HISTORY - pre-CDA, "compromise", untrue civil-liberties groups

[Declan McCullagh]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 19:18:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
To: Danny Yee <danny at staff.cs.usyd.edu.au>
Cc: fight-censorship at vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Re: HISTORY - pre-CDA, "compromise", untrue civil-liberties groups

I believe the ACLU gets most of its money from individual contributions.
(I may be remembering this from a conversation with some ACLUers.)

But Jonah has a point below. What's important is not just which
corporations fund a group, but whether the group sets policies based on
its funders' desires. 

I know the Cato Institute, for instance, lost money from corporate funders
during the Gulf War because of Cato's principled pacifist stance. I
suspect EPIC has remained at its modest (but effective) size because of
its principled uncompromising stance.

This goes back to the original debate: pragmatism vs. principle. How do
you stand on principle and remain an effective advocate in Washington? If
you navigate the route of pragmatism and compromise, what does that mean
for civil liberties? Can you avoid compromising them away?

I'm reminded of a scene in Lord of the Rings. Frodo offers the Ring to
Galadriel. She hesitates, then declines. She says she would have been
tempted by its power -- but transformed by it. "I will diminish, and
remain Galadriel." 

(This is from memory. It's been more than a couple years.)

-Declan


On Sat, 19 Jul 1997, Danny Yee wrote:

> > From: Jonah Seiger <jseiger at cdt.org>
> > What critics on this list seem to fail to understand is that CDT, EFF,
> > EPIC, ACLU, etc. get financial support based on our positions and goals,
> > not the other way around.
>  
> Amnesty International does not accept funding from any state.  It seems
> to me that there's a very good reason for that.
> 
> I'd be interested to see a list of financial supporters of the ACLU
> and EFF.
> 
> Danny Yee.