here's Horowitz's info on this bunch:
CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (CCR)
Founded by pro-Castro radicals
Opposes post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws
"If the U.S. government truly wants its people to be safer and wants terrorist threats to diminish, it must make fundamental changes in its foreign policies . . . particularly its unqualified support for Israel, and its embargo of Iraq, its bombing of Afghanistan, and its actions in Saudi Arabia. [These] continue to anger people throughout the region, and to fertilize the ground where terrorists of the future will take root." - CCR President Michael Ratner
Supports terrorist attorney Lynne Stewart
Characterizing President Bush as a political leader who is "out of control" and engaged in the "reckless abuse of power," the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has produced a new book titled Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush. This screed accuses Bush of "illegally spying on U.S. citizens, lying to the American people about the Iraq war, seizing undue executive power, and sending people to be tortured overseas." CCR exhorts likeminded people to sign its online impeachment petition.
The Center for Constitutional Rights was co-founded in November 1966 by the radical attorneys Morton Stavis, Ben Smith, Arthur Kinoy, and William Kunstler, longtime members of the Communist and radical left. Prior to forming the Center, Kinoy and Kuntsler circulated a lengthy memo calling for the creation of a "new Communist Party," which did not materialize.
Among the most passionate crusades of Kinoy's legal career was his bid to save the lives of the convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953. He took similar pride in his heralded 1972 victory when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government was obliged to obtain a warrant for telephone tapping, even in cases where national security was at stake.
Kunstler defended El Sayyid Nosair, a leader of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman's terrorist network responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (as well as thwarted plans to blow up New York's Lincoln and Holland Tunnels). Throughout his radical career, Kunstler defended domestic terrorists and drug dealers (but only, he explained, if they were black). He compared the organizers of the riot at the Chicago Democratic convention (Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin) to Jesus Christ and maintained a policy of never criticizing any "socialist country."
Today the CCR characterizes itself as an organization that "uses litigation proactively to advance the law in a positive direction, to guarantee the rights of those with the fewest protecttions and least access to legal resources." Among those whom the CCR counts as largely "unprotected" are terrorist organizations and illegal immigrants. The CCR is a core activist organization in the Open Borders Lobby, which seeks to eliminate all control of U.S. borders.
In the post-9/11 era, the CCR has focused its efforts heavily on reining in the U.S. government's newly implemented anti-terrorism measures, which the CCR depicts as having "seriously undermined civil liberties, the checks and balances that are essential to the structure of our democratic government, and indeed, democracy itself." "Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the government's actions," explains the CCR, "has been its attack on the Bill of Rights, the very cornerstone of our American democracy. The War on Terror has seriously compromised the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights of citizens and non-citizens alike. From the USA Patriot Act's over-broad definition of domestic terrorism, to the FBI's new powers of search and surveillance, to the indefinite detention of both citizens and non-citizens without formal charges, the principles of free speech, due process, and equal protection under the law have been seriously undermined."
Specifically, the CCR has condemned the Bush administration for expanding the authority of security agencies not only to conduct wiretaps and surveillance on suspected terrorists, but also to detain suspected terrorists for longer time periods than ordinary criminals. These measures, says the CCR, unjustifiably "sacrific[e] our political freedoms in the name of national security." When law-enforcement agencies attempted, in the wake of 9/11, to conduct voluntary interviews with several thousand Middle Eastern men who were in the United States on temporary visas, the CCR denounced such "racial profiling"; it made this same charge in response to the government's detention of hundreds of non-citizens from the Middle East for possible terrorist connections. When Attorney General Ashcroft warned that visa violators would henceforth be arrested, the CCR characterized his comments as "chilling." When new regulations permitted the FBI, CIA, and INS can share information about possible terrorist plots with one another, the CCR lamented such assaults on "our privacy."
