We Are The Champions
Limiting free speech. Withholding vital information from the people who need to make decisions. The most secretive executive ever. Who do these words apply to?
On Friday an informal warning was delivered from the New York Attorney General's office to the executive committee of the ACLU that there were concerns with the proposed policy to limit speech by board members. The committee did not pass those warning on to the full board when the board met to debate the proposed rules.
The executive committee of the A.C.L.U. board was told about the warning on Friday, the day before the board met in New York for its quarterly meeting. Board members, who discussed the proposals on Saturday but took no action, had no knowledge of the warning and the meeting ended on Sunday without the executive committee revealing it.
"What if we had voted to approve the proposals?" said Wendy Kaminer, a board member who has criticized the proposals and other actions taken by the board and the A.C.L.U. leadership over the last couple of years. "We had a need and a right to know that if we passed them, we might get into trouble with the attorney general's office."
Nadine Strossen, the board president, confirmed in an e-mail message that "someone" in the attorney general's office had called in his personal capacity to tell the A.C.L.U. of concern about the issue and that the executive committee had discussed it.
"It determined that these details were not germane to the board's general discussion of the issues raised" in the report on the rights and responsibilities of board members that contained the controversial proposals, she wrote.
That would be free speech for thee, Nadine, but not for anyone else, right? Tell me again how you're saving us all from the bogymen.
UPDATE: Others: STACLU, Hot Air, Say Anything, Junk Yard Blog,
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Stop The ACLU — June 19, 2006 @ 5:16 am
By Don Surber, June 19, 2006 @ 7:33 am
(In Larry the Cable Guy voice): Now I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.
Old story, nice update. Chilling though. Who the hell is Spitzer to tell orgs what they can do? He works for the people of NY, not the other way around
By Gaius, June 19, 2006 @ 7:36 am
Yeah, it struck me as odd, but then the whole thing with the ACLU is odd, too.
By Black Jack, June 19, 2006 @ 2:40 pm
Not too odd when you recall the ACLU was founded by Roger Baldwin: Social activist, born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Baldwin taught sociology after graduation from Harvard, and was chief probation officer in St Louis, MO before serving prison time as a conscientious objector during World War 1. He was the director (1920–50) and national chairman of the ACLU.
In Baldwin’s own words, “I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.”
Contrary to the usual assumptions based on the ACLU’s name and PR, the organization exists to push the communist agenda, and has little or nothing at all to do with “civil rights.” That’s just the smokescreen they hide behind to bring in financial support and attract “useful idiots.”