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Originally Posted by alansmithee
I don't think the ACLU is one to be criticizing anyone about data collection practices:
Two members of the ACLU board decided to speak out about their actions, and were threatened with being expelled for trying to tell people. These are definately people I want defending free speech  .
The above is part of the transcript of the interview where one of the board members appeared on Bill O'Reiley's show.
I personally think the ACLU is one of the most destructive forces currently opperating in the country. They don't defend free speech, they defend speech that agrees ideologically with their agenda. If Falwell is trying to build up an organization to counteract the ACLU's heinous influence, that makes him a hero in my book. |
Would you make an effort to back your vitriol of the ACLU with some references that you believe are difficult to impeach?
So...the ACLU loses the small amount of credibility and worthiness that you,
(I am assuming) credited it with before "fair and balanced" O'Reiley covered this ACLU controversey on his show ? )
The following NYTimes report of the controversey you cited is more detailed:
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<a href="http://www.gatorsports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050121/ZNYT02/501210312">http://www.gatorsports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050121/ZNYT02/501210312</a>
January 21. 2005 6:01AM
A.C.L.U. Will Consider Disciplining 2 Officials
New York Times
The American Civil Liberties Union, which since its inception has fought to protect free speech rights, is scheduled to begin a debate today over whether to discipline - or potentially move to oust - two board members for speaking to reporters.
he executive committee of the A.C.L.U. board will discuss whether Wendy Kaminer and Michael Meyers have acted inappropriately as board members. The two have criticized some actions by the executive director, Anthony D. Romero, and the executive committee for what they said was a failure to provide proper oversight.
adine Strossen, president of the A.C.L.U., wrote in an e-mail message responding to a reporter's questions that the subject was added to the committee's agenda at the request of its Oregon affiliate. The committee will then decide whether the entire board should address it over the weekend at its quarterly meeting.
"To the best of my knowledge, no current board member supports implementing any such proceedings, and I am aware of many board members who responded by expressing their strong opposition to the idea," Ms. Strossen wrote. "We will discuss the idea, but I predict that it will be resoundingly rejected."
n a Dec. 28 letter, Catherine S. Travis, a lawyer who sits on the board of the A.C.L.U. affiliate in Oregon, recommended that the board consider suspending or removing Mr. Meyers and Ms. Kaminer, saying that they had violated their fiduciary responsibilities by talking to reporters about matters she called confidential.
"Appropriate corrective action must be taken now to avoid further incidents that can only impede the organization's ability to meet the unprecedented challenges to civil liberties we face at this critical juncture," Ms. Travis wrote.
...................he most recent criticism has been about the collection of information on donors. A consultant who previously helped gather data for the group offered The New York Times a spreadsheet from July 2001 containing information about 1,027 of its wealthiest donors, including their net worth, stock holdings and past contributions to the organization.
r. Romero said he was furious about the disclosure and would consider legal recourse. "We are outraged and appalled that this information was stolen from the A.C.L.U.," he said.
he A.C.L.U. contends that it is doing what many large nonprofits do to enhance their fund-raising activities, that its current practices are not substantially different from its past practices and that all the information it obtains is publicly available and protected by confidentiality agreements with its consultants.
he list came from Doug Erpf, who worked in the A.C.L.U.'s fund-raising office from July 2001 to July 2002 as an employee of Community Counselling Service, a consulting group hired to work on the organization's endowment campaign.
e said the spreadsheet demonstrated that the A.C.L.U.'s current research was not significantly different from what it had done in the past. "The A.C.L.U. isn't doing anything inappropriate in its research," Mr. Erpf said, adding that he did not have any direct knowledge of current data collection.
ommunity Counselling said Mr. Erpf had violated the terms of a confidentiality agreement.
r. Erpf acknowledged that he had signed a confidentiality agreement with his employer at the time but said he had done nothing wrong. "It was on my computer," he said. "I just thought it would be of use to you just as a generic point of comparison."
everal donors whose names appeared on the spreadsheet said they were concerned the list had slipped out to a reporter. But they expected information to remain confidential in the future.
"I'm not concerned that the A.C.L.U. might be doing normal development-type research, and I think that all nonprofits should treat any information they gather as confidential and use it only for their own internal purposes," said Warren J. Spector, president and co-chief operating officer of the Bear Stearns Companies.
arold W. Kuhn, a professor emeritus of mathematics at Princeton and A.C.L.U. member, said he had no concerns about the spreadsheet and believed The New York Times had "sensationalized" the issue.
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Who do you want defending free speech, if you are of the opinion that the ACLU has a record of being inadequate to the task ?
