Public Information Research

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Public Information Research
Image:Public Information Resarch.GIF
Founder(s) Daniel Brandt
Type non-profit organization
Founded 1989
Headquarters San Antonio, Texas
Key people Martha Moran, Steve Badrich, Dennis Brutus, Randy Guffey, Robert Fink, Fred Goff, Jim Hougan, Carl Oglesby, Peter Dale Scott
Area served Worldwide
Revenue < $25,000 USD (2007)[1]

Public Information Research, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt public organization, with an income of less than $25,000 a year.[1] Based in San Antonio, Texas, it was founded in 1989 by Daniel Brandt, who is currently the organization's president. Public Information Research also runs the website NameBase.

NameBase is Public Information Research's web-based cross-indexed database of names that focuses on foreign policy and intelligence topics. From the 1960s onwards, Brandt collected clippings and citations pertaining to influential people and intelligence matters. In the 1980s, through his company Micro Associates, he sold subscriptions to this computerized database. The material was described in The Nation as "information on all sorts of spooks, military officials, political operators and other cloak-and-dagger types."[2] He told the The New York Times at the time that "many of these sources are fairly obscure so it's a very effective way to retrieve information on U.S. intelligence that no one else indexes."[3] In 1995, that effort became the basis of the NameBase website.[4] As of 2003, the database contained "over 100,000 names with over 260,000 citations drawn from books and serials with a few documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."[5]

PIR also runs the website Google Watch;[1] the site's goals are to report on alleged conflicts of interest in Google's corporate structure, the public's dependency on it for information, invasion of privacy issues, and increasing commercial links with private interests.[6] An additional site is Wikipedia Watch,[1] which criticizes Wikipedia, claiming it generates search engine spam, tacitly supported by Google. Brandt founded it after he found a page about himself which he believed was incorrect.[7] Wikipedia Watch later found alleged examples of plagiarism by Wikipedia editors in dozens of biographical articles, an incident that was reported by the Associated Press.[8]

The organization's advisers include Carl Oglesby and Peter Dale Scott.[9] Between October 1990 and January 1992, Chip Berlet, Martha Wenger, and Holly Sklar resigned from the Board of Advisers, after accusations by Berlet that fellow board member, L. Fletcher Prouty, was working with groups which Berlet deemed to be racist, fascist or anti-Semitic, especially the Liberty Lobby and the Holocaust denial group Institute for Historical Review which had republished Prouty's book Secret Team.[10][11] Brandt denied that such claims were justified.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Public Information Research, Inc.. GuideStar.
  2. ^ Morley, Jefferson, and David Corn. "Beltway Bandits: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spywatcher." The Nation 247.13 (November 7, 1988): 448
  3. ^ Gerth, Jeff. "Washington Talk: The Study of Intelligence; Only Spies Can Find These Sources". The New York Times (October 6, 1987): A32. Retrieved May 1, 2008.
  4. ^ Hand, Mark. "Searching for Daniel Brandt". CounterPunch (January 3, 2003). Retrieved 15 June 2007.
  5. ^ Perrault, Anna H.; Ron Blazek. United States History: A Multicultural, Interdisciplinary Guide to Information Sources. Westport, Connecticut; London: Libraries Unlimited, 35. ISBN 1563088746. 
  6. ^ Farhad Manjoo, "Meet Mr. Anti-Google". Salon.com (August 29, 2002)
  7. ^ Seelye, Katharine Q. A Little Sleuthing Unmasks Writer of Wikipedia Prank New York Times December 11, 2005
  8. ^ Jesdanun, Anick (November 3, 2006). Wikipedia Critic Finds Copied Passages. Associated Press.
  9. ^ Information on Public Information Research at namebase.org, accessed June 18, 2007
  10. ^ a b Daniel Brandt, "An Incorrect Political Memoir," Lobster, No. 24 (December 1992)
  11. ^ Chip Berlet, (1994 [1991]) Right Woos Left: Populist Party, LaRouchian, and Other Neo-fascist Overtures to Progressives and Why They Must Be Rejected. Revised and updated. Cambridge, MA: Political Research Associates.[1]

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