ACORN is being targetted by the right in a classic COINTELPRO type attack.

<rant>

COINTELPRO is an infamous abbreviation for Counter Intelligence Program - a series of illegal projects in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted under the direction of its long time director J. Edgar Hoover to discredit organizations that Hoover viewed as "un-American" or "subversive".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Amongst the groups and individuals subjected to this organized campaign were the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Martin Luther King, Jr., The Black Panther Party, The Nation of Islam, the NAACP, and others who engaged in civil rights activism during the 1950's, 1960's, and early 1970's. Approximately 85% of the FBI's effort was focused on liberal activist groups seeking civil rights equality for African Americans. The other 15% of the COINTELPRO effort was focused on white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

According to the wikipedia:

Methods

According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:

Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.

Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used myriad other "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.

Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters. <17>

Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI conspired with local police departments to threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and assassinations.<18><19><20> The object was to frighten, or eliminate, dissidents and disrupt their movements.

The people behind the recent release of those videos allegedly showing various ACORN employees advising on how to avoid getting caught running an underage prostitution ring are engaged PRECISELY in an organized effort to discredit and disrupt the ACORN organization as a whole by tricking low level ACORN employees into saying stupid or illegal things on tape without any knowledge that they were being taped.

Moreover we don't know anything at all about just how many ACORN offices Ms. Hannah Giles and Mr. James O'Keefe visited and what exactly they recorded in other offices that refutes their attempt to smear the whole organization. How many offices and how many tapes did they record before they got the ones they released? All we get to see is what they want us to see - a few bad and/or stupid apples.

We are then being subjected to these few anecdotal videos and psychologically pressured to make false generalizations from them about a whole organization based on cherry picked videos designed to play on blatantly racist stereotypes of African Americans and based on obviously lurid and contrived circumstances intended to generate the highest level of visceral reaction by the public.

Any fool with the internet can conjure up video of people acting stupidly or even criminally on YouTube who are in the employ of or acting on behalf of some organization that can't possibly know what all of its employees is doing all the time.

I'm not merely referring to big box retail store employees or fast food chain employees - I referring to law enforcement officers, members of the military, and even airline pilots.

For that matter we've witnessed a Republican Congressman acting badly on the floor of the House in a Presidential address to Congress in a joint session before the whole country this week - and a professional tennis player act badly as well in front of thousands of fans at the US Open and millions on TV.

Want some examples?

Here you go:

As a pilot and aerospace engineer, I've picked out a few examples of some airline pilots flying some very very large airplanes in a very reckless manner - should we judge their entire airlines based on their reckless hot-dogging behavior? - or should they just be fired as ACORN fired the employees in the videos in question?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3HebwaAJVQ&feature=rela...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXkSQW3xul8&feature=rela...

Here's a story about an American Airlines pilot who was pulled from a flight in the UK after failing a breathlyzer test THIS year - indeed it's very interesting how very quickly the story has disappeared from various websites and you have to resort to the cached version at Google:

I guess American's attorneys didn't appreciate the effect that pilot was having on their good name:

http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&fr=404_news&ur... --

Should we blame American or the idiot pilot in question? How is this even fair to blame American?

How about cops?

Cops. Behaving. Badly.

Just try Googling "police brutality site:youtube.com" and you'll get hit with all sorts of dashcam videos of cops being stupid on film - It certainly doesn't make all cops, or even a significant minority of cops bad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSwITK4jjQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_gFJJXLv28&feature=rela...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tOVkT2YESU&feature=rela...

Yet you could certainly come up with a lot of these videos if you wanted to give law enforcement a bad name.

And what's more American than mom, baseball, and apple pie?

Yet it's pretty easy to find stories about baseball players and fans acting badly:

Here's a story about bad little league parents that cursed out and beat up the coach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hRGAXLyGs&feature=rela...

Should we abolish little league?

Here's a minor league pitcher who threw a baseball into the stands during an on-field fight in Dayton Ohio and injured a fan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC-4ZnYm_lI&feature=rela...

Should we blame the game of baseball?

Shame on you baseball..

Oh wait.. I forgot, it's just a few bad apples for that apple pie...

How about the corporate establishment. Yeah I know they've done a lot of bad things over the last 20 years? Junk bond takeovers of the 80's, the S&L and Banking scandals of the 90's, Enron, Global Crossing, AIG, derivatives, the list goes on and on.