Will reports like this one exist without the ACLU representing OUR right to
know ?
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33178-2005Feb17.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33178-2005Feb17.html</a>
The American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the new documents under a court order compelling the Army to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request filed with four other organizations, said in a statement that they show military abuses were widespread.
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Are you more apt to believe accusations of wrongdoing aimed at the ACLU than you are when the accusations are aimed at Bush or his administration? Do you hold the entire Bush government culpable for the acts of some of it's cabinet or executives? When Paul O'neill and Richard Clarke wrote their "tell all" books containing criticism of Bush, was your reaction as negative as to cause you to "roll eyes", at the book's disclosures that an invasion of Iraq was high on Bush & Co.'s agenda well before 9/11, or that Clarke could not get his request for a high level meeting to discuss the Al Qaeda threat until 7 days before 9/11 ?
Doesn't the disparity between Bush's claim that the invasion of Iraq was actually to "spread freedom" and the information that ACLU foia suits uncovers, revealing a pattern of systemic torture and other abuse of Iraqis,
who presumedly were not yet found to be guilty of crime, by regular U.S. armed forces, give you cause to "roll eyes" ?
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-abuse18feb18,0,6352698.story?coll=la-home-headlines">http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-abuse18feb18,0,6352698.story?coll=la-home-headlines</a>
February 18, 2005
Afghan Photos Sparked Inquiry By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — In a case that echoes the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posed before cameras while threatening to shoot prisoners in the head, shoving a detainee into a wall and punching another inmate. The troops also mugged for "trophy shots" with the corpse of an enemy fighter who had invaded their camp last year.
According to military documents disclosed Thursday, the soldiers, fearing "another public outrage," destroyed many of the photos and video images after photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib were beamed around the world, resulting in widespread shock and criticism.
The remaining images were discovered by happenstance last year during the routine cleaning of a captain's office at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
The photos — apparently shot at a small base in the Central Asian country around the same time the abuses were occurring at the large Iraqi prison — triggered an Army investigation centering on soldiers from a platoon within the 22nd Infantry Battalion, 10th Mountain Division, based at Ft. Drum, N.Y. The inquiry led to preliminary charges against eight soldiers for dereliction of duty after the Army decided more serious assault charges would not hold up.
It was unclear, however, whether the eight were ever prosecuted or disciplined. It was also unclear whether charges were brought against supervising officers in Afghanistan who admitted they had ordered the destruction of many of the photos after the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted.....
..............Hundreds of pages of Army investigative records, made public Thursday as a result of a public records lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, recount interrogations of dozens of soldiers who were confronted with the photos. Most admitted to military investigators that they were posing in them. Many acknowledged that their behavior was wrong.
The documents are the latest indication of alleged U.S. military abuse of detainees in Afghanistan. Military investigators are probing a December 2002 incident in which two detainees died after being captured and beaten.......
.................<b>The ACLU also released documents Thursday detailing abuse investigations in Iraq involving alleged beatings of prisoners,</b> including evidence that two soldiers punched and kicked a prisoner at a roadblock. In another incident, a prisoner complained that nonuniformed Americans beat him on the head and stomach and broke his nose.
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Please explain how the ACLU fits your description of <b>"ACLU is one of the most destructive forces currently opperating in the country. They don't defend free speech, they defend speech that agrees ideologically with their agenda. If Falwell is trying to build up an organization to counteract the ACLU's heinous influence"</b>
alansmithee, is it your opinion that the ACLU foia suits of the U.S. Army are
activities consistant with your opinion of the ACLU? Do you think that the law students or the future graduates of Falwell's new law school will better represent the rights of the American people to the protections of the Bill of Rights or of holding the government to lawful compliance with the provisions of the FOIA? I consider your claims about the ACLU to be outrageously and inaccurately disparaging, especially as the events of the day leap out from the front pages of newspapers around the world with the story of the ACLU using the courts to enforce our right to know, even if we are too pathetically propagandized by our political and religious leaders to demand the accountability of our elected officials !
Limbaugh paid for the following PR.....he seems to hold the ACLU in higher
regard than you do, and he helps to refute some of your ACLU criticism.
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<a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/01-20-2005/0002865973&EDATE=">http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/01-20-2005/0002865973&EDATE=</a>
........The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has joined the case on Mr.
Limbaugh's side, saying it has entered the fray "to protect people against
unnecessary government intrusion into their medical records."
"Rush Limbaugh's celebrity status is secondary to the fundamental privacy
issues that arise in this case," ACLU of Florida Legal Director Randall
Marshall in a recent statement.........
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