The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe publicized selectively edited hidden camera recordings through Fox News and Andrew Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April, 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited,"and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.
ACORN name changes
Re-branding by ACORN leadership
ACORN International changed its name in 2010 to Community Organizations International
http://www.communityorganizationsinternational.org
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Community-Organizations-International/96066954203
California ACORN changed its name to Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment
http://www.calorganize.org
New York ACORN renamed itself New York Communities for Change
http://www.nycommunities.org
Acorn Housing changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America
https://secure.ahcoa.org
None has retained the same tax and employee identification numbers that it held under its former name.
ACORN Workers Cleared in NYC Pimp Video
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/02/acorn-workers-cleared-nyc-prostitute-video/
Preliminary report clears ACORN on funds
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/14/congress.acorn/index.html
ACORN Videos Bring Problems to Group but Not Criminal Charges
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/02/acorn-videos-bring-problems-group-criminal-charges/
Brooklyn prosecutors clear local ACORN office
An investigation finds James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles edited their tape to make ACORN look worse
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/03/01/acorn_cleared
Damaging Brooklyn ACORN Sting Video Ruled ‘Heavily Edited,’ No Charges to Be Filed
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/03/damaging_brooklyn_acorn_sting.html
ACORN Workers Cleared Of Illegality By Outside Probe
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/12/acorn_workers_cleared_of_illeg.html
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released the following report and correspondence: http://www.gao.gov/daybook/100614.htm
3. Preliminary Observations on Funding, Oversight, and Investigations and Prosecutions of ACORN or Potentially Related Organizations. GAO-10-648R, June 14. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10648r.pdf
Judge Instructs Fed Agencies to Resume ACORN Funding
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/12/judge_instructs_fed_agencies_to_resume
Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. CA. Office
http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/multimedia/index.php
NPQ on ACORN Investigation Results
http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1654:npq-on-acorn-investigation-results&catid=58:npq-in-the-news&Itemid=54
James O'Keefe
He was arrested Monday in what the FBI alleges was a plot to "interfere with a telephone system" in the office of Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu in New Orleans. According to federal court records, O'Keefe admitted that he worked with three accomplices, two of whom entered Landrieu's office posing as telephone repairmen while O'Keefe recorded them with his cellphone camera. If convicted, the four face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
O'Keefe was in legal trouble before now. When he and fellow conservative activist Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and a prostitute and secretly videotaped conversations with ACORN employees last summer, they may have been violating laws in several states........
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/28/opinion/la-ed-okeefe28-2010jan28
Video released by conservative activist O'Keefe claims to show undercover footage at NJEA conference http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/10/video_released_by_conservative.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/nj_activist_james_okeefe_touts.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/nj_activist_james_okeefe_makes.html