But...Should we blame corporate America by using this idiot?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghCJ77wWROE

How about soldiers behaving badly? We entrust them with tremendous military power in the form of very expensive and deadly military machines - should we blame the entire US military because of these guys?

Here's some videos of the US military driving "Iraq" style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbBRthe0q8&feature=rela...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyRPYMTICRM&feature=rela...

Here's a U.S. tank driver proving that tanks are indeed heavy contrary to any rumours you may have heard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiUAQGQRy3w&feature=rela...

In short, to mix my metaphors you can always cherry pick the bad apples from any organization and use them anecdotally to smear the entire organization with a broad brush because we all know that nobody ever has 100% awareness and control over what every single employee or member of a large might do at any given moment and if your organization has 20 members it is bound to have at least one idiot or crook in the group:

Jesus only had 12 apostles and one of those turned out to be Judas.

George Washington always thought his best commander was Benedict Arnold - until of course Arnold tried to turn over West Point to the British Army.

Should we blame Jesus and George Washington because they had idiots and crooks working for them?

The question to ask is:

WHY?

Why single out ACORN for this treatment?

The answer:

ACORN has been uniquely effective in field organizing in the African American community. They've registered black folks to vote in unprecedented numbers and this has upset the apple cart of conservative white Republican leaders who are afraid of African Americans actually having some political power.

James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles are NOT unbiased "journalists" - they are character assassins on a mission to discredit ACORN by any means necessary. Hannah Giles is an uber right wing blogger who blogs at townhall.com: http://townhall.com/columnists/HannahGiles . Her father is right wing evangelist radio talk-guy Doug Giles who can be found on http://clashradio.com / .

James O'Keefe is likewise an uber-right wing activist with a clearly biased axe to grind: http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/11/on-why-i-dont-retur... /

It is an un-American propagandistic cheap shot at which Lee Atwater would probably even cringe to try and smear the good work of any large organization by engaging in these sorts of dirty tricks entrapment tactics on low level employees or members of that organization.

Shame on you Ms. Giles.

Shame on you Mr. O'Keefe.

It is people like you who have really given "despicable" a bad name.

</rant>

Give me a break. If this were a right-wing organization, you'd be justifiably outraged.

thanks for falling into their sleazy trap.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

If so I've given you ample evidence to condemn baseball, the police, the airlines, corporate America and the military without even conducting any "undercover investigations".


You judge an organization by its policies and its leaders - not by some minimum wage employee - NO organization can control and monitor all of its employees and prevent them from acting stupid 100% of the time - and I've demonstrated that fact in my post.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

if I could establish that they had broken state wiretap, private investigation or recording laws.

This was dirty tricks plain and simple to discredit ACORN, NOT the employees in question.

Had this been a right wing organization I would have been equally outraged at the tricksters as I am now.

The ORGANIZATION had nothing to do with what happened. A few idiots got caught on tape saying illegal or stupid things so that they could attack ACORN.

Doug D.

and acting under federal grant money equals "dirty tricks".


lol

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and there's no denying it since Dick Cheney gets on TV about once a month to tell us how proud he is off it - and I'm far more interested in prosecuting Dick Cheney than some private somewhere. Show me an ACORN EXECUTIVE or ACORN policy promoting prostitution anywhere.

"a Few Low Level Employees" with "A Few Bad Apples" and see how you feel.

free reign to do their stuff?

not looking good for their personnel/hiring/screening lol

In Maryland it is illegal to plan a crime. When you plan to commit a crime or achieve something that is legal by an illegal means. You can be charged with Conspiracy (planing) to commit that crime. Maryland's law concerning conspiracy are unique. They differ from New Yorks and even the federal governments. Denouncing the conspiracy before the crime occurs doesn't matter. You also don't have to conceal the conspiracy. The only thing the prosecutor has to prove is an agreement (meeting of the minds)and in tent to promote (advance) and facilitate (make easier) the crime. You don't have to attempt to commit the crime. You don't even have to have intent to actually go through with the crime. You just have to plan it an show an intent to promote and facilitate the crime. So their is an argument to be made that by Maryland law they conspired to operate a house of child prostitution. The acorn workers would be coconspirators. They were enlisted into the conspiracy to provide immigration advice child labor advice and tax advice. They are providing intellectual support there by facilitating the plan that the conspirators were promoting and their going to seek a house for the crime from Acorn also promotes and facilitates the crime.

it was simply a sleazy set-up that played right into the worst beliefs about ACORN. The people who did that HAD to have had inside information on what was going on - it was certainly not simply the luck of the draw that these undercover slimes went to that particular ACORN office and dealt with that specific worker.

