The IFC proposal had received complaints from some families of September 11 victims. In August 2005, officials stated that the Center would have been required to respond to objections raised by victims' families before it was approved to go forward. Many relatives of 9/11 victims had denounced the International Freedom Center plan as an insult to the 2,749 people who died at the WTC, because it would paint them as a little more than a footnote to the world's march toward freedom. The families, police, and firefighters said that the IFC's plan to use hallowed land at Ground Zero to highlight poverty as a barrier to freedom diminishes the events of 9/11. It has also been disparagingly compared to comedian and political commentator
Bill Maher's suggestion immediately after 9/11 that reconstruction should include a "Why They Hate Us Pavilion." A non-profit organization called
Take Back The Memorial was started by blogger Robert Shurbet and 9/11 family member
Debra Burlingame, to block the International Freedom Center from being located on the WTC site. This group protested any linkage between what occurred on 9/11 with
political activism The
Times concluded that beneath the superficial arguments and their irrational implications lay an even more disturbing motivation: But this is not really a campaign about money or space. It is a campaign about political purity—about how people remember 9/11 and about how we choose to read its aftermath, including the
Iraq War. On their Web site ... critics of the cultural plan at ground zero offer a resolution called Campaign America. It says that ground zero must contain no facilities "that house controversial debate, dialogue, artistic impressions, or exhibits referring to extraneous historical events." This, to us, sounds un-American. ==Political opposition==