In March 2002, CCR president Michael Ratner explained his views on the origins of anti-American terrorism. "If the U.S. government truly wants its people to be safer and wants terrorist threats to diminish," he said, "it must make fundamental changes in its foreign policies . . . particularly its unqualified support for Israel, and its embargo of Iraq, its bombing of Afghanistan, and its actions in Saudi Arabia. [These] continue to anger people throughout the region, and to fertilize the ground where terrorists of the future will take root." He further condemned America's post-9/11 attack on Afghanistan - stating that thousands of refugees were being forced to flee, and citing a UN prediction that some 100,000 Afghan children would die as a result of U.S. "aggression." He suggested that, as an alternative to war, the U.S. ought to "treat the attacks on September 11 as a crime against humanity, establish a UN tribunal, extradite the suspects, or if that fails, capture them with a UN force, and try them."
At its 2004 annual convention, the CCR honored attorney Lynne Stewart, an open supporter of terrorism, indicted by the Justice Department for abetting the terrorist activities of her client, the "blind sheik," Omar Abdel Rahman. In April 2002 Stewart was indicted on charges that she had illegally "facilitated and concealed communications" between the incarcerated Sheik and members of his Egyptian terrorist organization, the Islamic Group, which has ties to al Qaeda. The CCR called Stewart's indictment "an attack on attorneys who defend controversial figures, and an attempt to deprive these clients of the zealous representation that may be required." Shortly thereafter, Stewart announced that she planned to provide legal representation for Sheik Rahman's son Ahmed, whom U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured in November 2001, and who was believed to be a liaison between the Islamic Group and al Qaeda.
The CCR was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress "to oppose the Domestic Security Enhancement Act (DSEA), also known as 'Patriot [Act] II,'" which was then under consideration. These signatories stated that the new legislation "fail[ed] to respect our time-honored liberties," and "contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers . . . that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights." In addition, the CCR has given its organizational endorsement to the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, a project of the California-based Coalition for Civil Liberties (CCL). The CLL tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions creating Civil Liberties Safe Zones; that is, to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act.
A member organization of the Abolition 2000 and United For Peace and Justice anti-war coalitions, the CCR endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act (CLRA) of 2004, which was introduced by Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Russell Feingold, Richard Durbin, and Jon Corzine, and Democratic Representatives Howard Berman and William Delahunt. The CLRA was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
In March 2005, CCR joined with the parents of deceased anti-Israel activist Rachel Corrie (who was accidentally crushed to death while trying to obstruct the path of a bulldozer being used in anti-terror operations by Israeli Defense Force soldiers in Gaza) in filing a federal lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc, the Illinois-based company that manufactured not only the bulldozer that ran over Miss Corrie, but also many other bulldozers used for anti-terror operations by the IDF. CCR argued that Caterpillar violated international and state laws by providing specially designed bulldozers to the IDF for the purpose of demolishing Palestinian terrorists' homes and strongholds. In response, the American company said in a public statement that "Caterpillar shares the world's concern over unrest in the Middle East, and we certainly have compassion for all those affected by the political strife. However, more than 2 million Caterpillar machines and engines are at work in virtually every country and region of the world each day. We have neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use of the equipment."
This statement did not satisfy Jennie Green, a Senior Attorney with CCR, who argued that "International law clearly provides that corporations can be held accountable for violations of international human rights. Rachel Corrie, a young American killed abroad because Caterpillar purposefully turns a blind eye as to how their products are used, must have access to justice." According to CCR, since 2001 Israel has used Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy more than 4,000 Palestinian homes, as well as to kill and injure many Palestinians. The lawsuit against Caterpillar sought at least $75,000 in compensatory damages, punitive damages and other relief. According to legal experts, CCR's case against Caterpillar marked the first time that U.S. citizens had filed suit against a U.S. corporation for alleged misdeeds in a foreign country. It also marked the first time that lawsuits involving a single event were filed simultaneously in both American and foreign courts.
CCR is supported, in part, by generous donations from the Ford Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Public Welfare Foundation.
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6148
Here's the home page, fyi:
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/default.asp
A Guide to the Political Left
...which is yet ANOTHER reason to buy OTF (Other Than Ford) when you're in the automobile market. You may counter, "Yeah, but the Ford Foundation isn't the same as FoMoCo." True, but the former CEO, now chairman, of FoMoCo is Bill Ford who is a huge personal donor to the foundation. Impoverishing him, impoverishes them.
Oh, and here are yet a few MORE good reasons to buy OTF, many of which FoMoCo is directly complicit in:
http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/sep/28/arpf092801.htm