So, someone had already set up ACORN for this fall. From the inside.

COINTELPRO didn't operate that way. The FBI cast a wide net and hoped to catch someone, anyone, something, anything. They infiltrated places where they were not welcome, not ever, and they set people up to place them into situations where their actions, which were completely legal, could be interpreted, with the help of snitches, as something clandestine and illegal.

COINTELPRO targeted innocents. With the help of paid snitches and the Witness Protection Program, they were able to destroy lives, so many lives. The results of their handiwork still live today. None of it is pretty, nothing to be proud of.

I know this, because I had a client who was set up by a COINTELPRO group and who is still doing a life term in a Nebraska state prison. He was not guilty, but the snitch who testified against him - and who then conveniently disappeared into the WPP - had a great story, the jury bought it, and the files we finally got, via FOIA, were so heavily redacted as to be useless.

We took it all the way to the Supreme Court. We lost.

So, sorry, but your comparison doesn't hold up. This was a one-shot deal that was aimed at people who were already playing dirty. COINTELPRO brought down innocents.................................

These were people with an agenda to discredit ACORN however they could.

It is very much in the mold of COINTELPRO and the dirty tricks of J. Edgar Hoover.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

These people were NOT independent reporters they were political operatives on a Lee Atwater mission to destroy ACORN.

Hardly.

You clearly don't know what "entrapment" is, either.

You're trying to defend an indefensible and groundless thesis..................

in deciding someone's guilt or innocence on a drug trafficking charge.

These people were NOT there to get individuals, just to USE those individuals to get ACORN.

When you contrive the situation and record it in that manner, it is clearly entrapment. ACORN does not engage in the business of offering advice to prostitutes or pimps - it has NOTHING to do with what ACORN does. They could have just as easily done the same thing in a bar some where to some bar tender - it doesn't make the bar at fault.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

If you've got the executives of McDonalds doing something bad that's different than some fry cook somewhere peeing in someone's soft drink. NOT McD's fault. FYI: I ate at the McArches tonight.

Well. That makes all the difference.

Next thing you'll be posting is that you once stayed at a Holiday Inn Express............................

What exactly is YOUR experience on the subject?

You can blame these individual ACORN employees all you want but you can't blame an entire organization for the behavior of a few of its employees unless you can establish that that organization intentionally had some policy and acted overtly to have that employee engage in that behavior.

That's an unreasonable blame shift and precisely what these right wingers want you to do.

and that tells me more than I ever wanted to know about your intellectual honesty, or, rather, the lack thereof.

You have no idea what you're talking about, you know, and you've now wandered so far afrield from your original assertion that you're simply striking out without any rhyme or reason.

It's unfortunate that you didn't read my post, and so you've made a fool of yourself debating with someone who's an old veteran of the COINTELPRO wars. The case is Wolf v. Rice, in the USSC Reporter - check it out.

But, hey, you served on a jury. That certainly makes you an expert.

Do you do your own dental work, too? I mean, you've been a patient, so that, in your thinking, would make you a dentist.

This is enough for you. A waste of time....................................

You DON'T get to blame an organization for the behavior of a few bad apples.

These people singled out some not so sophisticated targets at the low end of an organization and created a contrived situation and filmed it. It's entrapment and it's dirty tricks Lee Atwater style. If you don't get it, I'm sorry you are being so intentionally dense about it.

and in the context of a criminal charge. So far these employees have been fired but NOT charged with a CRIME and they could not use entrapment as a defense because this was a private person/organization! I keep hearing this "entrapment" line from ACORN apologists and it drives me crazy! It is not that hard of a concept to grasp is it? Maybe you didn't learn that in jury duty.

That's up to the prosecutors who have relevant jurisdiction.

If they haven't chosen to file charges, then most likely there's no case to be had there. Prosecutors hate to lose in case you missed it.

