ALEC "charity" tied to UK scandal w/ Minister of Defence, recruitment of European legislators

[highplainsdem]

The corporate-front group ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, hasn't done enough damage just to the US.

Now their tentacles are snarled in the UK government, with their machinations turned up by a scandal involving the Minister of Defence.

From the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/07/adam-werritty-charity-liam-fox

The crisis facing the defence secretary, Liam Fox, over his links to his self-styled adviser and friend, Adam Werritty, has deepened after it emerged that Werritty ran a controversial charity from inside Fox's office in the houses of parliament.

The Guardian has established that Werritty used Fox's room 341 in the MPs' block at Portcullis House as the official headquarters of a rightwing charity, the Atlantic Bridge, which works in conjunction with a major US business lobby group. The office was provided to Fox at taxpayers' expense while he was in opposition until last year.

-snip-

The presence of the charity's administrative office at the heart of parliament also exposed Fox's potentially embarrassing links to US neo-conservative lobbyists whose views on the environment and public healthcare clash with the stated policies of David Cameron's government.

In 2007, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a major US lobbying organisation for big corporations thought to include Philip Morris, Texaco and McDonalds, set up a sister charity also known as Atlantic Bridge, which then funded Fox's organisation with £28,528 over the past four years, accounts show.

-snip-

According to the Guardian, ALEC didn't answer their inquiries about whether it funded the British charity, but did call the charity the "latest component of its international relations program."

That program's goal, according to a later paragraph, is "to substantially increase its number of European legislative members."

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Coincidence? alec.org appears to be down. 'maintenance'

right...

[highplainsdem]

3. Their site's still down.

[Rex]

5. They are in CYA mode.

The following information is meant for the website developer for debugging purposes.
Error Occurred While Processing Request
Data source ALEC could not be found.

Resources:

Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debugging Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

Browser Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1
Remote Address 68.89.137.30
Referrer http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230
Date/Time 08-Oct-11 04:27 AM

Interesting, they have a 'referrer'.

[CurtEastPoint]

8. Site STILL down. Chicken shit mofos.

[glinda]

2. K & R

[starroute]

4. Wow, that's a tremendous find

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since ALEC is a spin-off of the Heritage Foundation, which has always had strong ties to European conservatives -- but somehow I am. I guess I just never thought their model of operation would be transferable.

So the real question is whether they were only just starting to get a foothold with this Atlantic Bridge thing -- or whether the connections go much further back and run much deeper.

I suspect that looking at some of the UK climate change deniers with Heritage connections -- like Lord Monckton -- might provide clues.

[malaise]

6. Liam Fox is going to be forced to resign

This is a huge story

[highplainsdem]

7. Another UK paper calls ALEC a "neocon group" funded by the NRA and Tobacco Institute

British media have been doing a more accurate job of describing ALEC than many American papers have.

From the Sunday Express:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/276354/Liam-Fox-faces-cash-for-access-crisis

In 1997 Dr Fox set up a Right-wing organisation called Atlantic Bridge. It was described as the UK arm of the US neocon group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which was funded by groups that included the National Rifle Association and the Tobacco Institute.

Atlantic Bridge’s advisory board has included not only 50-year-old Dr Fox, but also Chancellor George Osborne, Foreign Secretary William Hague, Education Secretary Michael Gove and Lord Tebbit.

It gained charitable status in 2003 and in 2007 Dr Fox installed Mr Werritty as chief executive, a role which earned him over £90,000 in the next three years.

Atlantic Bridge lost its charitable status in July last year when the Charity Commission ruled it had been acting politically. It was finally dissolved 10 days ago.

[stephennewton]

9. From Stephen Newton, the blogger that first exposed the Atlantic Bridge

Dear all
Very interested in your discussion, but we're still some way from fully exposing ALEC and the Atlantic Bridge. I am very interested in any information you might have about ALEC, particularly any evidence of contacts with the defence industry, but also other evidence of impropriety.
Best
Stephen Newton
[e-mail]

[stephennewton]

10. More from UK

I should have added that you can see my stuff on Atlantic Bridge at www.stephennewton.com/tag/atlantic-bridge

[highplainsdem]

11. Welcome to DU, Stephen! Kudos on your one-man campaign against Atlantic Bridge!

And thank you for the email address and the link to your http://www.stephennewton.com/tag/atlantic-bridge/ blog.

I started a compilation topic about ALEC (which now has over 400 replies, most of them with more links to information) in early March of this year, after finally, belatedly, finding out about ALEC and realizing how much it had to do with the wave of harmful right-wing legislation being pushed in so many American states this year (and in earlier years, but it became particularly noticeable this year, finally getting more attention, because of Republican gains in state legislatures in 2010).

This is the link to that compilation topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

and the hundreds of links you'll find there will take you to news stories and web sites about ALEC.

You asked about evidence of ALEC's contacts with the defense industry. That hasn't been a focus for ALEC here in the US, with ALEC's activities and lobbying primarily at state level, with much of the model legislation about domestic issues such as limiting voting (purportedly to prevent voter fraud, but actually to suppress voting by groups likely to vote Democratic), weakening regulations on business, and so on.

But ALEC is a corporate-front group, a giant lobbying machine, and its international interests are those that further business interests, which of course includes the defense industry.

ALEC's International Relations news page

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=ir_news

links to two news stories about the defense export treaty with the UK and Australia:

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4786799

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/senate-oks-treaty-on-defense-exports-2010-09-30?reflink=MW_news_stmp

This page on the ALEC site about Karla Jones, director of the International Relations Task Force, is also interesting:

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Karla_Jones

Karla Jones assumed the position of Director of the International Relations Task Force (IRTF) and Federal Relations Working Group (FRWG) at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in July 2009. In this capacity, she has worked to expand the IRTF's previous EU focus to one that is more global in nature reaching out to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to identify issues where promotion of ALEC's governing principles (free markets, limited government and individual liberty) and foreign national interests intersect. She has established partnerships with legislators and other officials and organizations abroad in order to highlight and advocate ALEC's policy positions and is also engaging with Congress and the relevant agencies and departments on IRTF and FRWG resolutions that require federal action.


Before joining ALEC, Ms. Jones was the Europe Project Director at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), in Washington, DC. While there, she raised JINSA's visibility as an opinion leader through extensive contacts with British MPs, German Bundestag members, Polish national leaders, Members of the European Parliament, senior EU officials and NATO officials. Through a variety of JINSA programs including leading JINSA delegations to meet with civilian and military leaders in various European countries and organizing speaking events across the United States, she worked to educate JINSA's board of directors and general membership about the importance of a healthy transatlantic alliance to achieving American national security objectives. Through her program, Karla also emphasized the role that the Israel-European and Israel-NATO partnerships play in international security.

Her background with JINSA is important because it's a neocon organization:

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

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Jewish_Institute_for_National_Security_Affairs

The link below

http://www.alec.org/am/pdf/InsideALEC/InsideALEC_Sept09_v8.pdf

is to a PDF file with ALEC's Sept. 2009 newsletter, with an article by Jones -- "International Relations Task Force Launched" -- which includes this paragraph:

ALEC will continue to strengthen
partnerships with friends in Europe
through collaborative ventures with
The Atlantic Bridge and by increasing
our international legislative membership.
ALEC will consider ratification of
the U.S.-U.K. Defense Trade and Cooperation
Treaty, which would reduce the
bureaucratic obstacles to defense trade
with our most important strategic ally.