The new Virginia-based group "Citizens for a Safe Alexandria" describes itself as a grassroots group, but its founder works for a public relations firm that specializes in "'grassroots' and 'grasstops' media strategies." Citizens for a Safe Alexandria's Sara Raak has appeared on local television news, urging the Obama administration not to "put those of us in the Alexandria neighborhood at risk" by bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the area to stand trial. Raak's day job is with OnPoint Advocacy, which runs Democracy Data & Communications, a member of the Public Affairs Council recently linked to an Astroturf website pushing for continued U.S. military spending on F-22 Raptor fighter jets. Raak's also worked for the DCI Group and Progress for America and managed "grassroots advocacy programs" for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She said OnPoint / DDC have "nothing to do" with Citizens for a Safe Alexandria, except for helping with the group's website. She added that the new group has "no funding," except "what she, her husband and two associates who are 'other moms' in Alexandria put into the effort." Raak said the group will be "'put[ting] out some pamphlets' against Guantanamo detainees going on trial in Alexandria and distribute them in Old Town and at area flea markets."

"The advertising firm behind the heavily-aired 'America's Power' campaign, R&R Partners - Advertising, has come out with its own brag-sheet detailing the ad work it did for the coal industry's main front group," the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), reports Kevin Grandia. According to R&R's public relations account supervisor, Rob Van Raaphorst, the firm "educate[d] our audiences on the importance of coal in their daily lives," using "grassroots" outreach, "earned media, paid media and advocacy tactics that created a 'surround-sound' effect." The "grassroots" outreach included "street teams, walking billboards, mobile billboards and recruitment and mobilization of an ACCCE Army ... at presidential primaries, debates, conventions and other key campaign events." R&R also worked on a $400,000 website, CleanCoalUSA.org, "to establish Coal-Based Generation Stakeholders as a recognized advocacy group and source for information about clean-coal technologies."

The Tax Day Tea Party protest movement is not as spontaneous as its organizers would like you to think. Chris Good writes, "Here is the organizational landscape of the April 15 tea party movement, in a nutshell: three national-level conservative groups, all with slightly different agendas, are guiding it. All are quick to tell you that the movement is a bottom-up affair and that its grassroots cred is real. They are: FreedomWorks, the conservative action group led by Dick Armey; dontGO, a tech savvy free-market action group that sprung out of last August's oil-drilling debate in the House of Representatives; and Americans for Prosperity, an issue advocacy/activist group based on free market principles. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and other media figures have attached themselves to the movement in peripheral capacities. Armey will appear at a major rally in Atlanta, FreedomWorks said. All three groups vehemently deny that the movement is a product of AstroTurfing -- fake grassroots activism organized from the top down -- as some on the left have claimed."

From PreserveRaptorJobs.comPreserveRaptorJobs.com is "a one-page site that urges visitors to write President Obama in support" of the F-22 Raptor, a $340 million stealth fighter jet Defense Secretary Gates has said is not useful in the so-called war on terror. PreserveRaptorJobs.com disagrees. "American jobs, national security, and billions of dollars [are] at stake," warns the website, which is promoted on banner ads on WashingtonPost.com "and other DC-oriented websites." The website doesn't say who's behind it, but it "sits on the servers of DC-area public relations firm Democracy Data & Communications," writes Noah Shachtman. The firm, a member of the Public Affairs Council, sets up "grassroots" campaigns for corporate clients, including Ford, Microsoft and Fannie Mae. In 2006, the PR firm conducted an international conference on "the role of technology" in "expanding and strengthening democracy," which staffers from the U.S. government-funded International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute for International Affairs addressed by satellite hook-up, live from Baghdad, Iraq.

In an opinion column, former Greenpeace activist turned PR consultant Patrick Moore waxes lyrical about a proposal by Luminant to build two new reactors at its Comanche Peak nuclear power station in Texas. Luminant's new reactors, he wrote, would produce "electricity from virtually carbon-free nuclear power." Moore's brief biographical note states only that he is "co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a national grass-roots coalition that promotes nuclear power." What neither Moore nor the Dallas Morning News discloses to readers of the column is that he is a consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which funds the "coalition." Luminant is a member (pdf) of the NEI. A New York Times blog post referring to Moore also fails to refer the coalition's NEI link, describing it only as a "pro-nuclear group."