ACORN did all it COULD do by firing them. It is NOT law enforcement.

that you don't know what you are talking about despite your jury duty? My explanation concerning a crime was simply to illustrate why this is so far from entrapment as to be ludicrous. 1) no government action, 2) no criminal charge in which to claim a defense of entrapment.

when someone is running a dirty tricks game on someone else.

Perhaps you can't.

And the fact that no one is being prosecuted means that law enforcement agrees with my POV on this - it's a setup and a dirty trick and they won't stoop to prosecute it.

until then, this is still a let's smear ACORN story.

You weasel, too.

Cute.................

Keep trying though...

Not my fault that you don't understand it.

My only stand here, and you're now all confused and bouncing back at everything without scoring any points, is that your comparison of the ACORN bust to COINTELPRO is specious and without adequate foundation.

You seem to have lost sight of that fact.

But, that's all right. We fought the good fight back in the late seventies, and we did the best that could be done. That our client still rots in prison is testament to the fact that the harm COINTELPRO did in terms of destroying lives continues and even though the program was shut down, the evil it promulgated still has its effect.

A bust like this one at ACORN hardly compares to what COINTELPRO did, and that was my point to you. If you want to know more about what we did, I urge you to read - I already posted this for you, but I'll do it again - Wolf v. Rice in the USSC Reporter. It's still very much controlling Fourth Amendment law, which is tragic, too. Another horrific legacy of the Rehnquist era.

I'm sure your heart is in the right place, but you're trying to compare apples and Buicks. Speaking as one experienced in the ways of COINTELPRO, I assure you that this ACORN caper in no way resembles what Director Hoover's hideous program did to people all those years ago.......................

by painting it with a broad brush using a few of its members as bad apples.

You can jump up and down and keep saying it isn't so but it is the same thing.

and I've even offered you the benefit of my own professional experience. You have rebuffed all of it because you seem to be hellbent on proving that this ACORN caper is, somehow, not to be attributed to ACORN. What that has to do with COINTELPRO, I have no idea. You do seem to be all over the place on this one.

I have tried, in as careful a manner as possible, to show you what COINTELPRO was. That, after all, is what I know.

But you're busy with ACORN, and your lack of understanding of the rules of agency is blinding you from anything else.

I can only conclude that you're on some sort of mission, one perhaps known only deep inside the fevered recesses of your own mind, and trying to make sense of what you're doing is a big old waste of time.

That's all right, though - it's never wrong to try to help out the misguided and deluded. I don't regret it.

Now, you will, I am sure, post something irrelevant and completely obscure to this response, and I'll read it and shake my head, because you have finally hit the place when I can only feel sorry for someone as tangled up in anger and defensiveness as you are, and that's a hell of a way to have to go through life.

I hope things go well for you in your life, that it's easier for you than it has been here, where several good people tried to enlighten you, people you just rebuffed in the rudest possible ways.

I wish you peace...................

you simply cannot refute what I wrote in the OP - this is a smear attack on ACORN that is simply unjustifiable based on the facts. Neither ACORN NOR it's executives knew of or condoned of the actions of these low level employees. It is preposterous to hold the organization as a whole accountable. There is simply only so much that ANY organization can do to prevent these actions ahead of time and I AMPLY demonstrated that in my OP.

I am far too old to be on any mission, and this is, don't forget, only a message board.

You've lost sight of the fact that my post was simply to point out to you that the ACORN matter and COINTELPRO were not even remotely alike.

You seem to think I have some anti-ACORN brief. I do not, and never asserted any such thing.

You simply do not seem to understand that your comparison in your OP was wrong.

That's all.

The issues aren't mine - they are yours. I'm not the embattled one - you are. I'm the one who was there when it was COINTELPRO and David Rice on trial in Nebraska. You weren't.

And now you need to blame me, somehow, for some stance on ACORN which I've never assumed.

Your anger is showing, and it manifests itself in your irrationality. Good luck..................

how ACORN is "special" and must be held to a higher standard than even law enforcement, the airlines or the military w.r.t its employees.

Keep trying.

Why would I be interested in that issue?

My interest was only in the COINTELPRO comparison you tried to make.

Are you that desperate to stay engaged, that you have to pull stuff out of the air and try to make them real?

Are you that lonely?

but won't let go.

Seems like maybe YOU might be the "lonely" one.

I see that you do like to piggyback ideas and concepts, which is how, I suspect, you end up going down so many dead ends.

