The War on Nonprofits -- Lawfare

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https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-war-on-nonprofits
Moira Whelan, Lauren Van Metre

Persecuting NGOs in the name of national security often serves as a pretense for government efforts to quiet dissent and consolidate power.

On June 11, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) and her colleagues on the House Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee launched an investigation into 200 nonprofit organizations suspected of supporting illegal immigration. On the same day, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism announced a similar investigation in the wake of the peaceful protests in Los Angeles.

These are not isolated incidents. Just last week, Green hosted a hearing entitled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild” aimed at “exposing” nongovernment organizations (NGOs) as “corrupt” agents of “money laundering” and “abuse.” Meanwhile, a provision that would allow the secretary of the treasury to accuse any nonprofit of being a “terrorist supporting organization” without providing evidence was defeated narrowly in the House Ways and Means Committee.

These actions synchronize with a growing, coordinated movement by Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass domestic terrorism laws—and to use post-Sept. 11 state laws that criminalize domestic terrorism, or support and assistance for it—to suppress civil society and citizen activism.

Americans typically think of NGOs as organizations providing “public benefit”: feeding the poor, aiding social causes, or supporting health or medical research. As the law governing 501(c) status states, no particular person or stakeholder makes a profit from these activities. The broad array of big and small political ideas, social causes, and local and national efforts has led to a nonprofit landscape of more than 1.48 million nationally.

So why are conservative leaders in Congress attempting to link these organizations with crime and terrorism? In repressive regimes around the world, expanding the government’s ability to label groups as criminals and terrorist organizations has been a successful tool—not to prevent terrorism, but to shrink the public space, limit social discourse, and consolidate authoritarian power. As Republican actions indicate an effort is underway to target NGOs, considering how other governments have chosen to categorize domestic citizen groups as a threat to erode fundamental rights could provide key insights into how to approach events in the United States.

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