Kay Guinane, Director of Nonprofit speech rights, had this blog appear in The Hill's Congress Blog. This posting highlights the letter that OMB Watch and other organizations sent to Treasury Secretary Paulson in response to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report that claimed charities are a "significant source of alleged terrorist activities." The letter states;

When it comes to terrorism, the charitable sector is not the problem. We are part of the solution. It is time for Treasury to recognize this fact and cease all broadside accusations against the U.S. charitable sector. We call on you to issue a statement recognizing the importance of U.S. charities, both at home and abroad, and acknowledging that actual instances of terrorist abuse of U.S. charities is very limited.

On May 29, in accordance with the fifth anniversary of the FBI's 2002 revised Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise and Terrorism Enterprise Investigation, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released the report, "History Repeated: The Dangers of Domestic Spying by Federal Law Enforcement." The report provides a review of FBI spying along with what the ACLU has gathered from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The press release, quotes ACLU Legislative Counsel Marvin Johnson;

Gathering intelligence on grannies, Quakers, and peaceful protesters does little to strengthen national security. Any time the government starts monitoring innocent Americans for exercising their constitutional rights, it chills the very freedoms the FBI has sworn to protect.

Grantmakers Without Borders released a letter to Secretary Paulson about the Treasury Department's Risk Matrix for the Charitable Sector. As a major philanthropic network with over 130 organizations worldwide, GWOB has taken issue with the Treasury's "formulaic chart of ambiguous factors" which asks grantmakers to classify each grantee as "high", "medium" or "low" risk. Since charitable organizations with proven legitimate records, such as the American Red Cross and the Smithsonian Institute are susceptible to scandals, GWOB asks why then should such erratic occurrences warrant an arbitrary label of "high risk." The GWOB letter also challenges the assumption that charities are a major source of terrorist funding, highlights the importance of due diligence and questions the Treasury's definition of "regions known to have a concentration of terrorist activity." According to GWOB, such vague categorizations discourage philanthropic investments in projects incorrectly labeled as "high" risk.

To view the letter, click here.