A website called Stop the ACLU notes the following:

In October of 2004, the ACLU turned down $1.15 million in funding from two of it’s most generous and loyal contributors, the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, saying new anti-terrorism restrictions demanded by the institutions make it unable to accept their funds.

“The Ford Foundation now bars recipients of its funds from engaging in any activity that “promotes violence, terrorism, bigotry, or the destruction of any state.”

The Rockefeller Foundation’s provisions state that recipients of its funds may not “directly or indirectly engage in, promote, or support other organizations or individuals who engage in or promote terrorist activity.”

Sounds damning, no? The same site then notes this article:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said today it will no longer accept funding from the United Way so as not to complete a required counterterrorism compliance form.

At issue is a counterterrorism form the ACLU believes can be intrusive on individual liberties. The form requires agencies to comply with the U.S. Patriot Act by assuring they are not involved with anyone on a federal terrorism watch list.

Did you catch that last line? This is a PATRIOT provision. Rockefeller, Ford, and the United Way have no choice but to comply, which means that by law they have to make all of their grant recipients promise they have no contacts with anyone on the watch list. The ACLU isn’t ready to make such a promise, because the ACLU represents people on the watch list. And thank goodness they do. The watch list is a joke. Read this guy’s story, for example. Hell, even the FBI has conceded the Watch List is riddled with errors, including the names of people who oughtn’t be on it. A report issued last June by the Inspector General concluded that four years later, the Watch List is still a disaster.

Cherry-picking langauge from the Ford and Rockefeller compliance provisions to make the ACLU look like an acompolice to terrorism is pretty sleazy chicanery. You can oppose, advocate against, and work to put an end to a sloppy, error-prone government program that strips innocent people of privileges without being in bed with al-Qaeda.

There are lots of legitimate reasons to levy criticism at the ACLU. But stop this asinine treason business.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 at 5:09 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.