My response follows. -Karin
Demand for immediate retraction and publication of correction
Saturday, May 16, 2009 1:13 PM
From: "Mark Potok" mark.potok@splcenter.org
This is for Karen Friedemann and regards your May 16 "Letter From America"article in the Khaleej Times Online entitled "Americans Divided by HateCrimes Bill." http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2009/May/opinion_May80.xml§ion=opinion&col=
You make the following claim in your article:
"The ADL, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is alreadyheavily involved in Homeland Security's locally based 'fusion centres,'which collect personal data for intelligence databases that synchronise national intelligence collection with local police. ADL and SPLC have arecord of illegally spying on American citizens and providing falseinformation to law enforcement officials."
The statements about the SPLC -- that we have a record of "illegally spying"on Americans and "providing false information" to authorities -- are both materially false and also libelous and defamatory. Both statements containno shred of truth -- apparently, you've attributed the ADL's problems in the Roy Bullock case to the SPLC. We have never been charged or convicted oreven accused of these things.
As I noted above, these statements arelibelous and false. As a result, I write to demand that you immediatelywithdraw these statements from wherever they have been published, including the Khaleej Times, and publish a correction making clear that SPLC has not done the things you falsely accuse us of. I have written a similar note to the editor of the Khaleej Times and expect action to be taken by this Monday afternoon at the latest.
Mark Potok
Director, Intelligence Project
Editor, Intelligence Report/Hatewatch
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
===
Response to Mark Potok
Karin Friedemann
The US Department of Justice released FBI documents indicating that the Southern Poverty Law Center engaged in undercover surveillance of Oklahoma militia groups in 1995 before and after the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The local FBI team, which should have obtained a warrant to dispatch real FBI agents, criminally conspired with SPLC agents to get around Attorney General Janet Reno’s legal limitations on domestic spying. Because the conspiracy was criminal, the espionage was illegal.
In “The Watchdogs: A close look at Anti-Racist ‘Watchdog’ Groups,” Laird Wilcox documents the SPLC’s extensive intelligence networks monitoring editorials, observing meetings, and compiling files on people they consider offensive. Wilcox told WorldNetDaily: “By alleging ‘dangerousness’ on the basis of mere assumed values, opinions and beliefs, they put entirely innocent citizens at risk from law enforcement error and misconduct.”
Mark Potok himself admits the SPLC criminally spied on the Animal Rights 2001 Conference by secretly recording attendees. “We were at that conference, we collected the quote ourselves, in person and on a videotape to boot,” he wrote in response to complaints from Friends of Animals President Priscilla Feral about misleading SPLC characterizations of her organization.
In an article libeling Muslim clerics, the online SPLC Intelligence Report links videos apparently made in violation of federal wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes.
Many organizations and individuals accuse SPLC of publishing false and misleading information and manipulating crime data and terminology. Federal law enforcement agencies and Homeland Security Fusion Centers were issued a warning against relying upon faulty and politicized SPLC research reports.
The Turkish American Legal Defense Fund is currently suing the SPLC for defaming an 85-year-old emeritus professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts.
Harper's Magazine accused the SPLC of scare mongering to fund relatively lavish lifestyles for the organization's directors.
Showing posts with label SPLC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SPLC. Show all posts
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Americans Divided by Hate Crimes Bill
Khaleej Times
Despite lingering concerns about threats to Constitutional protections such as freedom of religion and freedom of speech, the Federal Hate Crimes bill, HR 1913, passed recently in the House of Representatives.
If passed by the Senate, the legislation will expand the federal definition of such crimes to include those motivated by gender identity and permit increased federal power to investigate and prosecute crimes as “hate crimes.” The meat of the hate crimes bill is a $10 million grant for the establishment of a federally funded surveillance centre.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R, NC) argued HR 1913 would move America “down a slippery slope” to loss of freedom as has happened in Canada and Europe, where imprisonment for “thought crimes” has become a regular occurrence.
Susan Fani of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights warns: “The problem in general with hate crimes legislation is that it invites the government to probe way beyond motive. And in instances like this, it trespasses on free speech and religious liberty.”
Although the bill “declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit the exercise of Constitutionally-protected free speech,” it sets a dangerous precedent of punishing motivations rather than actions because the actions — stalking, assault, etc. — are already illegal.
Anisa Abd el Fattah, President of National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) points out: “Before our Congress passes such a law there are many questions to be answered, the most important of which is ‘who’ will decide that a given act is a ‘hate crime’?” The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) originally wrote this bill. Arab, Latino and African-American organisations support it because they hope that prosecuting “hate” will decrease racist attacks on their communities. Serious fears exist, however, about the government surveillance centre, given the highly politicised nature of hate crimes labeling.
The ADL, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is already heavily involved in Homeland Security’s locally based “fusion centres,” which collect personal data for intelligence databases that synchronise national intelligence collection with local police.
ADL and SPLC have a record of illegally spying on American citizens and providing false information to law enforcement officials.
A fusion centre in Missouri recently distributed an “intelligence” document on “hate groups” to local police, which was written by the ADL and the SPLC. It instructed the police to look for Americans who were concerned about unemployment, taxes, illegal immigration, gangs, border security, abortion, high costs of living, gun restrictions, FEMA, the IRS, and the Federal Reserve, as well as supporters of third party presidential candidates! Mainstream Christian organisations that espouse a traditional orthodox view of homosexuality were lumped into a list filled with violent neo-Nazis and skinheads while Roman Catholic institutions were singled out as “encouraging anti-Semitism and ethnic and religious chauvinism.” The report also predictably vilified religiously observant Muslims and anti-war activists.
