (all which, along with ACLU, do excellent work for their contributors&#x2F;supporters)?<p>From the ycombinator Hacker News Guidelines at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a><p>&quot;Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they&#x27;re evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.&quot; What part of &quot;politics&quot; is this not?<p>This topic now is yet another gathering point for all unhappy with the election results. Perhaps this forum will allow those discontents to vent to sufficient degree to restore themselves to adulthood and return to their work, home and friends with a more balanced attitude required of a citizen in a republic. But I fear it will simply be another place for them to reinforce their anger and distrust. It&#x27;s probably a good thing that liberals, in general, avoid firearms, otherwise there might be fighting in the streets already.

&gt; Also, please consider donating to the ACLU.<p>Am I the only one seeing irony that a billionaires VC firm is asking for donations to organization they are funding?

Signed up to help. If you are serious about helping, I urge you to do so as well.

Is this the first time ycombinator.com has funded a group involved in politics?

sama, I hope you will consider temporarily withdrawing YC&#x27;s involvement (as an entity) with the ACLU.<p>I know that you mean well, and that you want to help. Your work on voteplz, and your blog posts during the election (and since) all demonstrate that.<p>However, this announcement -- especially now, with the ACLU raising $24 million over the weekend -- feels like &quot;whitewashing&quot; to me. The announcement lacks a number for the amount funded, so it must not have been big enough to be material (probably $XX,000).<p>I am not comfortable with Peter Thiel&#x27;s involvement with the Trump campaign. And, by extension, I am not comfortable with sama&#x27;s and YC&#x27;s position to continue working with Thiel. I don&#x27;t feel safe, given the current political environment. I feel like this announcement sounds like a way to &quot;make up&quot; for not cutting ties with Thiel. Basically, it looks like a PR move in YC&#x27;s interest instead of the ACLU&#x27;s interest -- something like the Ronald McDonald charity, or Google donating Chromebooks to schools, or an oil company donating to a charity that replants the rainforest. I worry that many others (especially immigrants, women, and people of color) may feel the same way.<p>I don&#x27;t expect sama or YC to cut ties with Thiel -- sama has already given reasons why he doesn&#x27;t wish to: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;sama&#x2F;status&#x2F;787834428064083968" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;sama&#x2F;status&#x2F;787834428064083968</a><p>But I believe that, so long as Thiel continues to be involved with YC, that YC being associated with the ACLU will harm the ACLU, its brand, and its ability to fundraise. And -- even with the brightest minds in SV -- I&#x27;m not confident in YC&#x27;s ability to help the ACLU enough to offset that harm.<p>I really wish that I didn&#x27;t feel this way about the announcement. We really need to be working together to fight to protect our democracy.<p>(Edit: Rewrote they -&gt; I in Paragraph 4.)

This is very welcome news, even if it won&#x27;t go over well with the large number of authoritarians here.

The article is short of details and I am curious what ycombinator will contribute to the ACLU other than capital (networking? , constructive criticism ) ? It doesn&#x27;t fit the previous nonprofits since it is well established.

I see SV and its ilk are doubling down on the actions and ideas that lost them the election. Perhaps something beyond a knee-jerk reaction is in order.<p>Great article along these lines: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.spectator.co.uk&#x2F;2017&#x2F;01&#x2F;nine-questions-protesting-donald-trumps-immigration-ban-must-answer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.spectator.co.uk&#x2F;2017&#x2F;01&#x2F;nine-questions-protesti...</a><p>Particularly salient quote:<p>&quot;If you decide that border restrictions are fascist then you are declaring the views of most people to be fascist, because most people believe in border security.&quot;<p>Food for thought.

Come on YC, glad you&#x27;re funding the ACLU and it&#x27;s much needed, but where is the response to the homelessness in San Francisco for example? We care more about refugees than people who already live here?! Too many companies are taking advantage of a bad situation for PR and marketing!

I have to wonder what YC&#x27;s exit strategy is here, exits not always benefiting the funded company.

&gt; Apache&#x2F;2.2.24 (Unix) mod_hive&#x2F;5.5 mod_ssl&#x2F;2.2.24 OpenSSL&#x2F;1.0.0-fips mod_auth_passthrough&#x2F;2.1 mod_bwlimited&#x2F;1.4 FrontPage&#x2F;5.0.2.2635 mod_fastcgi&#x2F;2.4.6 mod_fcgid&#x2F;2.3.6 Server at blog.ycombinator.com Port 443<p>Should probably hide this...

Especially now, it is very important to voice our concerns to our representatives. I&#x27;ve found <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mailyourrep.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mailyourrep.io&#x2F;</a> to be really good at letting me do just that.

I wish the union had a refund policy, though I would be litigated and defamed for eternity

I appreciate the ACLU. They make it easy for me to vote. Every election I go through the voting booklet to see how the ACLU recommends I vote on candidates and issues, then I vote the opposite.

Thank you, YC! Hopefully your contribution outweighs the money Peter Thiel has made from his investments at YC so that there&#x27;s a net gain for human rights and civil liberties.

