A new organization on the Left is aiming to harass top Republican donors in an attempt to subdue their right to free speech as private citizens:

Nearly 10,000 of the biggest donors to Republican candidates and causes across the country will probably receive a foreboding “warning” letter in the mail next week.

The letter is an opening shot across the bow from an unusual new outside political group on the left that is poised to engage in hardball tactics to prevent similar groups on the right from getting off the ground this fall.

Led by Tom Matzzie, a liberal political operative who has been involved with some prominent left-wing efforts in recent years, the newly formed nonprofit group, Accountable America, is planning to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.

What’s next?  Threats sent to anyone who participates in a Republican primary?

Targeting the leaders of an organization and especially targeting their message is fair game.  By creating such a group and putting themselves out there they are inviting such debate and criticism.  Targeting those who provide some financial backing, especially when not being in charge of the direction or message, is out right intimidation and an attempt to infringe upon their rights as American’s.  Just as you have no right to threaten to destroy a person who writes a letter to the editor, no one has the right to personally attack a donor merely because they don’t like what happens once the check is cut.

It’s irresponsible gutter politics and I hope that no one buys into it.  Otherwise they’re inviting the same response to their donors and payback can be quite gruesome.

Michelle Malkin has a copy of the letter and more:

Ironies and hypocrisies abound. Let us count the ways.

You’ve got the nutroots brigade digging up the addresses of GOP donors to chill their political free speech while these same left-wing operatives and their followers label it “stalking” to publish public e-mail contact information for anti-war shills, or to Google Democrat donors, or to vet Democrat health care sob stories by actually reporting on their financial status.

When we do it, it’s intimidation. When they do, it’s “accountability.”

Dan Riehl makes a related point about a liberal blogger who dug into the background of a McCain donor.

When we do it, it’s bullying. When they do it, it’s journalism.

And an interesting note from a Free Republic commenter:

Where does this Rat Pack intend to get the names and addresses? If they are obtained from FEC records, they can only be used for information purposes, to show that Smith donated to Jones, for instance. If those names are used for fund-raising purposes, and preventing a flow of funds to your opponent is a fund-raising purpose, then this is a felony under election law.

CSN: Real Change Happens Off-Line:

Internet activism is individualistic. It’s great for a sense of interconnectedness, but the Internet does not bind individuals in shared struggle the same as the face-to-face activism of the 1960s and ’70s did. It allows us to channel our individual power for good, but it stops there.

This is great for signing a petition to Congress or donating to a cause. But the real challenges in our society – the growing gap between rich and poor, the intransigence of racism and discrimination, the abuses from Iraq to Burma (Myanmar) – won’t politely go away with a few clicks of a mouse. Or even a million.

While the article reads a bit more like a call to action/press release for the sake of Sally Kohn’s Generation Change, her points are valid in that the internet, while creating a sense of connectedness and community, is individualistic at its core, especially in America.  We don’t go to internet cafes or sit around with our computers and work together in the same room.  We sit in our own homes, at our own desks, with no one around, and shout into the wind thinking that it’s going to make a difference.

Real change happens when folks step away from the computers and roll up their sleeves to get work done.  It may not be as easy as signing an online petition or posting a blog, but it sure delivers more results for your efforts.