Sidel, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and Vermont Law School this year, said that while he supports the federal government's goal of cutting off terrorist funding, its focus on non-profits is misplaced and its methods are questionable.
"I think government intervention needs to be more targeted on effective mechanisms and I think it needs to be recognized that non-profits are not usually a conduit for terrorist funding," Sidel said.
The government enacted many restrictive measures affecting charities and non-governmental organizations since Sept. 11 designed to prevent funds from getting into terrorists hands, Sidel said.
"I think they've hampered non-profits without affecting terrorist funding because most terrorist funding does not occur through non-profits," Sidel said. "I think that there have been small numbers of non-profits that have served as conduits for terrorist funding but that most funding doesn't go through non-profits, but instead goes underground through cash transfers, wire transfers, things like that."
The government should work through the banking system to attack those transfers, Sidel said.
Sidel also criticized some of the government's surveillance measures since Sept. 11, noting that it has carried out surveillance on groups ranging from Quaker anti-war protestors to Native American groups to environmental organizations, almost none of whom have terrorist connections.
He discussed three major Muslim charities that were shut down after Sept. 11 because of possible connections to terrorism. Sidel noted that because of this, there was virtually no outcry from other charitable organizations when they were shuttered. The government continued to formulate stringent regulations such as the 2002 Treasury Department's Voluntary Best Practices guidelines, however, which mandated extremely detailed background checks of all foreign grantees and stipulated tremendous liability even for accidental donations to terrorist-related organizations. Requirements like this have made it much more difficult for charities to find and donate to grantees, Sidel said.
Since then other charitable organizations have banded together to protest the requirements and propose less-strict rules, with limited success. Despite these efforts, Sidel said that many restrictive measures still remain and that they are probably decreasing American foreign philanthropy.
"A battle of sorts has been enjoined between the government and charitable organizations, and neither side has given in," Sidel said.
Sara Ludin '08, co-leader of the Daniel Webster Legal Society, said that she was concerned by the issues Sidel raised in his lecture.
"I understand the urge to regulate more and make sure this doesn't happen again, but while we can put regulations in place you can't go overboard because when you go overboard you're sacrificing civil liberties," Ludin said.
Ludin belongs to a Muslim non-profit group, Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism, and said that since Sept. 11 the group has been very careful with its finances because of the government attention other Muslim groups have received.
Over 40 people attended the lecture in the Rockefeller Center, which was hosted by the Dartmouth Lawyers Association and was part of its Law and Liberal Arts Series. Sidel also signed copies of his book "More Secure, Less Free?" after the lecture.
