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2006-05-24 Home Front: Culture Wars

ACLU: Freedom of Speech Does NOT Apply to Our Board

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Posted by Desert Blondie 2006-05-24 11:13|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Free speech for me, but not for thee!

Posted by DarthVader 2006-05-24 11:53|| 2006-05-24 11:53|| Front Page Top

#2 This is rich! Creme brulee, please.

Posted by 2b 2006-05-24 11:57|| 2006-05-24 11:57|| Front Page Top

#3 You're free to state any of our talking points>.

Posted by macofromoc 2006-05-24 11:59|| 2006-05-24 11:59|| Front Page Top

#4 "You sure that didn't come out of Dick Cheney's office?"

Oh my God!!! From the MAW OF HELL ITSELF!!!
This is very serious...

Posted by tu3031 2006-05-24 12:08|| 2006-05-24 12:08|| Front Page Top

#5 "Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising,"

And therein lies the objective - not civil liberties.

Posted by Fordesque 2006-05-24 12:23|| 2006-05-24 12:23|| Front Page Top

#6 Judy Miller,call your office. A 'senior ACLU administration official' wants to talk with you...

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2006-05-24 12:27|| 2006-05-24 12:27|| Front Page Top

#7 My thoughts, too, Ford. It's all about the money. "Remember, Gentlemen, we have to protect our phoney-baloney jobs".

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2006-05-24 12:28|| 2006-05-24 12:28|| Front Page Top

#8 Stephanie Strom, New York Times

She's gone after them before. For example, this...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/18/MNGCOADSEL1.DTL

The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has ignited a bitter debate over its leaders' commitment to privacy rights.

Some board members say the extensive data collection makes a mockery of the organization's frequent criticism of banks, corporations and government agencies for their practice of accumulating data on people for marketing and other purposes.

The issue has attracted the attention of the New York attorney general, who is looking into whether the group violated its promises to protect the privacy of its donors and members.

"It is part of the ACLU's mandate, part of its mission, to protect consumer privacy," said Wendy Kaminer, an ACLU board member. "It goes against ACLU values to engage in data-mining on people without informing them. It's not illegal, but it is a violation of our values. It is hypocrisy."

The organization has been shaken by infighting since May, when the board learned that Anthony Romero, its executive director, had registered the ACLU for a federal charity drive that required it to certify that it would not knowingly employ people whose names appeared on government terrorism watch lists.

A day after the New York Times disclosed its participation in late July, the organization withdrew from the charity drive and has since filed a lawsuit with other charities to contest the watch list requirement.

The group's new data collection practices were implemented without the board's approval or knowledge and were in violation of the ACLU's privacy policy at the time, according to Michael Meyers, vice president of the organization and a frequent internal critic. He said he had learned about the new research by accident Nov. 7 during a meeting of the committee that is organizing the group's Biennial Conference in July.

He objected to the practices, and the next day, the privacy policy on the group's Web site was changed. "They took out all the language that would show that they were violating their own policy," Meyers said. "In doing so, they sanctified their procedure while still keeping it secret."

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer appears to be asking the same questions. In a Dec. 3 letter, his office informed the ACLU that it was conducting an inquiry into whether the group had violated its promises to protect the privacy of donors and members.

Emily Whitfield, a spokeswoman for the ACLU, said the organization was confident that its efforts to protect donors' and members' privacy would withstand any scrutiny. "The ACLU certainly feels that data privacy is an extremely important issue, and we will of course work closely with the state attorney general's office to answer any and all questions they may have," she said.

Robert Remar, a member of the board and its smaller executive committee, said he did not think data collection practices had changed markedly. He recalled that the budget included more money to develop donors but said he did not know the specifics.

Remar said he did not know until this week that the organization was using an outside company to collect data or that collection had expanded from major donors to those who contribute as little as $20. "I don't know the details of how they do it, because that's not something a board member would be involved in," he said.

The process is no different than using Google for research, he said, emphasizing that the data firm hired by the ACLU, Grenzebach Glier & Associates, had a contractual obligation to keep information private.

Many nonprofit groups collect information about their donors to help their fund-raising, using technology to figure out people's giving patterns, net worth, health and other details that assist with more targeted pitches.

Because of its strong commitment to privacy rights, however, the ACLU has avoided the most modern techniques, according to minutes of its executive committee from three years ago. "What we did then wasn't very sophisticated because of our stance on privacy rights," said Ira Glasser, Romero's predecessor.

Glasser, who stepped down in 2001, said the organization had done some basic data collection on major donors and a ZIP code analysis of its membership for an endowment campaign while he was there. He said it had done research on Lexis/Nexis and might have looked at SEC filings.

Daniel Lowman, vice president for analytical services at Grenzebach, said that the software the ACLU is using, Prospect Explorer, combed a broad range of publicly available data to compile a file with such things as an individual's wealth, holdings in public corporations, other assets and philanthropic interests.

Meyers said he had learned on Nov. 7 that the ACLU's data collection practices went far beyond what was done previously.

"If I give the ACLU $20, I have not given them permission to investigate my partners, who I'm married to, what they do, what my real estate holdings are, what my wealth is and who else I give my money to," he said.

Jeez, you'd almost think you were dealing with... the NSA, or something...

Posted by tu3031 2006-05-24 12:47|| 2006-05-24 12:47|| Front Page Top

#9 Just another nail in their coffin.

Posted by Jairong Huping2360 2006-05-24 15:38|| 2006-05-24 15:38|| Front Page Top

#10 The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors

So the ACLU is using sophisticated data mining techiques, just like the NSA was? Only they are doing it for fundraising and the NSA was doing it for national security. What an important distinction!

The ACLU stifling free speech and data mining - how can ScrappleFace keep up?

Posted by SteveS 2006-05-24 17:18|| 2006-05-24 17:18|| Front Page Top

#11 Sniff, sniff, why it was only just yesterday that Lefty bloggers began referring to the Democrats as "Socialists" or "Conservative Socialists" - DARE THE PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERIKA/USA FOLLOW, fighting hard for those few seats on the [Amerikan] national and Global Politburo-Presidium which Russia-China never promised them???

Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-05-24 21:53|| 2006-05-24 21:53|| Front Page Top

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