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The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), formerly called the Guest Choice Network, is a non-profit U.S. lobby group. It is funded by the fast food, meat, and tobacco industries, as well as, according to its website, "more than 1,000 concerned individuals," and describes its mission as defending the "right of adults and parents to choose what they eat, drink, and how they enjoy themselves." Stressing individual responsibility over government legislation, CCF opposes compulsory warning labels on food, bans on smoking in restaurants, lawsuits against restaurants that sell fattening foods, and similar activities. It runs media campaigns and gives out annual "Nanny Awards" to "those groups and individuals who would protect us from ourselves."

The group was created in 1995 by Richard Berman, executive director of the public affairs firm Berman and Company, with $600,000 from the Philip Morris tobacco company. Berman has declined to provide a list of current corporate sponsors, telling The Washington Post that CCF is funded by a coalition of restaurant and food companies as well as some individuals. "It doesn't add anything" to give details, he said.

CCF has campaigned against positions held by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. It funds a number of websites, such as ActivistCash.com.

History

The concept of the group, according to a letter by Richard Berman to Barbara Trach, who at the time was Philip Morris's senior program manager for public affairs, was "to unite the restaurant and hospitality industries in a campaign to defend their consumers and marketing programs against attacks from anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-meat, etc. activists ..." Its purpose, according to a planning document by Berman, was to encourage operators of "restaurants, hotels, casinos, bowling alleys, taverns, stadiums, and university hospitality educators" to "support mentality of 'smokers rights' by encouraging responsibility to protect 'guest choice'."

By April 1998, at Guest Choice Network's public launch, the group's advisory board consisted of representatives from the restaurant, meat, and alcoholic-beverage industries.

In November 2001, the Guest Choice Network launched a separate web site, ActivistCash.com, which is a compilation of information gathered from IRS documents and media reports, describing the funding and activities of animal rights, anti-corporate, and environmentalist groups.

In January 2002, Guest Choice Network became the Center for Consumer Freedom, a move from the corporate-sounding 'guest' towards the more individualist-sounding 'freedom'. The move reflected the desire to be more than simply a lobby group for the direct interests the food and tobacco industry, to a wider focus on the issues implied by 'Consumer Freedom', and was a natural progression from the establishment of ActivistCash, which didn't fit into traditional lobby group activity.

Activities

The group defines its mission as fighting against "a growing cabal of food cops, health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know what's best for you, are pushing against our basic freedoms."

CCF has argued against smoking bans, for retaining the permissible driving blood-alcohol level at 0.10, and questions the heavily debated dangers of red meat consumption, and pesticides.

In a 1999 interview with the Chain Leader, a trade publication for restaurant chains, Berman said that he attacks activists more aggressively than other lobbyists. "We always have a knife in our teeth," he said. Since activists "drive consumer behavior on meat, alcohol, fat, sugar, tobacco and caffeine," his strategy is "to shoot the messenger ... We've got to attack their credibility as spokespersons."

In a May 11, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle article, CCF spokesman John Doyle responded to questions about nationwide radio ads put out by the group. He said the ads were meant to attract people to their website and "draw attention to our enemies: just about every consumer and environmental group, chef, legislator or doctor who raises objections to things like pesticide use, genetic engineering of crops or antibiotic use in beef and poultry."

CCF is opposed to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights organization. It publishes the website PetaKillsAnimals.com , which according to the site has an aim to "stand up to malicious animal-rights activists, the "food police," environmental scaremongers, neo-prohibitionists, meddling bureaucrats, and other self-anointed saints who claim to "know what's best" for you. " The site alleges that PETA is well-funded but ineffective in the protection of animals. The site has produced documents showing that PETA kills most of the animals in its care, and features news that shows its staff and leaders in a negative light. The site has also produced anti-PETA advertising and publicity stunts outside PETA meetings.

On December 7, 2006, the CCF posted a video on YouTube for the trailer of the upcoming children's movie Charlotte's Web, claiming that the movie promoted violent animal rights propaganda. The video was removed two days later by YouTube after Paramount Pictures complained the CCF used the copyrighted video without its permission.

ActivistCash.com

The Center for Consumer Freedom runs ActivistCash.com, a website which "provides the public and media with in-depth profiles of anti-consumer activist groups, along with information about the sources of what is called their exorbitant funding." The site features generally negative profiles of various groups it believes oppose consumer freedom, such as Greenpeace, PETA and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. It also documents key figures in activism and celebrity links with the various groups.

