IPS News reports; "The U.S. government's anti-terrorist financing programmes are based on the 'guilt by association' tactics of the McCarthy era and have had a widespread negative impact on U.S. charities, critics say. That is the view of Kay Guinane, director of the Nonprofit Speech Rights Programme . . . Guinane told IPS that government actions have resulted in programme cutbacks and increased fear of speaking out on important public issues." The article quotes our April 1 press release following the Senate Finance committee hearing on anti-terrorism financing. "The organisation accused Congress of continuing 'an unfortunate pattern of insufficient congressional oversight of anti-terrorist financing programmes, neglecting to address the unnecessarily harsh impacts the programmes have on U.S. charities and philanthropy." During the April 1 hearing, the opening statement of the committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT), referred to failed criminal prosecutions of charities suspected of having ties to terrorism, asking if the prosecutions "were off base" or if the government should "do a better job of monitoring these organisations?" Georgetown University law school professor David Cole, told IPS, "The 'material support' principle is 'guilt by association' in 21st-century garb, and presents all of the same problems that criminalising membership and association did during the Cold War. . . . He recommends that the Treasury Department be required to permit closed charities to direct their collected funds to charities mutually approved by the frozen charity and the government;" which is a plan of action that OMB Watch has been advocating for.