J. MARC WHEAT: Government Lists Are A Threat To Free Association

No government official needs to know what organizations you financially support. And no state attorney general should have access to Americans’ sensitive personal information without clearly showing cause or in the absence of criminal proceedings. Yet, wielding state power for his own political agenda, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin asked a court to force First Choice Women’s Resource Centers to disclose donor information about nearly 5,000 contributions (see AAF’s amicus brief in First Choice Women’s Resource Center v. Platkin).

Similar disclosures in the past have not fared well for Americans. In 2014, Mozilla forced their new chief executive Brendan Eich, the founder of JavaScript, to resign after discovering that Eich had donated $1,000 six years earlier to a campaign that supported Proposition 8, the voter-approved California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In the late 1950s during the civil rights movement, Alabama attempted to use disclosure requirements to prevent the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from conducting business, which included the Montgomery Bus Boycott and funding programs for African American students wishing to attend the state university (see NAACP v. Alabama).

Today, big government agencies already have large databases on Americans’ private information. Plenty of people have not told their best friend or neighbors how much they earn. Yet, the government—only trusted by 22% of Americans to do the right thing always or most of the time—knows.

Thanks to the SEC’s Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), the federal government also compiles a list linking your every purchase and sale in the stock market to your sensitive, personal information. (see AAF’s