Animal Rights Organization Targeted Online

Anne Landman, who once had the tobacco industry in her sights and now posts for Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch.org, has reported that Washington, D.C.-based industry lobbyist Rick Berman and his Center for Consumer Freedom have launched a website “to harass” the Humane Society of the United States. Landman states that Berman “sets up his front groups as 501(c)4 organizations and then carries out his attacks through these groups to avoid disclosing his donors, so we have no way of knowing which industries or companies are funding Berman’s attack on the Humane Society. We can probably get a good idea though. Just determine which businesses profit most from animal cruelty, and you’ll likely find the funders among them.” Further discussion about Berman and his appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program appears in issues 321 and 322 of this Update. See PRWatch.org, February 17, 2010.