I didn't set out to "disprove" your point in your OP - I simply stated that I saw it differently, from years of professional experience, and your comparison did not hold up.

Not a word about ACORN in that response or what its responsibilities are vis a vis its employees.

But, I'm stating and restating for you, because, honestly, you do not seem to be able to deal with simple concepts.

Tying shoelaces must be a colossal experience for you..........................

I'm a degreed aerospace engineer, a professional computer programmer and systems engineer, a licensed pilot, and a musician amongst many other things. My grasp of "concepts" is I'm sure far above your own.

All you've done is gone on and on about your own opinion of COINTELPRO. Guess what: It's JUST your OPINION. Get over yourself already - disprove the central thesis of the OP if you can and stop wasting everyone's time.

how very inspiring. How terribly impressive.

And yet here you are on a message board, sounding for all the world like an uninformed dip.

I didn't give you an opinion, but, since you can't read, I suppose my posts would have right over your head.

My experience as a lawyer who worked for years in the area of civil rights is what is behind my knowledge of COINTELPRO. I gave you one very significant case citation that would explain to you exactly how COINTELPRO worked, but your inability to read and to comprehend left you with the impression that I was as unschooled as you clearly are, and as inexperienced as you definitely are.

All you had to do was to read my first post. I even posted it twice, trying to give you a hand up. But, you don't read. Or, if you read, you surely do not comprehend.

Anyone as confused and angry as you deserves sympathy, and, as before, I do wish you peace

Thanks for playing but you have utterly failed to refute the OP.

Q: What exactly do you call J. Edgar Hoover's many secret and illegal recordings of people like MLK when he was trying to catch him in marital infidelity to discredit him and the civil rights movement?

You apparently don't consider THAT to be COINTELPRO.

You'd be wrong.

don't get my tax advice from my bartender. Also, I am pretty sure that the 22 year old coed at Tommy Condons would have me hauled away the moment "importation of child prostitutes" passed my lips.

And it doesn't really fit the definition of entrapment anyway:

ENTRAPMENT - A person is 'entrapped' when he is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or their agents to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit; and the law as a matter of policy forbids conviction in such a case.

However, there is no entrapment where a person is ready and willing to break the law and the Government agents merely provide what appears to be a favorable opportunity for the person to commit the crime. For example, it is not entrapment for a Government agent to pretend to be someone else and to offer, either directly or through an informer or other decoy, to engage in an unlawful transaction with the person. So, a person would not be a victim of entrapment if the person was ready, willing and able to commit the crime charged in the indictment whenever opportunity was afforded, and that Government officers or their agents did no more than offer an opportunity.

On the other hand, if the evidence leaves a reasonable doubt whether the person had any intent to commit the crime except for inducement or persuasion on the part of some Government officer or agent, then the person is not guilty.

In slightly different words: Even though someone may have , as charged by the government, if it was the result of entrapment then he is not guilty. Government agents entrapped him if three things occurred:

- First, the idea for committing the crime came from the government agents and not from the person accused of the crime.

- Second, the government agents then persuaded or talked the person into committing the crime. Simply giving him the opportunity to commit the crime is not the same as persuading him to commit the crime.

- And third, the person was not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government agents spoke with him.

On the issue of entrapment the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped by government agents.

if you want to take bona fides, i worked undercover for 2 years and investigated over a HUNDRED independent drug and weapons cases.

i had to know the law of entrapment inside and out

i also worked in directing informants for about 2 years

this is NOT entrapment.

"contriving" a situation does not make it entrapment.

if the cops (we have done this) leave a nice bait car on a street, unlocked , with the keys inside, and somebody steals it. it aint entrapment. it sure as hell was contrived.

also, entrapment is a LEGAL DEFENSE one uses against AGENTS of the state.

these investigators were not agents of the state, so it cannot be legal entrapment - period.

but regardless, the facts and circumstances are clear

ah, the apologists are out in force.

3 ACORN offices already have been stung

not private persons/organizations.

employees - there are always idiots and crooks in any organization of any size. It is preposterous to use that to paint the whole organization.

James Trafficant just got out of prison. Should we paint the whole Congress with the Trafficant brush?

has a definition and its not what you think it is.

the only thing NOT making it so is that the persons doing it were not LEOs.

"I know what it is. This isn't entrapment in a strictly "law enforcement" sense but the only thing NOT making it so is that the persons doing it were not LEOs."

