Israel Matzav

ACLU helping raise money for Hamas

The ACLU has released a report and a video criticizing US government efforts to shut down terror-financing activities. The reason - you guessed it - is that the ACLU claims that efforts to shut down terror-financing activities disproportionately impact Muslims. I wonder why (Hat Tip: Nathan L).

The ACLU asserts that post-September 11 policies targeting these charities have a "disproportionate" effect on Muslims and "are undermining American Muslims' protected constitutional liberties and violating their fundamental human rights to freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom from discrimination."

It recommends a series of policy changes which include repealing Executive Order 13224, issued shortly after September 11, which creates mechanisms for designating persons and organizations as "specially designated global terrorists" (SDGTs). The ACLU also calls on the FBI to employ the" least intrusive means" necessary to accomplish its investigative objectives and urges the federal government to ban law enforcement practices that "disproportionately" target people "based on ethnicity, national origin or religion."

In his June 4 Cairo speech, President Obama asserted that there are too many impediments to Muslim efforts to fulfill their obligation to give charity, or zakat. As we have previously noted, this is patently untrue. The only way "loosen" restrictions would be to effectively to cripple current U.S. law barring material support for terrorism.

The ACLU recommendations mean "more money for Hamas," said Dennis Lormel, who created the FBI's terror financing section. Terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah use the charities to build hospitals and provide food to the poor to win the trust of local Muslims. They then use "this credibility to enlist children as suicide bombers," Lormel said.

But if the ACLU had its way, the U.S. government would lose critical tools for preventing U.S. charities from sending money to terrorist organizations. Using the "least intrusive means" would make it much more difficult (if not impossible) to shut down terrorist- financing charities like HLF, Lormel told IPT News, because they could deny the government the ability to use methods like wiretaps which were critical to building a case against the group for providing funds to Hamas.

Ending the SDGT designations would take away a valuable deterrent to abuse. "We know from experience that people stop donating to these charities once they are designated as supporters of terrorism," added Lormel, a 28-year FBI veteran who oversaw its stepped-up efforts to shut off the flow of funds to terrorist organizations after September 11.

Read the whole thing. Is this what President Obama had in mind when he spoke about removing impediments to Muslims giving zakat? That's what it sounds like.

Just imagine a Supreme Court with Obama appointees in a dominant position. How would that court vote on a case like this? How would Sonia Sotomayor vote?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:35 PM