Today's Chronicle on Philanthropy blog reports on formation of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, an international effort to help Muslim donors and organizations make the public more aware of their work and to increase organizational capacity.

The group held a two day inaugural meeting in Istanbul, and will set up offices in the United States and at least one Muslim country. The founder is Tariq H. Cheema, a Pakistani doctor living in Illinois. The blog said,

After years of nonprofit work, including assisting victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, Mr. Cheema said he saw the need to bring together the world's Islamic donors....s part of its work, the congress plans to create a Web site, SecureGiving, to rank charities in Muslim countries based on an as-yet-undecided criteria of governance and management standards. Mr. Cheema said the effort will help donors make sure their money is not supportıng terrorists posing as Islamic charities, a concern that has grown since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

In response to a federal court order, the U.S. Treasury Department released to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) of the San Francisco Bay Area over 100 pages of documents that show that a terror watch list has wrongly linked ordinary Americans to terrorism. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an agency within the Treasury, maintains a list referred to as the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, of over 6,000 names of suspected drug traffickers and terrorists, which includes individuals and organizations. The documents released by Treasury include Congressional inquiries on behalf of constituents and correspondence from consumers who have been told they cannot conduct various financial transactions because their names allegedly appear on the SDN list.

Thomas R. Burke, the lawyer representing LCCR was quoted in the LCCR press release; "The records released today suggest that little if anything is being done by the government to help individuals who are wrongly linked by their own government with illegal activity. … one should question the efficacy of a terrorist watch list that wrongly stigmatizes innocent Americans and provides them no recourse."

On March 28, 2007, Treasury Department Secretary Paulson testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee that the Treasury Department had received 90,000 calls over a one-year period regarding the OFAC list. In court filings, the Treasury Department stated that it does not track details about phone calls it receives regarding erroneous name matches.

The Washington Post covered the story by highlighting some individuals that have been affected. "One man went into a Glen Burnie, Md., Toyota dealership to buy a car, only to be told that a name check revealed he was on a U.S. Treasury Department watchlist of suspected terrorists and drug dealers. He had to be "checked for tattoos," he said, to make sure he wasn't the suspect."

The newly released documents are available on the LCCR website, here.

After a closed secret session last night, the House met again this morning (March 14) to debate an amendment to HR 3773. With a vote of 213-197, the measure passed and now will be sent back to the Senate. It is bound to face a lot of opposition in the Senate and unlikely to reach President Bush.

You can help! Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Representative John Conyers (D-MI) have made the public's involvement even easier with an online tool to help with the process of writing a letter to your local paper. By typing in your zip code to find your local media outlets, a template for a letter then appears. If you have trouble writing, there are even talking points available to guide you along.

"Your letter-to-the-editor will ensure that friends and neighbors in your own community see past the Administration's fear-mongering. And when your Members of Congress turn to the editorial page in their hometown newspaper, they'll think twice about siding with Administration officials and phone companies who illegally spied on their constituents."

Click here to begin writing your letter to the editor!

Meanwhile, Before the House considered the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), House Judiciary Chair Conyers and 19 other Judiciary committee Democrats issued a long statement explaining why they believe telecommunication companies should not be protected from lawsuits. "We have concluded that the administration has not established a valid and credible case justifying the extraordinary action of Congress enacting blanket retroactive immunity as set forth in the Senate bill." They support the new FISA plan as the House will consider it today, where the telecom companies can present their defenses in district court.

House Democrats plan to consider legislation to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) this week. Importantly, the draft proposal would not fall in line with the Senate bill and grant retroactive immunity to phone companies that helped the administration with its warrantless wiretapping program. According to the New York Times, "the tentative proposal would give the federal courts special authorization to hear classified evidence and decide whether the phone companies should be held liable. House Democrats have been working out the details of their proposal in the last few days, officials said, and expect to take it to the House floor for a vote on Thursday."

In addition, the measure would include the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the warrantless surveillance initiative, and find out how the program was run. The House bill would also require a warrant for the surveillance of foreign targets that may be communicating with people in the U.S., but would permit surveillance of a large number of such targets at once. It also requires court approval of new surveillance programs before they begin, except for in emergencies. The major difference regarding retroactive immunity will remain, leaving acceptance in the Senate questionable.

For a serious update, see the Feb. 20, 2008 OMB Watcher House Forces Expiration of Protect America Act and the Advocacy Blog Charities and Security section.

Posted by Kay Guinane, 04:40:34 PM

Friday, March 07, 2008