Free Republic

Link to AP article

A New Jersey senator is asking the National Rifle Association to explain itself in the wake of reports last week that the organization hired a mole to infiltrate a gun-control lobbying group in Pennsylvania. According to the Associated Press, in a letter faxed to the Virginia NRA headquarters Thursday, Lautenberg wrote: "Although the NRA and I have certainly had our disagreements over the year, 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." The senator's demand came a week after reports that...

Barry Goldwater famously said that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." But I suspect even the late Arizona senator and 1964 GOP presidential candidate might be creeped out if he knew about the privatization of Big Brother. Is it OK for private groups to infiltrate domestic citizen's groups? Is spying in defense of liberty a virtue or a vice? A recent revelation is in a new story from Mother Jones that reveals that a leading gun control advocate, Mary McFate, is apparently the same person as Mary Lou Sapone, "a self-described 'research consultant,' who for decades has covertly...

PHILADELPHIA — A gun-control activist who championed the cause for more than a decade and served on the boards of two anti-violence groups is suspected of working as a paid spy for the National Rifle Association, and now those organizations are expelling her and sweeping their offices for bugs. The suggestion that Mary Lou McFate was a double agent is contained in a deposition filed as part of a contract dispute involving a security firm. The muckraking magazine Mother Jones, in a story last week, was the first to report on McFate's alleged dual identity. The NRA refused to comment...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A gun-control activist who championed the cause for more than a decade and served on the boards of two anti-violence groups is suspected of working as a paid spy for the National Rifle Association, and now those organizations are expelling her and sweeping their offices for bugs. The suggestion that Mary Lou McFate was a double agent is contained in a deposition filed as part of a contract dispute involving a security firm. The muckraking magazine Mother Jones, in a story last week, was the first to report on McFate's alleged dual identity. The NRA refused to...