NRA pressed on accusations it hired a mole

:lol: When you do it back to the Liberals, they scream like stuck pigs. The Liberals have written volumes on how to infiltrate groups. They've been doing this for years and it started in the Civil Rights movements of the 60's. What goes around, comes around.


By MARYCLAIRE DALEAssociated Press Writer
August 07, 2008 - 9:16 p.m.

A senator demanded Thursday that the National Rifle Association respond to charges it placed a paid spy in gun-control organizations for more than a decade.

The powerful firearms lobby has remained silent since reports arose last week that 62-year-old Mary McFate, who portrayed herself as a gun-control activist, might really have been snooping on several nonviolence groups on behalf of the NRA.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, has asked the NRA to confirm or deny the charge; reveal what she was paid, if anything; disclose the names of any other informants in the gun-control movement; and put a stop to the practice.

"Although the NRA and I have certainly had our disagreements over the years, I hope that we can agree that the gun violence prevention debate should be based upon an open and honest exchange of ideas, not on underhanded tactics," Lautenberg wrote in a letter faxed Thursday to NRA headquarters in Virginia.

The spying charges were first raised in Mother Jones magazine. Gun-control groups are exploring whether trespass, privacy or lobbying laws were broken.

"One of the reasons we have lobbying disclosure rules is so the public knows who's lobbying the elected - but also so the elected know who's coming before them, and who's really paying them," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence, where McFate volunteered and twice tried to join the board.

"It really goes to the integrity of the system," he said.

Messages left Thursday with two prominent NRA board members - Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, and musician Ted Nugent - and with McFate were not returned.

McFate, a former flight attendant and sex counselor from Sarasota, Fla., infiltrated an animal-rights group in the late 1980s at the request of U.S. Surgical, a medical research company.

A 1997 resume for Mary Lou Sapone, her married name, lists her as an "intelligence and investigations" consultant and a former senior investigator specializing in "covert operations" for a Connecticut consulting firm. The resume surfaced in legal papers related to a Maryland business dispute.

Sapone's resume also lists her as president of a "Self Improvement at Sea" program that provides lectures on world affairs, "life enrichment" and "intellectual history" on cruises.

As Mary Lou McFate, she wrote letters to elected officials on behalf of CeaseFirePA, where she has served as a board member for seven years, and visited members of Congress on behalf of other gun-control groups.

The Sapone resume, meanwhile, lists her hobbies as hunting, trapping and fishing, shooting sports and "pugil stick fighting."

In Florida, Sapone was active with a Daughters of the American Revolution chapter, the Junior League and the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Owner's Group. Her resume also says she speaks five foreign languages, including Swahili.

CeaseFirePA plans to vote Friday to expel McFate from the board. A Chicago-based nonviolence group, the Freedom States Alliance, expelled her from its board last week.


http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/na ... 93237.html

I guess there is a Mata Hari in every bucket. It is depressing that honor and forthrightness are gone. It has turned into a get-them-before-they-get-you existence.