An ACLU Cover-Up
Hentoff, Nat
Ashcroft Watch Nat Hentoff An ACLU Cover-Up A cloud has been cast on the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union, to whom I have been indebted for much of the initial research for these...
...The ACLU leadership has failed them-and the increasing numbers of ACLU members around the country-by engaging in a cover-up after it was exposed in a front page July 31 New York Times article...
...The essential work of the ACLU staff continues, but the ACLU affiliates could clear the air by asking pertinent questions of Romero, Strossen, and the national board...
...The board overwhelmingly rejected his motion...
...Adam Liptak, who specializes in legal matters for the Times, revealed that ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero signed in January a government certification that the ACLU would "not knowingly hire people whose names appear" on any of the terrorist watch lists promulgated by the Justice, State, and Treasury Departments, including a list required by the Attorney General's cherished Patriot Act...
...The ACLU has vigorously condemned, and filed lawsuits against, such lists...
...Ashcroft Watch Nat Hentoff An ACLU Cover-Up A cloud has been cast on the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union, to whom I have been indebted for much of the initial research for these columns...
...Said board member Wendy Kaminer to The New York Times: "This is like the Pope coming out for abortion rights...
...In an e-mail to the national board, Romero and Strossen then congratulated themselves on having created "a marked shift of the media's coverage" of this three-card monte game...
...But Mara Patermaster, director of the Combined Federal Campaign charity program, said that any organization signing the agreement, but not inspecting the watch lists, would be making "a false certification...
...Triumphantly, the ACLU announced on August 12 that having rejected the money, it had "created a coalition of more than a dozen nonprofits" to oppose this government's watch list requirement and has since sued the government over the list...
...For the first time, after years of calling on ACLU lawyers and other staff members on stories, I was blocked by the gag rule the next day, although one person managed to show me nonverbally how dismayed and ashamed of the leadership that person was...
...To begin its cover-up, Strossen emailed board members on the day of the Times story not to speak to the press but instead to refer reporters to the ACLU press office, which would later provide "talking points" for board members...
...Nat Hentoff is a columnist for The Village Voice, Free Inquiry, and The Progressive...
...After Romero had hastily announced in the Sunday Times that ACLU would reject the $500,000 expected this year, Kaminer said: "I fear if the Times had not gotten wind of this story, the ACLU would not [now] be rescinding this agreement...
...On August 1, on National Public Radio, Kaminer, one of the most spirited and independent civil libertarians I've ever known, spoke out...
...And I am told there are penalties for falsefiling...
...But there was no mention in the August 12 announcement that Romero had quietly signed the certification in January...
...She told the Times: "Do we do more harm than good by spurning money by certifying something that is plausible but not the only plausible interpretation...
...Romero's clever interpretation was that "the language is ambiguous...
...If he had refused to sign the agreement, the ACLU would have forfeited the nearly $500,000 it would get this year from the Combined Federal Campaign, a charity drive through which federal workers and military personnel give money to a wide range of causes...
...He is the author of "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance...
...The Times reported that ACLU President Nadine Strossen applauded Romero for his "very reasonable, certainly clever interpretation of the requirement...
...Neither the ACLU national board, nor any of the ACLU affiliates, knew about this action by Romero until early July...
...Romero's explanation for signing the agreement is that although he had printed out the lists of these purported terrorism suspects, he never intended to look at them...
...Then, at a national board meeting in San Francisco, Michael Meyers, a fiercely principled board member, offered a motion to rescind that certification...
Vol. 68 • October 2004 • No. 10