“There is no level of hate crime that is acceptable—period,” says Dan Stein, President of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “However, the SPLC’s calculated abuse of the term ‘hate group’ and manipulation of hate crime data for self-serving political interests is an affront to hate crime victims and those who advocate on their behalf.”
The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission declared, “If we were to apply the same twisted logic of the SPLC to the SPLC, it would have to label itself as a hate group because they are intolerant of conservative Christians.” Similarly, Hussein Ibish, a secular Arab-American lobbyist, could be charged with inciting hate crimes targeting Muslims and political activists, his compilation of anti-Arab hate crimes statistics for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) aside.
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) expressed concern about how the fusion system has been “monitoring the legal activities of American Muslims exercising their constitutional privileges” and the “use of McCarthy-era tactics, most notably dissemination of Islamophobic analysis by federally-funded ‘fusion centres’ to local law enforcement agencies.”
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), a citizens group in Missouri, issued a national advisory to all local, state and Federal law enforcement agencies and officers, including all DHS fusion centres, “warning against any reliance upon faulty and politicised research issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti Defamation League (ADL)” that “cast suspicion on millions of Americans.”
Governor Peter Kinder took the advisory seriously and is now engaging in damage control.
He issued a public apology to Presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin, and placed Missouri Public Safety Director John Britt on administrative leave pending an investigation of the absurd report.
America’s problems with intolerance do not result from the absence of hate crime laws but originate in structural problems associated with bigotries of government officials, and often involve conspiracies against rights.
Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women
Despite lingering concerns about threats to Constitutional protections such as freedom of religion and freedom of speech, the Federal Hate Crimes bill, HR 1913, passed recently in the House of Representatives.
If passed by the Senate, the legislation will expand the federal definition of such crimes to include those motivated by gender identity and permit increased federal power to investigate and prosecute crimes as “hate crimes.” The meat of the hate crimes bill is a $10 million grant for the establishment of a federally funded surveillance centre.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R, NC) argued HR 1913 would move America “down a slippery slope” to loss of freedom as has happened in Canada and Europe, where imprisonment for “thought crimes” has become a regular occurrence.
Susan Fani of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights warns: “The problem in general with hate crimes legislation is that it invites the government to probe way beyond motive. And in instances like this, it trespasses on free speech and religious liberty.”
Although the bill “declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit the exercise of Constitutionally-protected free speech,” it sets a dangerous precedent of punishing motivations rather than actions because the actions — stalking, assault, etc. — are already illegal.
Anisa Abd el Fattah, President of National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) points out: “Before our Congress passes such a law there are many questions to be answered, the most important of which is ‘who’ will decide that a given act is a ‘hate crime’?” The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) originally wrote this bill. Arab, Latino and African-American organisations support it because they hope that prosecuting “hate” will decrease racist attacks on their communities. Serious fears exist, however, about the government surveillance centre, given the highly politicised nature of hate crimes labeling.
The ADL, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is already heavily involved in Homeland Security’s locally based “fusion centres,” which collect personal data for intelligence databases that synchronise national intelligence collection with local police.
ADL and SPLC have a record of illegally spying on American citizens and providing false information to law enforcement officials.
A fusion centre in Missouri recently distributed an “intelligence” document on “hate groups” to local police, which was written by the ADL and the SPLC. It instructed the police to look for Americans who were concerned about unemployment, taxes, illegal immigration, gangs, border security, abortion, high costs of living, gun restrictions, FEMA, the IRS, and the Federal Reserve, as well as supporters of third party presidential candidates! Mainstream Christian organisations that espouse a traditional orthodox view of homosexuality were lumped into a list filled with violent neo-Nazis and skinheads while Roman Catholic institutions were singled out as “encouraging anti-Semitism and ethnic and religious chauvinism.” The report also predictably vilified religiously observant Muslims and anti-war activists.
“There is no level of hate crime that is acceptable—period,” says Dan Stein, President of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “However, the SPLC’s calculated abuse of the term ‘hate group’ and manipulation of hate crime data for self-serving political interests is an affront to hate crime victims and those who advocate on their behalf.”
The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission declared, “If we were to apply the same twisted logic of the SPLC to the SPLC, it would have to label itself as a hate group because they are intolerant of conservative Christians.” Similarly, Hussein Ibish, a secular Arab-American lobbyist, could be charged with inciting hate crimes targeting Muslims and political activists, his compilation of anti-Arab hate crimes statistics for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) aside.
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) expressed concern about how the fusion system has been “monitoring the legal activities of American Muslims exercising their constitutional privileges” and the “use of McCarthy-era tactics, most notably dissemination of Islamophobic analysis by federally-funded ‘fusion centres’ to local law enforcement agencies.”
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), a citizens group in Missouri, issued a national advisory to all local, state and Federal law enforcement agencies and officers, including all DHS fusion centres, “warning against any reliance upon faulty and politicised research issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti Defamation League (ADL)” that “cast suspicion on millions of Americans.”
Governor Peter Kinder took the advisory seriously and is now engaging in damage control.
He issued a public apology to Presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin, and placed Missouri Public Safety Director John Britt on administrative leave pending an investigation of the absurd report.
America’s problems with intolerance do not result from the absence of hate crime laws but originate in structural problems associated with bigotries of government officials, and often involve conspiracies against rights.
Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)