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House Hearing Explores Impact of Money Laundering Rules On Legitimate Charities

By Howard M. Friedman

On May 26, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on "Anti-Money Laundering: Blocking Terrorist Financing and Its Impact on Lawful Charities." (Links to prepared testimony and webcast of hearing.) Daniel L. Glaser, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary testified in part:

Terrorist organizations have abused and exploited charities of all backgrounds. And there is no doubt that terrorist organizations such as al Qaida, Hamas, and Hizbollah have abused and exploited Muslim charities. Though Treasury actions with respect Muslim charities have been relatively infrequent and none have occurred for almost three years, we understand that the important steps that we have taken to target charities that do support terrorist organizations, combined with other successful counter-terrorism efforts across our government, have had the unfortunate and unintended consequence of causing a chilling effect on well-intentioned donor activity within Muslim American communities.

Other witnesses were Kay Guinane, Program Manager, Charity and Security Network; Michael German, Policy Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union; and Matthew Levitt, Director, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on June 03, 2010 (boomark / email).