"Entrapment" is a strictly "law enforcement" term. This isn't entrapment, and your post even says so while trying to make excuses for misusing the word.

The only that WOULD make it entrapment is if it were done BY LEOs.

under any accepted definition

i worked undercover and with informants as well for YEARS.

i know the law of entrapment. this aint it

is that these hootchies (yeah, I said it) went along with the program and now there is confirmation in racist/anti-government-program/anti-dem minds that ACORN is all about the stoopidity and unethical (actually horrifically unethical) behavior. Thanks, ladies!

visited any number of ACORN sites and that they interviewed any number of people until they got the story they wanted.

If you believe that, you're a fool. And you surely do not understand how undercover operations work. Or what snitches are for.

You don't seem to understand what COINTEPRO was, either.

But, that's all right - you're harmless..............................

These people were NOT in the journalism game - they were in the blowing up ACORN game. If you think they wouldn't take shortcuts to get there then you really are the fool here.

with an agenda. My question is so what? They set a trap and ACORN employees fell into it. ACORN as an organization has to deal with the fall out which (so far) includes losing a census contract and the Senate voting to block HUD funding to ACORN. Maybe more coming out as they seem to be stringing this along for maximum impact.

were fired, as I recall.

Big surprise.

Every organization has its bad apples. Someone ratted out this particular beauty to these "undercover lovers," and the perpetrators walked right into their trap.

Pretty easy stuff, IMO...................

responsible for these individual employees bad behavior?

There is only so much that any organization can do to monitor and control the behavior of its members as I've amply demonstrated, NO organization of any size is above this sort of problem.

discrediting the organization that pwned them? Did you read their press release? If not google it. Since 87 Senators (including most of the Democrats) just voted to strip ACORN's HUD funding I think they may have a problem that they need to address.

the problem they need to address is the right is out to get them at any cost because ACORN cost them the election in Florida and a few other states by registering huge numbers of black voters in the last 4 years.

You can never control and prevent your 100% of your employees from acting stupidly or even criminally, even amongst groups of people supposedly of very high reliability who have been thoroughly investigated and vetted by the government. My OP amply demonstrates that point.

You can only do so much - ACORN is being held to an impossibly high standard for the conduct of its employees.

Or at least don't have it happen in multiple offices and at least two different cities.

What an impossibly high standard of conduct!

WHICH ACORN exec is responsible?

These people went around looking for saps to catch on tape. You don't get to blame the organization for THAT.

I've amply demonstrated that you can pull together plenty of anecdotal examples of cops, soldiers and airline pilots acting very very badly without even bothering to go "undercover". Doesn't make law enforcement, the army, or the airlines responsible for these stupid people unless they failed to deal with their stupid or illegal acts AFTER they were committed.

You can't prevent people from acting stupidly or illegally in some indeterminate future. You let me know when you can explain how to actually fairly run a department of "pre-crime".

Three offices so far. What a hypocrite you are.

which is someone who says one thing and does something ELSE.

and THREE offices constitutes a statistically significant sample? Clearly you have no clue how many ACORN offices there are nation wide.

This is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to smear ACORN with the idiocy of a few who do NOT run the organization.

Are all cops bad because a few are on the take or because a few beat up people in their custody? Are their organizations bad?

THAT's the ridiculous standard you are applying to ACORN.

What a sorry apologist you are.

the OP has a whole bunch of issues, none of which have anything to do with COINTELPRO - about which he knows nothing - or ACORN - something he needs to defend, even without understanding how the rules of employer-employee tie in with the laws of agency.

He's just busy fighting and not reading what people post. Try to educate him, and he goes weird and inappropriate.

You did good, and I like your screen name. But, here, you're pushing water uphill. We all were...................

I always enjoy watching you devastate the ignorant.

sometimes it's too easy.

But thank you for all that you contributed. Sometimes it just turns into playing with our food, doesn't it?

how ANY organization of any size can reasonably prevent its members or employees from acting stupidly or illegally in advance at some indefinite point in the future.

I've amply demonstrated that law enforcement, the airlines and the military cannot even do this when they screen and investigate their people to a far greater degree than anyone in corporate America even does.

HOW exactly do YOU propose to prevent this behavior and WHY is it that only ACORN is responsible to such a ridiculuously high standard in your point of view?

