I randomly came across this lovely blog entry by Joi Ito Re: the charitable contributions made as part of the LJ Permanent account sale. He easily dismisses the accusations I had in mind when the connection between those 3 charities and Mr. Ito were made known. Sorry, but I still think it was fishy and looks like someone was trying to please his boss more than anything else.
The Quote: "Unfortunately, we failed to disclose my involvement in Creative Commons and WITNESS when Six Apart was conducting the campaign."
The full entry is located here:
http://joi.ito.com/ Also, isn't he involved with EFF somehow? If so, he didn't mention it. Unfortunate is not the word I would have chosen.