Center for Vigilant Freedom

According to its website, the Center for Vigilant Freedom (CVF) was founded in September 2006 with 28 members in the 910 Group, its citizens' network.

CVF claims to be a 'fast-growing international citizen's network' with a mission to 'to protect liberty, counter sharia laws that oppose human rights, and defeat terrorist and extremist ideologies.'

According to the Gateway Pundit, CVF co-operated with Freedom's Watch in releasing videos in support of the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The CVF runs the CounterJihad Europa project, a website intended as a "clearinghouse for national initiatives to oppose the Islamisation of Europe."

History

Origins: The 910 Group

According to its website, the CVF "started in late September 2006 with 28 members in the "910 Group," our citizens' network." According to 910 Group blogger KG, the 910 Group began in the comments on a Gates of Vienna post.

In this post, "Baron Bodissey" (Edward S. May) stated:

We agree with Fjordman and many others that the Jihad is just a symptom, and that the enemy lies within. This war is a civil war within the West, between traditional Western culture and the forces of politically correct multicultural Marxism that have bedeviled it for the last hundred years. It is being fought in the back halls and cloisters of the culture, with untenured nobodies like me wielding a salad fork against the broadswords and maces of the fully-armored knights of the media and the academy.

In a subsequent 5 October 2006 post, Bodissey/May stated:

A group of commenters, more or less led by Vicktorya and Beach Girl, became energized by the idea of taking a proactive stance against the Great Jihad and its enablers on the Left. Vicktorya opened a discussion group on Yahoo (so far known only by its number, “910”, although its members like to refer to it as “VRWC”), invited all interested parties to join, and a new and vigorous initiative has started rolling. If you’re curious, revisit the comments on the post and get involved in the group.

On 8 October 2006, May/Bodissey announced the formation of the 910 Group at Gates of Vienna, dismissing the notion that its phoenix logo might have neo-Nazi connotations:

The group’s intent is to gather together a lot of the strands of the counter-jihad and anti-PC resistance, in order to form a decentralized “network of networks” with a global reach. No board of directors. No hierarchy of command. It’s simply an affiliation of like-minded people, sharing information and planning proactively to reframe the concept of the current war and rise up to help defend the West.

On 27 November 2006, members of the 910 Group met in Northern Virginia with conservatives Jack Wheeler and Steve Baldwin of the Council for National Policy to discuss plans for an "infrastructure to combat Islamofascism" modelled on cold war anti-communism.

Center for Vigilant Freedom established

The website of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (which now redirects to the rebranded International Civil Liberties Alliance) was registered on 12 December 2006, also by Christine Brim. Brim gave an email address at the Envoy Group, a private consultancy company based in her home town of Fairfax, Virginia. According to the Jigsaw Contacts Database, Brim is the owner and CEO of the company. According to Zoom Information Inc, the President of Envoy Group is/was Dr. Thomas Blau (the information is current as of 30 May 2005). The contact details given for Blau included a now defunct page on the website of George Mason University. Thomas Blau now works at the National Defence University.

Center for Vigilant Freedom was set up as a non-stock incorporated company, Center for Vigilant Freedom Incorporated, on 1 March 2007 under Corporation ID number 0670082-7. The registration agent for the company was Christine Brim.

Early contacts

In January 2007, the CVF attempted to make contact with Stop the Islamification of Denmark, although it initially contacted the rival Den Danske Forening.

Also that month, Baron Bodissey and Christine Brim visited May's Congressman, Virgil Goode, along with Gary Olds and Martin Mawyer of the Christian Action Network.

Members of the 910 Group attended a London debate between Ken Livingstone and Daniel Pipes on 20 January 2007, and videoed the exchange.

CounterJihad Summit Copenhagen 2007

On 14 April 2007, the Center held a 'CounterJihad summit' in Copenhagen, with representatives from the US, UK, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Christine Brim and Kyle Shideler were designated as the center's press contacts for the event.

There were two British and two American representatives of CVF present, according to blogger Baron Bodissey (Edward S May), who spoke at the event.

July 2007 donation and project announcement

The CVF announced significant funding in its July 2007 newsletter:

Good news! The Center for Vigilant Freedom has received a contingent pledge from a benefactor of $70,000, to be paid in six equal payments over six months. Projects will be shared between the U.S./Canada and Europe. The CVF Board is preparing project plans in the following areas, based on your suggestions over the last few months in the forum and email exchanges:

1. Infrastructure

2. Legislative clearinghouse (national, state, province and local governments) - defense & offense

3. Political coalition building (national, state, province and local governments)

4. International alternative media network

We hope that you will be interested in working on these projects. We are looking for part-time contractor assistance for each project area in the U.S. and in Europe, both to do most of the project work and to work with volunteer staff and our many coalition partners. If you are interested in helping on these projects either as a hard-working underpaid contractor (for really low fees - $70,000 doesn't go far in four project areas across two continents over six months) or as a volunteer, please send your resume, or an email with contact information and a description of your interests, background and skills, to christine@vigilantfreedom.com , with the subject heading "CVF Projects"

We are happy to announce that we have two members who have taken us up on this offer to help as contractors - details to follow. We still need people in the U.S. and Europe to help build the legislative clearinghouse, technical assistance on the joomla website, political coalition building in the U.S. and building the alternative media network in Europe.

Organisation: A Network of Networks

New media and and an associated 'networked philosophy' have been central to the self-representations of the CVF and associated projects. In an early post on the 910 Group, Baron Bodissey stated:

The group’s intent is to gather together a lot of the strands of the counter-jihad and anti-PC resistance, in order to form a decentralized “network of networks” with a global reach. No board of directors. No hierarchy of command. It’s simply an affiliation of like-minded people, sharing information and planning proactively to reframe the concept of the current war and rise up to help defend the West.

