Trials of Muslim Charities Likened to Inquisition

The U.S. government's anti-terrorist financing programs are based on the "guilt by association" tactics of the McCarthy era and have had a widespread negative impact on U.S. charities, critics say.

That is the view of Kay Guinane, director of the Nonprofit Speech Rights Program for OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch, an independent not-for-profit government watchdog group. Guinane told IPS that government actions have resulted in program cutbacks and increased fear of speaking out on important public issues.

The organization accused Congress of continuing "an unfortunate pattern of insufficient congressional oversight of anti-terrorist financing programs, neglecting to address the unnecessarily harsh impacts the programs have on U.S. charities and philanthropy."

As an example of insufficient congressional oversight of charities' alleged support of terrorist organizations, OMB Watch cited a recent hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in which the only witness was a government official. The witness was the undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, Stuart Levey, who plays a lead role in identifying charities that the Treasury Department claims are supporting terrorist causes.

OMB Watch asked the committee for an opportunity to testify, but was not invited.

The McCarthy era refers to a 1950s Cold War campaign led by then Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. McCarthy charged that communist "subversives" had infiltrated the U.S. government and were undermining national security and disclosing secret information. He accused the administration of President Harry S. Truman of sheltering such subversives rather than investigating and ousting them.

Hundreds of citizens were eventually "blacklisted" and lost their jobs. Congress made membership in the Communist Party a criminal offense, in a statute known as the Smith Act. Antiwar