The federal government has frozen our non-profit accounts!

I am part of two organizations that work for communities and not for profit: the Thomas Tolman Family Organization that does genealogy research and archiving, and the Gesundheit! Institute that is trying to create a different kind of hospital and health care. I have been raising money online for each organization; you can find the payment links easily on the Tolman site, and my friends' Gesundheit! donations are collected through trentlarson.com. The first of these is even a government-registered non-profit organization; the second isn't and probably never will be.  (UPDATE: I initially wrote that the Tolman Organization was not registered as a non-profit.)

A few weeks ago, PayPal restricted each account, meaning that I cannot get any of the money out. Well, that was inconvenient, especially since I was about to make a transfer to the Tolman family for publications that people have ordered. I haven't made extra effort to certify that I am an authorized fund-raiser; I expect that this is understood by people who donate since they either come from the website (for the Tolman family), or they know and trust me (for my friends giving to Gesundheit!). I do not like it, and since I don't get any discount as a charity for using their system, I will likely not do any more business through them because of the difficulties this has caused. I sure do not appreciate the sudden restrictions; we do this work on our free time, and I'm not able to jump and get all their documentation together at the drop of a hat. (Especially with Gesundheit! where Patch only works by snail mail, so it'll take me weeks or months to get any "official" documentation stating that he approves of this.)

However, yesterday I got the real story. I called PayPal again because I got another notice claiming that this would be my "final reminder"; sounds scary, and I certainly don't want to lose the money I've collected! This time I found the real reason our access is restricted: my friendly Department of Homeland Security is making sure I'm collecting money for the right reasons.

I don't know what to say at this point. I'm dumbfounded. I knew things were bad, but I am constantly surprised when I learn how bad things really are... especially, of course, when I am a direct beneficiary! :-0

I hope everyone sees how far we have come down the road toward totalitarianism, where almost every action must first be approved by a government department. No amount of good intentions can justify these attacks on our liberties. Please help get our federal government back to doing only their lawful, Constitutional duties and nothing more.