Patrick Moore: What doesn't exist can hurt youSammy Wilson, the Northern Ireland Minister for Environment, is an avowed climate change skeptic who claims that "there is no conclusive evidence that greenhouse gases are a major cause of climate change." While Wilson's claims are at odds with the science, former Greenpeace activist turned corporate consultant Patrick Moore supported Wilson, claiming that there are scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who don't believe climate change is man-made, "but their views are ignored." However, as a consultant to the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a Nuclear Energy Institute front group, Moore recently argued for new nuclear power stations, because "the greatest threat to the earth" is "our addiction to fossil fuels and the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions they cause." Another Wilson supporter is Tom Harris, the Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) and a former executive with the High Park Group (HPG), a Canadian PR firm.

If there's a questionable opinion column promoting a corporate viewpoint, chances are the secretive Washington DC public affairs firm LMG -- also known as LawMedia Group -- is involved. As the Center for Media and Democracy reported previously, LMG helped place a column attributed to the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he didn't write and which criticized some SCLC donors. Now, it appears LMG is behind another column. The author supposedly was Mel King, a community organizer and network neutrality advocate. However, his column questions the need for net neutrality provisions. King admitted that LMG was involved and refused to say whether "he was paid for the use of his name," reports Declan McCullagh. LMG's clients include Comcast, which opposes net neutrality, and Microsoft, which hired LMG in an attempt to block a Google-Yahoo advertising deal. Another strange aspect of King's anti-net neutrality column is that "portions are identical to a Rainbow Push coalition statement attributed to the Rev. Jesse Jackson and dated three months before." A source told McCullagh that "LMG has a relationship with Jackson that includes ghost-written articles on behalf of corporate clients."

"AngryRenter.com looks a bit like a digital ransom note, with irregular fonts, exclamation points and big red arrows -- all emphasizing prudent renters' outrage over a proposed government bailout for irresponsible homeowners," writes Michael M. Phillips. In fact, however, "the people behind AngryRenter.com are certainly not renters. Though it purports to be a spontaneous uprising, AngryRenter.com is actually a product of an inside-the-Beltway conservative advocacy organization led by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, and publishing magnate Steve Forbes, a fellow Republican. It's a fake grass-roots effort -- what politicos call an AstroTurf campaign -- that provides a window into the sleight-of-hand ways of Washington."

Columnist Dimitri Vassilaros received a news release about a grassroots "petition to stop climate alarmism" and attacking Al Gore's work. He checked it out and found that "for an organization that claims 'we are grassroots to the core,' Grassfire.org acts as if it is hiding a lot of Astroturf. The politically conservative nonprofit is happy to talk about its worthy online petition campaigns," but is "very tight-lipped about talking about itself. ... The Maxwell, Iowa, address for donations to the grassroots organization is clearly displayed on its Web site. But its 2006 IRS 990 form states its address is Bethesda, Md., near Washington, D.C." The SourceWatch article on Grassfire revealed its relationship to Craig Shirley and his "slick Washington-area PR firm, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. ... When asked a few times about the organization's finances, [Grassfire's] Mr. De Jong first said he didn't know the size of the organization that he speaks for. He also said he 'could ask around' about that 990 form. When I offered to ask the bookkeeper for him, De Jong said, 'She will call, dude. Relax. I'll take care of it for you. I am a man of my word.' As of Thursday noon, no one had called this dude."

Often readers and citizen journalists will come across a name of a group that seems a little at odds with the policy message they are promoting. Some of these names were added to the SourceWatch page on front groups with the intention of returning to create an article on that at a later date. Others were emailed to us by citizens, journalists or activists wanting to know if we knew anything about them. So if you would like to help investigate some of the groups that have been flagged as warranting further investigation, here's your chance. All the names are here on this page with some basic tips on how to investigate a group and create a SourceWatch page on them. If you like, you can also add names to the list. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here and here. Hold onto your hat, have fun, and thanks for your help!