Everybody here has seen whitehouse.org, by now. It's a parody site of the whitehouse web page, thought up by people that don't like bush and published with tounge firmly planted in cheek. A very good thing, if you ask me. But today, on PRwatch, I find this:

Wednesday, June 26, 2002
The Cowardly Crusader
Someone who calls himself "Fred Curran" has been creating "parody" websites attacking environmental groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Pure Food Campaign. Curran's parodies, at greenpiece.org, earthfiends.org and purefoods.org, say that Greenpeace "has no credibility," FoE is supported by "thousands of suckers," and the Pure Food Campaign is a "propaganda machine" running an "organic con game." But what about the credibility of "Fred Curran"? His domain name registration lists his address as 1800 M St NW, Washington, DC, which happens to be the address of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Curran" lists his phone number as 202-728-7510, which rings at the office of SpiralHeart, "a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education & training in the Reclaiming Tradition style of Witchcraft." Either we've got a witch at the USDA, or Curran is using a fake name, a fake address and a fake phone number. If there's a whistleblower out there who would like to expose his real identity, contact editor@prwatch.org.


Now, don't get me wrong, I'm going to be the last person in the world to say you shouldn't be able to make up a fake site with a fake name, etc. But this is quite obviously a subterfuge propagated by the public relations companies that represent the companies (dow, adm, etc.) that are involved in the production of genetically modified organisms, and are essentially deceptive, insofar as they resemble authentic grassroots criticism, and are in fact contrived to fool people.

What do you all think?