American Crossroads is on the air in a New York special House election:
Most people on the right looked at Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks project and wanted him arrested. Stephen Law, president of American Crossroads, had a different approach: copy Assange's idea.
"All of us are of the view that the way WikiLeaks operates is questionable at best ... but there was obviously some genius behind it as well, which is to create a repository for inside documents that tell a story most people aren't aware of," Law told IBD.
So he decided to make his own.
Law is leading an effort to create a conservative version called "Wikicountability.org." The goal is to pool efforts of center-right groups that have obtained insider documents about the Obama administration that show "how it is executing its policies and activities," Law said.
We wish we were shocked, but the plan is merely the latest play by Democrats to crack down on donors who support their opponents. In 2010 they tried and failed to pass the Disclose Act, which would have forced disclosure on business donations but left unions alone.
This year they've turned to harassment by regulation, first asking the Federal Communications Commission to require groups that run political ads to disclose their high-dollar donors. The Obama Administration is also working up an executive order to require anyone bidding for a federal contract to disclose if the company or its executives donated more then $5,000 to independent groups.
Now comes the 501(c)(4) net, which may catch the likes of liberal uber-donor George Soros, though we'd bet he's happy to lend his name to the project to create an appearance of nonpartisanship. The real targets of the disclosure project are conservative groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, which have seen their fundraising and influence grow in recent years.
All this is done in the name of "transparency," which is a nice way of saying, we know where you live. The real goal is to intimidate business and big donors from giving money to Republicans. The draft executive order aiming to wrest disclosure from federal contractors appears to make no such demands on federal labor unions, which had their free speech rights restored alongside business in Citizens United.
