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10.09.08
ACLU Challenges Threat By Government To Designate Charity As “Terrorist”
Statute Gives Government Unlimited Power To Blacklist Any Organization It Wants
TOLEDO, OH – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Ohio and
several civil rights lawyers today asked a federal court to block the
government from blacklisting an Ohio-based charity, KindHearts for
Charitable Humanitarian Development, Inc., without due process. The U.S.
Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) froze the
group’s assets more than 31 months ago, without notice or a hearing,
based simply on the assertion that KindHearts was “under investigation.”
OFAC has since threatened to designate KindHearts as a “specially
designated global terrorist” based on classified evidence, again without
providing KindHearts with a reason or meaningful opportunity to defend
itself.
“OFAC’s authority to shut down a charity based on secret evidence,
without any notice of wrongdoing, any probable cause, any opportunity to
defend itself or any judicial review violates fundamental due process
guarantees,” said Hina Shamsi, staff attorney with the ACLU National
Security Project. “KindHearts is asking for nothing more than its day in
court before the government takes the draconian action of unilaterally
designating it a terrorist and inflicting irreparable harm on the
charity’s most valuable asset, its reputation.”
Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and an
executive order, the president assumed the power to impose economic
sanctions on any organization or individual he or the Treasury secretary
designates a “specially designated global terrorist” (SDGT). A provision
of the Patriot Act goes further and authorizes OFAC to freeze an
organization’s assets without designating it an SDGT or even finding any
wrongdoing. According to the ACLU’s complaint, both the authority to
designate SDGTs and to freeze assets “pending investigation” violate the
First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments because they give the government the
virtually unfettered ability to shut down an organization even if it has
no intent to engage in or support criminal activity.
KindHearts’ founders established the charity in 2002 – after the
government shut down a number of Muslim charities – with the express
purpose of providing humanitarian aid abroad and at home in the United
States in full compliance with the law. Despite the efforts KindHearts
took to implement OFAC guidance and policies and otherwise exercise
diligence, OFAC froze its assets in February 2006.
“Since its assets were frozen more than two and a half years ago,
KindHearts has repeatedly asked the government for the legal and factual
basis for OFAC’s actions and for a meaningful chance to defend itself,”
said Fritz Byers, an Ohio attorney on the case. “The government’s
failure to respond has left KindHearts in limbo, unable to fulfill its
humanitarian mission. It is in the interest not only of KindHearts, but
also the public, for there to be independent judicial scrutiny of the
government’s actions in this case.”
The ACLU’s filing asks the U.S. District Court for the Northern District
of Ohio Western Division to temporarily block the designation of
KindHearts as an SDGT while the court hears KindHearts’ challenges to
OFAC’s actions. In the past, the government has taken the position that
the official designation of a charity as a global terrorist wipes out
any constitutional violations the government may have committed against
the organization.
The attorneys filing the case on behalf of KindHearts are Shamsi and
National Security Fellow Alexander Abdo of the ACLU; Byers of Toledo,
Ohio; David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center; Lynne Bernabei
and Alan Kabat of Bernabei & Wachtel, PLLC in Washington; and Jeffrey
Gamso and Carrie Davis of the ACLU of Ohio.
The ACLU’s complaint is available online at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/discrim/37095lgl20081009.html
The ACLU’s motion in support of a temporary restraining order is
available at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/discrim/37096lgl20081009.html
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