Is that right?
Source?
No matter where it comes from, I'll read it with an open mind.
mmfa?
All of this is from okeefes wiki page
"
Reception
After the videos were released through the fall of 2009, the
U.S. Congress voted to freeze federal funding to ACORN.
[42] The
Census Bureau and the
IRS terminated their contract relationships with ACORN.
[43]
By December 2009, an external investigation of ACORN was published that cleared it of any illegality, while noting that its poor management practices contributed to unprofessional actions by some low-level employees.
[44][45][46][47] In March 2010, ACORN announced it would dissolve due to loss of funding from government and especially private sources.
[48]
On March 1, 2010, the district attorney for Brooklyn found that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in New York.
[49][50]
In late March 2010,
Clark Hoyt, then
public editor for
The New York Times, reviewed the videos, full transcripts and full audio. Hoyt wrote "The videos were heavily edited. The sequence of some conversations was changed. Some workers seemed concerned for Giles, one advising her to get legal help. In two cities, ACORN workers called the police. But the most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context."
[51]
The
California Attorney General's Office granted O'Keefe and Giles limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for providing the full, unedited videotapes related to ACORN offices in California.
[10] The AG's Report was released on April 1, 2010, concluding that the videos from ACORN offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Bernardino had been "severely edited."
[10] The report found there was no evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees nor any evidence that any employee intended to aid or abet criminal conduct. It found that three employees had tried to deflect the couple's plans, told them ACORN could not offer them help on the grounds they wanted, and otherwise dealt with them appropriately. Such context was not reflected in O'Keefe's edited tapes. The AG's Report noted that "O'Keefe stated that he was out to make a point and to damage ACORN and therefore did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story", and because the Giles-O'Keefe criminal plans were a ruse, the ACORN workers could not be complicit in them. It found no evidence of intent by the employees to aid the couple. The report also noted "a serious and glaring deficit in management, governance and accountability within the ACORN organization" and said its conduct "suggests an organizational ethos at odds with the norms of American society. Empowering and serving low-and moderate-income families cannot be squared with counseling and encouraging illegal activities."
[10]
The AG's report confirmed that ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, shown in O'Keefe's video as apparently aiding a human smuggling proposal, had immediately reported his encounter with the couple to a Mexican police detective at the time to thwart their plan. Following the AG's report, that employee, who had been fired by ACORN after the video's release, sued O'Keefe and Giles in 2010. He alleged
invasion of privacy and cited a California law that prohibits recordings without consent of all parties involved.
[52]
O'Keefe moved for
summary judgment in his favor, arguing that the plaintiff had no reasonable expectation that the conversation would be private. In August 2012, the federal judge hearing the case denied O'Keefe's motion for
summary judgment. The judge ruled that O'Keefe had "misled plaintiff to believe that the conversation would remain confidential by posing as a client seeking services from ACORN and asking whether their conversation was confidential."
[53] On March 5, 2013, O'Keefe agreed to pay Vera $100,000 and acknowledged in the settlement that at the time he published his video he was unaware that Vera had notified the police about the incident. The settlement contained the following apology: "O'Keefe regrets any pain suffered by Mr. Vera or his family."
[54][55]
On June 14, 2010, the U.S.
Government Accountability Office (GAO) published its report finding no evidence that ACORN, or any of its related organizations, had mishandled any of the $40 million in federal money which they had received in recent years."
and media matters:
Fact: On the guerilla clips posted online and aired on Fox News, O'Keefe was featured in lots of cutaway shots that were filmed outside and showed him parading around with Giles in his outlandish cane/top hat/sunglasses/fur coat pimp costume.
The cutaway shots certainly left the impression that that's how O'Keefe was dressed when he spoke to ACORN workers.
But
inside each and every office, according to
one independent review that looked at the public videos, O'Keefe entered sans the pimp get-up. In fact, he was dressed rather conservatively. During his visit to the Baltimore ACORN office, he wore a dress shirt and khaki pants. For the Philadelphia sting, he added a tie to the ensemble.
^^^
http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/02/17/james-okeefe-and-the-myth-of-the-acorn-pimp/160485