I was talking ABOUT you to a fellow DUer who sees clearly and is articulate and focused and informed.

That's not you.....................................

but I'd hate missing a chance to gloat with my pal, woo.....................

all you've done is kept it at the top of the boards for the last hour.

Thanks for playing though..

It is RIDICULOUS to hold ACORN responsible for something that a low level employee did.

ALL they can do is fire someone after the fact - WHICH THEY DID.

THEY AREN'T law enforcement so they can't arrest someone.

Are you really that clueless about the real world?

HOW do YOU propose that ACORN prevent its 100% of its employees from EVER doing or saying ANYTHING idiotic or criminal EVER?

How ridiculously HIGH is that standard?

Law enforcement, the airlines and the military can't even do that with people that they spend tens of thousands of dollars and months and months investigating for clearances. There is always a certain percentage that ends up doing something bad or stupid in SPITE of that vetting. Do you propose that we blame and disband THESE organizations also when one of theirs screws up?

that we're all the OP has left?

He's lonely, I think, and your emoticon - while perfectly appropriate - isn't anything he quite grasps.

Say something nasty about, oh, let's say, Jim DeMint......................

Oh you "so" hurt my feelings.. keep trying to avoid the subject - you've done a good job so far.

So with a shake up of upper management and new procedures in place to prevent this and Acorn is back in Business.

What "new procedures" do you suggest that will protect ACORN from an unreasonable expectation that none of its employees gets into trouble ever in the indefinite future? If you can figure that out, then the CIA has a job for you vetting agents.

They can do the shake up simply on a failure to prevent. There are many ways this could be prevented.

were pros. So?

I have no idea what your comment here means. No one is claiming that these "applicants" were journalists, but your theory - that they went at ACORN blind, without any inside information, and just went from one ACORN office to another until they found someone who was willing to go the illegal route, is laughable.

No, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. You would be wise to quit digging the hole you're now standing in and just let it go. You had an idea, it didn't fly, life goes on....................

and if anyone needs to put down the shovel it's you friend.

Show me how many ACORN offices those people visited before they found someone breaking the law.

Honey, you're outclassed here, and people with experience and brains are just trying to show you to the nearest "Exit."

Too bad you think you already know it all. Your lack of information is staggering, and it's embarrassing that you can't see it.

Too bad, also, that you weren't around during COINTELPRO. We could have used your help. We needed so much help, because people didn't know what it was, or what to do about it.

But they did know that an open mind was an asset, something you need to develop..................

can see what's going on.


Sorry if you are really that clueless about what is going on.

Sorry if you are intentionally being obtuse about blaming an organization for a few alleged idiots/criminals at the bottom who do NOT set policy and do NOT run the organization.

you made a claim about how that operation took place, and now I would like very much to see it, how you know that, and how many offices they had to visit before they were lucky enough to find ACORN people who were willing to break the law.

Thank you................

this country.

Nice try but the burden of proof is on you to prove ME wrong.

there is no "burden of proof" at work here.

You made the allegation when I posited that it was an inside job.

You made the claim - you provide the substantiation.

You can't.

I know. It's obvious.

Now, again, I really do wish you peace. You seem desperately in need of it.............................

Because you can't supply any substantive information for your "statement of fact" about how the ACORN matter was orchestrated, you start pulling out legal terms you once heard - after all, yes, YOU WERE ON A JURY! - and you don't know what you're talking about.

I get the feeling that not knowing what you're talking about is well within your comfort zone.

That explains a lot.......................

going back to the Monica Lewinsky situation wherein the question of whatshername taping Monica Lewinsky in Maryland was a very similar sort of situation. Was it illegal to tape it without Monica Lewinsky's knowledge or is it only illegal to "intercept" someone's communication?

I think that's the question that has to be answered by an attorney from Maryland.

Maryland is a both parties state. The reason Linda Tripp wasn't prosecuted is because of an immunity deal with Ken Starr. I can establish Acorns reasonable right to privacy. They handle sensitive and personal information related to loans. They have a right to protect the information of other clients.

