VDARE

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

Records relating to or mentioning VDARE, VDARE.com or the VDARE Foundation. Originally established in 1999 by the Center for American Unity, a Virginia-based nonprofit foundation started by English immigrant Peter Brimelow, VDARE.com is an anti-immigration hate website "dedicated to preserving our historical unity as Americans into the 21st Century."

Founded in 1999 by anti-immigrant activist and author Peter Brimelow, the Center for American Unity has served to promote the work of white supremacists, anti-Semites and others on the radical right. This is most obvious in VDARE.com, which the foundation started in 1999 and funded until 2007. It is named after Virginia Dare, said to be the first English child born in the New World, in 1587. Brimelow says that he once planned to bestow Dare’s name upon "the heroine of a projected fictional concluding chapter in Alien Nation [his best selling anti-immigration book], about the flight of the last white family in Los Angeles."

VDARE.com was an idea that Brimelow says "flowed out of a best-selling book I wrote back in 1995(!), Alien Nation. … Like the immigration reform movement in general, it is a coalition, agreed only on the need for immigration reduction." While Brimelow vehemently denies that the site is white nationalist, preferring instead "politically incorrect," many of the articles published there contain typical white nationalist themes; Brimelow also concedes that he does publish some "white nationalist" authors, like Jared Taylor of American Renaissance magazine. They decry the demise of white America, blaming immigrants, multiculturalists, and members of the "Treason Lobby" — essentially groups concerned with protecting immigrants’ human and civil rights — for undermining the racial cohesion of the nation. Reflecting this position, VDARE.com’s archives contain articles like "Freedom vs. Diversity," "Abolishing America," "Anarcho-Tyranny — Where Multiculturalism Leads" and "Why Immigrants Kill."

VDARE also publishes essays by prominent academic racists. For example, a column by Jared Taylor, who has argued elsewhere that black people are incapable of maintaining any kind of civilization, dismisses "the fantasy of racial equality," claims the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "stripped Americans of the right to make free decisions," and says that "[b]lacks, in particular, riot with little provocation," unlike the far more peaceable white race. He has also published pieces by J. Philippe Rushton, the head of the Pioneer Fund, which gives financial backing to academics who specialize in race and IQ studies.

While acknowledging that his site hosts "white nationalists" like Taylor, Brimelow argues that they are merely people who "aim to defend the interests of American whites. They are not white supremacists. They do not advocate violence. They are rational and civil. They brush their teeth. But they unashamedly work for their people." Brimelow goes on to say that as dark-skinned immigration from the Third World continues, "this type of interest-group ‘white nationalism’ will inexorably increase." What Brimelow doesn’t mention is that VDARE.com also posts stories by one of the most important anti-Semites in America, Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at the California State University, Long Beach. MacDonald believes Jews are genetically driven to undermine the power of whites by pushing such things as Third World immigration.

Other authors listed on VDARE.com’s website as part of its "editorial collective" as of 2008 include Thomas Allen, Bryanna Bevens, John Brimelow (brother of Peter), Randall Burns, Joseph Fallon, James Fulford, Joe Guzzardi, Athena Kerry, D.A. King, Juan Mann, Paul Craig Roberts, Steve Sailer, Howard Sutherland, Brenda Walker, Allan Wall, John Wall, and Chilton Williamson Jr.

The VDARE.com website also serves as a repository for an archive of nativist columns by the white nationalist movement’s foremost intellectual, Sam Francis, the immigrant-bashing editor of the newspaper of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens who died in 2005. In his columns, Francis rails against the "emerging Hispanic majority," plugs conspiracy theories, and promotes white racial consciousness.

In 2007, VDARE.com and the Center for America Unity parted ways. The website notes that "VDARE.COM is no longer associated with the Center For American Unity, which plans to focus on litigation," in place, presumably, of nativist propaganda and opinion. In the center’s stead, Brimelow created the VDARE Foundation, a 501(c)3 charity, to serve as the website’s sponsor. However, as a July 4, 2008, desperate plea from Brimelow for donations and volunteer staff members suggests, funding in the future might prove to be a challenge.

Brimelow spent much of 2009 pounding the white nationalists message that the Republican Party would do better to spend its time attracting white voters rather than by reaching out to minorities. Brimelow took that message to hard right groups as well as expounding the idea on his website. In "Yes, It Is about Race. Quite right, too," Brimelow explained the "tea party" movements and the furor found at town halls in the summer of 2009 as being "about race" and pointing out that "the backlash [against the Obama administration] is overwhelmingly white."

Please conduct a search of the Central Records System, including but not limited to the Electronic Surveillance (ELSUR) Indices, the Microphone Surveillance (MISUR) Indices, the Physical Surveillance (FISUR) Indices, and the Technical Surveillance (TESUR) Indices, for both main-file records and cross-reference records of both HQ and all field offices for all relevant names, agencies, organizations, companies and events including but not limited to those cited in the previous paragraphs and/or links as well as a cross-reference with the Southern Poverty Law Center to include any information provided by the SPLC. My request includes but is not limited to 137, 157, 176, 177, 183, 184, 188, 214 and 266 files. If previously released records are available, then I request a rolling release consisting of those records while additional records are located and processed for release.

I am a member of the news media and request classification as such. I have previously written about the government and its activities for AND Magazine, MuckRock and Glomar Disclosure and have an open arrangement with each. My articles have been widely read, with some reaching over 100,000 readers. As such, as I have a reasonable expectation of publication and my editorial and writing skills are well established. In addition, I discuss and comment on the files online and make them available through the non-profit Internet Archive, disseminating them to a large audience. While my research is not limited to this, a great deal of it, including this, focuses on the activities and attitudes of the government itself. As such, it is not necessary for me to demonstrate the relevance of this particular subject in advance. Additionally, case law states that “proof of the ability to disseminate the released information to a broad cross-section of the public is not required.” Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Dep’t of Justice, 365 F.3d 1108, 1126 (D.C. Cir. 2004); see Carney v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 19 F.3d 807, 814-15 (2d Cir. 1994). Further, courts have held that "qualified because it also had “firm” plans to “publish a number of . . . ‘document sets’” concerning United States foreign and national security policy." Under this criteria, as well, I qualify as a member of the news media. Additionally, courts have held that the news media status "focuses on the nature of the requester, not its request. The provision requires that the request be “made by” a representative of the news media. Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II). A newspaper reporter, for example, is a representative of the news media regardless of how much interest there is in the story for which he or she is requesting information." As such, the details of the request itself are moot for the purposes of determining the appropriate fee category. As such, my primary purpose is to inform about government activities by reporting on it and making the raw data available and I therefore request that fees be waived.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Michael Best

I am appealing the integrity of the search, based on but not limited to the failure to perform searches for ALL indices specified, the failure to search field offices as specified and the failure to perform the cross-reference searches requested using the ample information I provided in the original request.

To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following request, copied below. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following request, copied below. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.