Wil Glenn Greenwald cut ties to the ACLU, too?

Update, Dec. 14: Greenwald's resignation letter is here. It addresses JUST the WikiLeaks issues, and nothing else of CREW's recent problems. Sorry, Glenn but that is a half-fail.

Update, Dec. 22: CREW head Melanie Sloan's guypal, former Congressman and current DC fixer Lanny Davis, is now running flak for Ivory Coast's authoritarian ruler. Again, Glenn, leaving CREW's board over WikiLeaks is "nice," but what did you know, and when, about Sloan's dealings with Lanny Davis? Or for-profit schools?

First, Glenn, while it's nice, and I mean taht non-sarcastically, that you're upset enough about Citizens for Responsibiliity and Ethics in Washington's statements on WikiLeaks that you might resign from the board of directors, aren't you a bit late to the concern party? Why weren't you this vocal (as far as I know, and I have your RSS feed on my My Yahoo homepage) when your own online mag first exposed Melanie Sloan's ties to lobbyist/fixer Lanny Davis, along with questions of better board oversight of her, and, of course, her eventual successor? Or when CREW's fluffing of for-profit schools came to notice?

Or, per FiredogLake, why haven't you talked more, given that it's a War on Terror-related issue, about Sloan's husband working for SAIC?

SAIC is a parallel privatized secret government that promotes neo-con war policies and does the more dirty of the Cheney Dirty Tricks. SAIC has been involved in COINTELPRO, spying on Americans who protest the criminal wars that are so profitable for SAIC. Would SAIC target organizations to use against anti-war leaders such as Maxine Waters? Did SAIC and Porter Goss and Melanie Sloan collaborate to destroy Maxine Waters? Those questions might be answered if CREW would reveal its donors instead of keeping them secret. A common method used by oppressive Secret Police Organizations, such as SAIC, is to subvert organizations, turning them into a zombie, which then self destructs.

With the departure of Melanie Sloan, CREW seems to be in zombie mode. For the last six months CREW has used its resources to help corrupt corporations. CREW has attempted to falsely convict Maxine Waters in a Kangaroo Court run by Porter Goss. It may not be too much longer before CREW self-destructs. For Melanie Sloan’s replacement, I suggest Glen Greenwald or Steve Eisman.

I can't agree with the FDL blogger on recommending you as her replacement, though. (I'll also say that his style, at least, is a bit over the top!) I don't know what Gleenn has known or suspected, and when, about Sloan, and if he's called for an audit of CREW, changes in internal regs or anything else.

Hence, until I know more about what Glenn has known, and when, on these other CREW issues, and what comments he has made in either public or private, while his stance on CREW re WikiLeaks is nice, it is also ... "nice."

And, there's another reason to not put Glenn on a pedestal either — his continued, apparently uncritical, support for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Glenn, if you're looking to sever ties to organizations that don't support free speech, you should have stopped supporting the ACLU years ago. Teaching groups how to comply with the Patriot Act? Censoring its own board members, or trying to, by Excutive Director Anthony Romero and President Nadine Strossen? It's all here.

Since 2001, under the leadership of Romero, Strossen, and her successor Susan Herman, the ACLU has repeatedly been caught practicing the opposite of what it preaches.

In July 2004, the board learned that Romero had quietly agreed to screen the organization's employees against terrorist "watch lists" — the same lists the ACLU has condemned — in order to qualify as an officially approved charity for federal employees. Strossen characterized Romero's action as "clever," but it was quickly rescinded after exposure in the Times.

This report was followed by Romero's admission that early in his tenure at the ACLU, he had privately advised the Ford Foundation to "parrot" the Patriot Act in formulating controversial new restrictions on the speech of its grantees — restrictions Romero then quietly accepted on the ACLU's behalf. (After a protracted debate, the board approved the Ford restrictions and then narrowly reversed itself, after embarrassing publicity about the ACLU’s watch list agreement with the government.)

A year later, in 2005, Romero was caught trying to impose very broad confidentiality agreements and technology rules on ACLU employees, similar to workplace rules that the ACLU officially opposes. Like the proposal governing board members' rights to speak, the agreements nearljavascript:void(0)y imposed on the staff (but withdrawn after they became public) included a virtual gag rule; they also would have required the staff to acknowledge that all their communications on ACLU systems were subject to surveillance. Nadine Strossen defended these proposals in an email to the board, cheerfully noting her bizarre "presumption" that they "facilitate the ACLU’s commitment to both privacy and free speech."

And, that makes Glenn's ACLU column of a year ago a bit ... ironic, at least? Unless Glenn has said something about Romero and Strossen that I don't know about, that is.

For anybody wondering about me? I've not given the ACLU money in three full years, in fair part due to these concerns. Oh, I'll still do the e-mail activism. But, for money? There's still the Center for Constitutional Rights. Less sclerotic.