August 11, 2003

Gettin' pretty chilly

Remember NGO Watch? I posted something about it back on June 20. It's an outfit formed by AEI and The Federalist Society to monitor NGO activity, particularly as that activity "interferes" with American policy. Well, now comes an article by an organization called OMB Watch, which "was formed in 1983 to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which oversees regulation, the budget, information collection and dissemination, proposed legislation, testimony by agencies, and much more." The article:

...provides a review of recent proposals and actions that have taken place limiting nonprofit speech in each of the three areas (attacks on nonprofit advocacy, limits imposed by government on other nonprofit speech, and changes made by nonprofits resulting from fear of how laws such as the USA Patriot Act are being implemented) described above. It does not address an important corollary concern--limiting access to information. Without access to information or by government controlling the flow or type of information, it will inevitably affect the ability of nonprofits to do their work. For example, when the government stacks the deck of scientific advisory committees by selecting people with strong ideological biases to serve, it undermines the value of good science that our sector relies on. These stacked advisory committees also squelch the substantive work undertaken by many nonprofits.

The link takes you to the Executive Summary of the article; a full copy is available in either PDF or WORD format. The Administration doesn't brook disagreement with its ideology lightly; the summary cites several examples of slightly veiled threats to non-profits which don't conform to the Bushies' idea of good government, including the National Head Start Association, "Parent Centers" for children with disabilities, and 501(c)(3) charitable organizations which (gasp!) lobby Congress.

Go read. Form your own opinion of this kind of behavior by the current US government, which is, after all, "of, by, and for the people." (Thanks to Skippy for the OMB Watch link).

Posted by Linkmeister at August 11, 2003 12:01 AM
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