The New York Times reports that
In Missouri, a much wider constellation of Internet sites – with names like parishdonations.com and katrinafamilies.com – displayed pictures of the flood-ravaged South and drove traffic to a single site, InternetDonations.org, a nonprofit entity with apparent links to white separatist groups.
The registrant of those Web sites was sued by the state of Missouri yesterday for violating state fund-raising law and for “omitting the material fact that the ultimate company behind the defendants’ Web sites supports white supremacy.”
I’m trying to get my hands on the complaint, so I can see exactly what the state’s theory is. But a requirement that fundraisers reveal potentially embarrassing information would be an unconstitutional form of speech compulsion, see Riley v. National Federation of the Blind (1989). In Riley, the Court struck down even an ideologically neutral requirement that fundraisers disclose in their pitches what fraction of the donations are used for fundraising expenses; a requirement that fundraisers disclose their reprehensible viewpoints — not all viewpoints, presumably, but only certain ones that the state thinks are bad enough — would be even more clearly unconstitutional.
I can understand why donors might feel cheated if they give money to some seemingly benevolent cause, and then learn that the cause’s founders support white supremacy, Communism, or whatever else. But given Riley, the government may not mandate the inclusion of disclosures in the fundraiser’s pitches, even in order to protect donors.
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