Defense of Democracies
US advocacy group spun off in February 2008 from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to run a television campaign urging the House to pass the Senate's surveillance bill
| Defense of Democracies
| |
|---|---|
| Type | Advocacy organisation (section 501(c)(4) of the US tax code) |
| Founded | February 2008 |
| Founder(s) | Spun off from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies |
| Remarks | Does not disclose its donors, according to a spokesman quoted in 2008 |
Defense of Democracies was a United States advocacy group created in February 2008 as an offshoot of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). It was organised as a section 501(c)(4) group, and it ran a television advertising campaign that urged the House of Representatives to pass the Senate's bill to replace the lapsed Protect America Act, a bill that included retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies that had helped with the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance programme.[1] The campaign led several Democrats to leave the Foundation's board of advisers.[1][2]
Formation
FactCheck.org reported on 28 February 2008 that Defense of Democracies had been "set up just last week" and had been spun off from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonprofit formed after the September 2001 attacks and headed by Clifford May, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee. It said the new group was organised under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, was not required to disclose its donors and had no plans to do so, according to a spokesman.[1]
At the time FactCheck.org listed three members of the Foundation's board of directors: Steve Forbes, Jack Kemp and Jeane Kirkpatrick, who had died in 2006. It said that a number of Democrats were among the Foundation's advisers.[1]
The advertising campaign, February 2008
The advertisements began running on 22 February 2008 in 17 media markets, aimed at 15 Democratic members of the House. A national version ran on cable networks from the following Monday and appeared during a commercial break in the 26 February MSNBC debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.[1] The group declined to publish a list of the lawmakers it was targeting; FactCheck.org reported that they included the first-term Democratic Representatives Kirsten Gillibrand and Michael Arcuri of New York, Tim Mahoney of Florida, Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Nancy Boyda of Kansas and Tim Walz of Minnesota.[1]
The advertisement, titled "Midnight", said: "The law that lets intelligence agencies intercept al-Qaeda communications expires. Senate Democrats and Republicans vote overwhelmingly to extend terrorist surveillance. But the House refuses to vote and instead goes on vacation. So new surveillance against terrorists is crippled. Tell the House of Representatives to do its job and pass the Senate's terror surveillance bill ... to keep us all safe."[1]
FactCheck.org's assessment
FactCheck.org said it took no position on the House or Senate bills, but concluded that the advertisement made several misleading claims.[1]
| Claim in the advertisement | FactCheck.org finding |
|---|---|
| "The law" allowing intelligence agencies to intercept al-Qaeda communications had expired | The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was still in force. What had lapsed on 16 February 2008 was the Protect America Act of August 2007, which widened the situations in which the government could operate without a warrant. |
| "The House refuses to vote" | The House had passed its own bill, the Restore Act, in November 2007; the House and Senate were negotiating over the differences. |
| "New surveillance against terrorists is crippled" | FactCheck.org said it did not have the security clearance to judge how much truth there was in this. It noted that surveillance authorised under the Protect America Act would continue for months, and that officials had withdrawn a claim that a telecommunications company was refusing to assist. |
The Senate bill, which the advertisement urged the House to pass, contained the telecommunications immunity provision; the House bill did not.[1]
Response
On 29 February 2008 FactCheck.org added that Defense of Democracies had sent comments saying that parts of its article were "misleading the public" and "twisting the facts". Andrew McCarthy, director of the Foundation's Center for Law and Counterterrorism, also responded, arguing that a court decision had applied FISA's probable-cause requirements to some foreign-to-foreign communications and that the House bill was unacceptable. FactCheck.org published his comments as a supporting document and said they left it "still convinced that the ad contains false claims and twists the facts".[1]
Resignations from the Foundation's board of advisers
According to FactCheck.org, several of the Foundation's most prominent Democratic advisers resigned because of the advertisement. Donna Brazile issued a statement calling the campaign "misleading and reckless" and saying it would "have the effect of emboldening terrorists"; the same account says her statement claimed that "due to the influence of their funders" the Foundation had "morphed into a radical right wing organization".[1] John Judis wrote in 2015 that the Democrats on the board had left in response to the campaign.[2]
| Name | Description in the sources | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Donna Brazile | Former campaign manager for Al Gore's presidential bid | [1][2] |
| Charles Schumer | Senator for New York | [1][2] |
| Eliot Engel | Representative | [2] |
| Jim Marshall | Representative | [2] |
FactCheck.org noted that the Foundation's advisers also included the independent senator Joe Lieberman.[1]
Funding
Defense of Democracies was not required to disclose its donors, and said it would not.[1] In April 2008 Mother Jones reported, citing National Journal, that Sheldon Adelson had recently contributed $2 million to Defense of Democracies, "an FDD-linked group, which funded an ad blitz blasting domestic surveillance legislation backed by House Democrats".[3] John Judis repeated the National Journal figure in 2015, writing that the group was "seeded by a $2 million grant from Adelson".[2]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Viveca Novak, Fear and False Claims, FactCheck.org, 28 February 2008 (updated 29 February 2008), accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 John Judis, The Little Think Tank That Could, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 18 August 2015 (first published in Slate), accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ Laura Rozen, Sheldon Adelson: The Right's White Knight?, Mother Jones (republished by Type Investigations), 8 April 2008, accessed 11 November 2026.