ACLU too?

Yeesh:

The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration.

"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.

"Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising," the proposals state.

Given the organization's longtime commitment to defending free speech, some former board members were shocked by the proposals.

Nat Hentoff, a writer and former A.C.L.U. board member, was incredulous. "You sure that didn't come out of Dick Cheney's office?" he asked.

I sincerely hope that this proposal goes the way of the dodo. I understand their concerns about public disagreements potentially affecting support and fund-raising, but what they seemingly fail to consider is that some of us who support the ACLU very much like public debates on the issues they take up, because many of them are controversial. It’s been useful for me in the past to hear opposing viewpoints from ACLU members, to help me get my head around both sides of a issues.