But I'm also looking at another angle. By Maryland Law they may have met the legal burden to be prosecuted for conspiring to operate a house of child prostitution. Maryland also has unique conspiracy laws. They can denounce the crime they planned in the video all they want. That's irrelevant in Maryland. It only matters that they planned the crime. The prosecutor is only required to prove an agreement (meeting of the minds) and the intent to promote and facilitate the crime. That's it. They don't even have to have an actual intent to commit the crime. If you plan a murder for someone else to commit. You don't intend to commit the crime you planned. But you're still guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. In Maryland conspiracy applies to crimes in their planning stage.

it would be funny to see them get prosecuted for their sleazy little stunt - I hope someone can.

That is the plan to commit this crime they developed. lets say. at their home. At this point the conspiracy exists between O'Keefe and Giles. Going to the Acorn offices to enlist their employees in the conspiracy in an attempt to gain intellectual support in an attempt to gain material support of a house for the child prostitution ring. That could be interpreted as an the overt act in the furtherance of the crime. My concern was that I was interpreting the concept of furtherance too broadly. So I checked case law. In Walker v. State the Maryland Court Of Special Appeals say the furtherance concept is to be interpreted broadly.


One other thing. Even if they developed the plan right there in the office on impulse. That doesn't matter. They only need show a meeting of the minds that forms the agreement. They don't even have to say a word. Gestures will suffice.

"The people who did that HAD to have had inside information on what was going on - it was certainly not simply the luck of the draw that these undercover slimes went to that particular ACORN office and dealt with that specific worker"

many workers!

at (thus far)

THREE ACOrN offices

your apologist mana is weak

...these employees were caught and summarily fired...because they promoted illegal activities.

Answer: it doesn't - those employees are responsible for their OWN behavior. ACORN as an organization did what it was supposed to do when presented with the information.

It's too bad you didn't serve on a jury that dealt with the issue of agency.

But, maybe if you check into a Holiday Inn Express?

What's really funny is that you could have had a terrific resource in someone who actually dealt with the FBI and COINTELPRO, and all you end up doing is behaving badly, setting forth silly arguments - laws of agency are pretty common knowledge - and telling people to go fuck themselves, which got your message deleted.

Now, try to learn from this - that you're not terribly informed and that your idea wasn't that good - and behave...............

And the theory of "agency" can only be extended so far.

Organizations simply cannot be held responsible for every stupid little thing their employees do in a prophylactic manner. They can only investigate and vet employees so much. They can only supervise their employees so much. Sooner or later, someone is going to screw up. The organization then has an obligation to fire that employee if they are culpable and make the injured party or parties whole to whatever extent they can but it is entirely unreasonable to expect any organization to be able to entire prevent low level idiots from screwing up in their employ.

ROTFL! Anyway, I seem to have got a half admission from him that entrapment was not an appropriate term to use for the filmmakers' actions but I seriously doubt you will get even that much. I liked your posts though! Have a good night!

So many attackers coming at me.. sorry if I was overly defensive.

...and I wish there were more ways to really check on organizations to hold them accountable. There's only so much you can audit.

That was my point. No worries about the misunderstanding.

If Cops were filmed shooting someone in cold blood they would be put on administrative leave until a full investigation could be made, and then rarely fired much less charged. The facts here need serious investigation.

I have not seen but a few bits of the video, and indeed there is certainly several reports of these people going into many Acorn offices and just weirding out the folks there trying to get the video they wanted and apparently not succeeding.

There are also accusations that there is clever editing. You could ask a question that would elicit the answer you wanted and then go back and voice over the embarrassing question to make the answer much more sinister than it was.

These things are not difficult to do and quite difficult to detect without careful scrutiny. And they may also have gotten one or more people who were unqualified to give that advice, since people who are qualified to give advice would be hard to get to do that job.

Ultimately the judgment needs to be about what you know to be true, and the logic of how struggling activists are in a multi-billion dollar conspiracy and nobody has any money. Finding money trails about the right wingers is hard to miss.

So Yes investigate, subject the video to careful scrutiny, if a person gave legal advice above their paygrade while trying to help, so be it, but I will still consider it a far lessor crime than many of the videos noted, much less mountains of serious crimes that I am sure would be a lot more prosecutable if anyone even tried.

How do we even know if what was on the tape was really true? We internet saavy people know things can be doctored or even faked.

ACORN is a victim of the "scary minority" syndrome, like Van Jones. They (conservatives) hate that minorities, brown and black are able to outvote and outorganize the lazy, aging, stupid "teabagger" white folks these days. They desperately want to go back to the 1950's, and now that Obama has won, it's clear it never will go back ever.