Re: ADL

[bureau42 Anonymous Remailer <nobody@bureau42.ml.org>]

Re: FC: ADL and CyberPatrol

On Wed, 17 Dec 1997 at 00:04:33 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> From: "David Smith" <bladex@bga.com>
> To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 21:25:23 +0000
> Subject: Cyber Patrol to Block Hate Speech
> 
> Cyber Patrol to block hate speech
> http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,17431,00.html?dtn.head
> 
> Summary -- Cyber Patrol has teamed up with the Anti-
> Defamation League to offer a "special version" of sites 
> reviewed by the ADL.
> 
> Here's the weirdest thing about the story --- if you 
> access a site on their "hate list" you don't get a block, 
> but rather you get redirected to the ADL website.
> 
> ...
> Blocking access isn't enough -- you will now be told what 
> to read and what to think about prejudice, bigotry, and 
> race relations.
> 
> I don't have anything for or against the ADL -- just that 
> history dictates that this power will be used and abused 
> to stifle thought and free expression.

Much as I agree in principle with counteracting mindless
prejudice such as that directed against Jews, and despite
the fact that I grew up among Jews and studied with my
best friend in grade school when he took his religious
lessons, the ADL has zero credibility with me for a very
good reason: 

I had a role in an organization that, while it was populated 
with a good many bible-thumping Christians, took great care 
not to encourage, promote or give a platform to voices of
unreason. The nature of the organization was political and
in no way dealt with religious issues or issues which would
find people dividing along any religious or ethnic line.

Nonetheless, I was stunned one day to read mention of our 
organization characterized as "anti-semitic" by the ADL in 
a national publication. To have provided such erroneous 
information to the author of the article the ADL either had
to have been grossly negligent in its gathering and analysis
of facts or had to be pursuing other agenda in using the 
clout of its pronouncements. I rather think it may have 
been the latter (the organization was Constitutional and 
anti-income tax, while the ADL probably harbors more than
its share of socialists who bristle at any challenge to the
taxing authority of the state).

My qualification to judge the ADL's deficiency in this 
matter was absolute. I had personally written and/or reviewed
every piece of literature the organization had published, 
including newsletters, from its inception. There was no
propagation of policy or position with which I was not
personally acquainted, and nowhere had the organization ever
published anything that could even vaguely be interpreted
as anti-semitic.

So I regard the ADL with extreme suspicion, not on the
vaporous basis of pre-judgement or hearsay but on the solid
basis of having been visited with unwarranted and groundless 
personal damage at their hands, not unlike the small club
of people who know the treachery of Sixty Minutes for what 
it is by personal experience.

The ADL does its proclaimed purpose a radical disservice by
verging sharply from the straight and narrow that is
mandatory in any holier-than-thou endeavor. I would lay down
my life for any of a number of my Jewish friends, but I 
wouldn't give the ADL the time of day even if the Apocalypse 
were upon us.

VeracityMongerII