This was one of the first groundbreaking issues for me at the beginning of my research 2 years ago. The main problem is that it looks bad. Even if it was just for a library card, Watchtower HQ is in NEW YORK. I'm sure there are plenty of other libraries you could go to if you wanted. The fact that I'd never heard of this showed that the Society felt no need to mention it to the rest of us. Which, if they wanted to avoid stumbling their own people, it would've made sense to do so, to be open about it and say, okay we're an NGO and this is what NGOs do and why this isn't a violation of our neutral stance. I mean, if you had a valid argument to make about that. That's what a sincere organization would do, have some transparency about your activities when it could upset some people.
Also, that Awake! article in '91, around the same time they applied to be an NGO, fulfills the requirements stated in that letter from the UN's website--informing the public about UN activities and accomplishments. The logic of JWs doing that is like them publishing an article informing the public of the Catholic Church's activities and accomplishments. It would be the height of wrongdoing to not only do that, but actually use ordinary JWs to disseminate that message, while keeping them in the dark about what's really behind it all.
Bottom line is, it looked very shady. And the Society's silence about it to the ordinary JWs was deafening. That letter from the UN combined with the Awake! article just said to me that this was more than coincidence and a clear act of treachery for the Society.
Even if we assume it was perfectly okay for them to do that, that's hardly even the tip of the iceberg. One could just move on to the dishonest scholarship, the abuse of scripture, and lying about their own history, which was my next big step in my research. Given the strength of the evidence regarding their tendency to lie or cover up vital information, it doesn't leave an awful lot of confidence that this NGO status was done in innocence. When you see a pattern of dishonesty, it leaves little room for accepting something like this.
--sd-7