The ACLU’s Islamist Friends
On September 26, Investor’s Business Daily made an acute observation: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has fiercely fought against essential U.S. counter-terrorism programs and actions but was curiously silent when the White House pressuredYouTube to take down the anti-Islam Innocence of Muslims film in order to appease Muslim rioters. The background of one top ACLU official, Jameel Jaffer, may explain the inconsistency.
Jameel Jaffer heads the ACLU’s Center for Democracy and was the director of the Center’s National Security Project from 2007 to 2010. He is best known for suing to get information about CIA interrogation practices and the drone campaign to kill terrorists overseas, which he staunchly opposes.
In March 2009, Jaffer was the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which the federal government designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation. The government said CAIR is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s secret Palestine Committee that was set up to support Hamas. The event raised $130,000 for CAIR.