I&#x27;ll have more to say after work, but the timeline itself of tech companies&#x27; actions is telling.<p>First&#x2F;day one (and same day as Muslim ban): The companies and people that actually cared stood up (Google)<p>Day Two+: Transition Period (when Lyft rushed in to capitalize on Uber&#x27;s bad PR)<p>mid-this week (after Muslim ban): The companies that are pressured into doing so or are solely after PR karma stand up (Bezos, YC)

I have debated myself but did not donate the ACLU this weekend. (I did donate to the Victoria Islamic Center Rebuilding though.) I hate to be right. Working with an organization where Peter Thiel is a partner is a betrayal of everything the ACLU stands for.

Sam - I&#x27;m very proud of you and your team.

How much money do non-profits get?

A standing ovation for Ycombinator.May the grace and bless of God be with you all.Keep up the good work.

Simply, Thank You!

Site&#x27;s intermittent. Here&#x27;s a copy:<p>We are delighted to be funding the ACLU as a non-profit[0] in our Winter 2017 batch.<p>The ACLU has always been important, but has a particularly important role[1] right now. We are honored to be able to help, and we will send some of our team to New York for the rest of the batch to assist.<p>The ACLU will have full access to the Y Combinator network and community, and they will present at Demo Day in March.<p>We are hopeful that the YC community will join us in supporting this important work. In particular, if you’re an engineer and want to spend some time helping them out, let us know.[2] We’ll keep you updated on opportunities.<p>Also, please consider donating to the ACLU.[3]<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ycombinator.com&#x2F;nonprofits&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ycombinator.com&#x2F;nonprofits&#x2F;</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;speak-freely&#x2F;president-trumps-first-week-aclu-hands-him-first-stinging-rebuke" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;speak-freely&#x2F;president-trumps-firs...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com&#x2F;forms&#x2F;q42uszl19i1mu6&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com&#x2F;forms&#x2F;q42uszl19i1mu6&#x2F;</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;action.aclu.org&#x2F;secure&#x2F;donate-to-aclu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;action.aclu.org&#x2F;secure&#x2F;donate-to-aclu</a>

I see an error message. But it&#x27;s actually interesting enough: &quot;Apache&#x2F;2.2.24 (Unix) mod_hive&#x2F;5.5 mod_ssl&#x2F;2.2.24 OpenSSL&#x2F;1.0.0-fips mod_auth_passthrough&#x2F;2.1 mod_bwlimited&#x2F;1.4 FrontPage&#x2F;5.0.2.2635 mod_fastcgi&#x2F;2.4.6 mod_fcgid&#x2F;2.3.6 Server at blog.ycombinator.com Port 443&quot;<p>This is all widely outdated. OpenSSL 1.0.0 support has ended in 2014. Running mod_fcgid and mod_fastcgi in the same server process doesn&#x27;t seem to make any sense (as they are basically competitioners for the same functionality).

There are quite a few comments by presumably more right wing people marked as dead here. Excluding these people from debate this way makes hacker news less useful IMO. Why not make constructive criticism instead of downvoting, I realise it&#x27;s easier...

So when we were dropping bombs on them it wasn&#x27;t worth making an official statement, but now that they get held up at the border for a few hours it&#x27;s suddenly worth talking about?<p>I can&#x27;t think of a case where the term &quot;Virtue Signaling&quot; is more apt.

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is incredibly valuable and I&#x27;m glad they have a lot more money now to fight for the American people, I&#x27;m questioning all of this.<p>Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Why weren&#x27;t we funding the ACLU to help these people? I haven&#x27;t seen Google talk about this, or AirBnB offer support to widows of veterans whose spouse commits suicide and has left them with nothing.<p>I feel for immigrants from war-torn countries, especially having been there myself. Maybe I&#x27;m too cynical and look at these moves (AirBnB, Uber, Google, etc...) as marketing moves. I wish we cared more about homeless people, people in West Virginia and Kentucky who have lost their jobs and got drenched in opiates without any protests from anybody, or veterans who can&#x27;t pay their VA bills. Idk.<p>I know this comment will be unpopular, and that&#x27;s ok. I tend to care more about those who I feel (whether true or not) are being left behind because that&#x27;s who I am.

The ACLU sometimes supports a worthy cause, but it&#x27;s basically just a left-leaning political organization. I understand that&#x27;s particularly trendy right now, and anyone who supports Trump is a pariah in Silicon Valley... but come on.<p>Would YC be donating directly to the Democratic party if that got the same favorable tax treatment?

This is great news. The ACLU has always been important, and is even more important right now as the disregard for civil liberties continues to grow in our government (at all levels including federal, state and local.)<p>I set up a monthly donation to the ACLU last year, and encourage everyone who can afford to do so to join in.<p>EDIT: Clarify wording.

500 Internal Server Error

503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

I keep getting an error message when I load the page.

I thought the &quot;A&quot; in ACLU stood for American.

Anybody who wants to have a balanced view of ACLU should try to investigate for himself about the connections between the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization with a published goal to dismantle democracy once it democratically gains enough power, and ACLU.