An October 2006 blogpost by former 910 Group participant 'Abu Nopal' quoted similar ideas attributed to 'Christine', presumably Christine Brim:

what I think is happening is an “open source” movement in public diplomacy – sort of like the open source software movement of the last decade, where developers decided to work together, on the Internet, voluntarily, to improve software (Linux OS resulted from open source software development).

Some things are just too important to leave in the hands of the experts, or the bureaucrats, or certainly the State Department. If, as Clausewitz said, “War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means…” , then the asymmetric warfare being waged against Western civilization requires a countering asymmetric “politics” – an internet based, “open source” movement committed counter-attack against the internet based jihadist ideologues.

Unlike the current blogosphere, open source was highly disciplined, in a kind of milling-about, “wisdom of crowds” complex system way – they did have a final product they were working towards, and everyone just kept trying to improve it and use it at the same time.

May reiterated the networked philosophy of CVF during the 2007 Counterjihad summit in Copenhagen:

CVF is not an alternative news outlet — we are an entirely new form for the propagation and dissemination of information.

The idea is not that everyone should join Vigilant Freedom — heaven forbid! That would make us just another huge and impotent bureaucracy. The 20th century has demonstrated the useless and immovable inertia of bureaucracy.

No, we are a network of networks. Anders and Ted are here to represent their respective organizations, Stop Islamisering Af Danmark and SverigeDemokraterna. Vigilant Freedom exists to coordinate their communications with others and their actions on behalf of the Counterjihad.

There is no chain of command — nor will there ever be — in Vigilant Freedom. No party line. No one in control of what happens. Our unity and mission arise from a common goal: to resist the Jihad in all its forms. Anything else is details.

Bodissey/May has described the counterjihad as a 'distributed network':

We — the European Counterjihad — are compelled by necessity to form a distributed network, because we operate without funding. Whenever funding is available, a hierarchical network naturally results, because one person (or a small group) controls the flow of money, and the other nodes in the network are answerable to him. A hierarchical tree forms, based on the distribution of monetary resources.

This strategy allows for tactics employed in one country to be duplicated across the EU, Bodissey/May argues:

Another advantage of a distributed operation is that our networks, once they are well-established as a web of trusted contacts, can help coordinate events in advance. For example, if Sverigedemokraterna are about to present a complaint to the police accusing the Swedish prime minister of treason, the same kind of initiative can be mounted simultaneously in Denmark, Britain, Spain, France, Austria, Germany, and any other countries whose constitutions or statutes forbid the surrender of sovereignty to the EU.

However, one blogger formerly associated with the 910 Group, Abu Nopal claimed as early as December 2006 that "the group has abandoned most of its original open source ideas":

Indeed, there is now clear hierarchy, with more and less privileged classes, staff and subgroup designations, a chain of command. Among the privileges of staff, the most visible and touted perk in fact, is the ability to delete and edit other people's posts in the forum. That's not a good foundation for an open source culture and because of it, the 910 group will not be able to harness the energies of the most creative people. They'll have to make do with groupies.

Abu Nopal also questioned the picture of an unfunded movement:

The culture war (CW) is not a bad thing. I'm actually a fairly passionate partisan on the conservative side, but it is what it is and it's not the counter jihad (CJ). The temptation to fold the CJ into the CW, which is mostly a financial temptation, will lead to failure. Gearing up the old anti-communist machine might be a great way to raise money, as is revving up the right wing on any of its favorite subjects, but conflating this conflict with the priorities of the conservative movement in general will hand the enemy a victory he has been working hard for, a divided society with its left wing exposed.

The 'network facilitation' role attributed to the Center for Vigilant Freedom and International Civil Liberties Alliance ICLA) by Bodissey/May is arguably evidence for a more hierarchical picture of the counterjihad movement. The CVF's structure is strikingly at odds with, Bodissey's original claim that the 910 Group would have "No board of directors." So to is the fact that Christine Brim, a key member of CVF and the ICLA is a senior officer of the Center for Security Policy, a well-funded US conservative foundation.

Britain

In a speech at Ground Zero on 31 March 2007, Christine Brim claimed:

Even as we meet, in London our British Vigilant Freedom Coalition is leading a rally to free the fifteen sailors and Marines kidnapped by the Iranian Republic Guard — we are putting feet on the street now.

Affiliations

• 910 Group - CVF citizens network
• International Civil Liberties Alliance CVF project
• Center for Security Policy

People

Directors

• Christine Brim - Registered Agent
• Vicky Marlene Kaufer - Director
• Christopher Knowles - Director
• Edward S May - Director

Staff

• Kyle Shideler

Contact, Resources and Notes

Contact

• Center for Vigilant Freedom Inc.
• 910 Group
• P.O. Box 2773
• Fairfax, VA 22031

• Telephone: 1.571.331.3256
• Fax: 1.360.899.1784
• Email: info@vigilantfreedom.com

• Vigilant Freedom/910 Group Blog: http://www.vigilantfreedom.org/910blog/
• VigilantFreedom/910 Group Forum: http://www.vigilantfreedom.org/910forum
• Center for Vigilant Freedom Inc.: http://www.vigilantfreedom.org

• Facebook group Center for Vigilant Freedom

Resources

Corporate filings

• 2008 Annual Report
• 2009 Annual Report (1st version)
• 2009 Annual Report (2nd version)
• 2010 Annual Report
• 2011 Annual Report