After the September 11th attacks, Romero launched a national campaign called "Keep America Safe and Free" to protect American civil liberties and basic freedoms during a time of crisis in the United States. The campaign successfully targeted the Patriot Act, achieving a number of court victories, and uncovered hundreds of thousands of documents detailing the illegal torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. As a result of their successful court challenge to elements of the Patriot Act, the ACLU also forced the FBI to open files it had on antiwar groups, including the ACLU itself. Further, under Romero's leadership, the ACLU became the first organization to successfully file a legal challenge to the Bush administration's illegal National Security Agency (NSA) spying program. Shortly thereafter, Romero helped to establish the John Adams Project, in collaboration with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to assist the under-resourced military defense lawyers in the Guantanamo military commissions. Referring to the August 17, 2006, federal court declaration that the Terrorist Surveillance Program was unconstitutional, Romero called the court's opinion "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in the War on Terror". Discussing the Bush administration, Romero said that the "eight years of President Bush will go down in history as one of the darkest moments in America's commitment to human rights".