The site reports what it claims are links between profiled groups and extremism, and in general argues that the groups profiled hold extreme views that are contrary to the public interest. It claims to have examined 500,000 IRS documents in its profiling, listing for each group major donors, income and expenditure, key supporters and connections with other groups.

FishScam.com

The Center for Consumer Freedom runs FishScam.com, a website which claims that "our bodies contain harmless amounts of chemicals, including mercury that could be fatal in higher doses." The site contains a mercury calculator which offers the amount of a fish you can eat before getting an unsafe dose of mercury, based on what they claim was the original reference level for the EPA, which the EPA then cut to a tenth before publishing. Thus the amounts are 10 times the EPA's safe level.

Funding

See Corporate sponsors below.

The CCF does not disclose the identity of its funders. However, some information is available, as CCF is registered as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, and accordingly financial information is disclosed via IRS Form 990s.

More information about donors was released following the 1998 attorney general's settlement with the tobacco industry that required tobacco companies to release millions of pages of previously confidential company documents. Nonetheless, up-to-date funding data is difficult to obtain, but is thought to be largely from the food/beverage industries.

According to a 1995 CCF budget, the nascent Guest Choice Network planned to spend $1.5 million during its first 13 months of operation, including $390,000 for "membership marketing/materials development," $430,000 to establish a communication center and newsletter (which Berman said would have a "60% to 70% smoking focus"), $110,000 to create a "multi-industry advisory council," and $345,000 for "grassroots network development/operation."

Initial funding had come from Philip Morris, with the initial donation of $600,000 followed by a $300,000 donation the following year. "As of this writing, PM USA is still the only contributor, though Berman continues to promise others any day now," wrote Philip Morris attorney Marty Barrington in an internal company [memorandum dated March 28, 1996.

In subsequent years, GCN acquired more donors, but was still almost solely funded by a few large corporations: the IRS Form 990 for the six-month period from July to December 1999 shows that is income for that period was $111,642, of which $105,000 came from six unnamed donors.

For the year 2000, an income of $514,321 was reported, of which $492,500 came from seven unnamed donors. It did not report paying salaries to any employees, but did list $256,077 paid to Berman and Co., Inc., for "management services." Subsequent years too had the same payment pattern to Berman and Company.. .

The CCF did not have any membership dues in its early years, but in 2005 the group now claims over 1000 individual supporters, and solicits individual donations on its website.

Domain name disputes

CCF has created sites with similar domain names to organizations it opposes.

In January 2002 after a complaint, CCF, which had registered the domain name cspinet.com, was ordered to transfer it to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. See the National Arbitration Forum decision for details.

Also in January 2002, CCF had to turn over the domain name chefscollaborative.info to the rightful owner of the Chefs Collaborative mark . See the National Arbitration Forum decision for details.

The Center for Consumer Freedom registered two domain names, cspinot.com and smartmouth.org, similar to those used by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). In October 2002, CSPI filed a complaint which was upheld and the two domain names were transferred to the CSPI. For details, see the National Arbitration Forum decision. For CSPI's account, see "Bogus 'Consumer' Group Stripped Of Domain Names".

Corporate sponsors

CCF has a number of corporate sponsors, which have allegedly included Brinker International; HMSHost Corp., owners of Burger King; RTM Restaurant Group, the owner of Arby's; Tyson Foods Inc., the world’s largest processor of chicken, beef, and pork; and Wendy's International, Inc.. |}

Personnel

Directors

The latest available IRS Form 1990], for the 2004 calendar year, lists directors and key employees as:

John Doyle is also communications director for Berman & Co; he has acted as spokesman for the CCF, the Employment Policies Institute and the American Beverage Institute.

The IRS Form 990 filed for the six-month period from July to December 1999 by CCF (then calling itself the Guest Choice Network), listed the following officers:

• Richard Berman, executive director.
• Ray Kraftson, director
• Dixie L. Berman, secretary/treasurer
• Dan Popeo, director (Popeo is also chairman of the Washington Legal Foundation)
• Allison Whitesides, director (Whitesides has also worked as a public relations representative for Coca-Cola North America and Outback Steakhouse. In November 2001, she went to work as a legislative representative for the National Restaurant Association.)

Advisory panel

The CCF also has an advisory panel. In 1998, it included the following individuals:

• Dave Albright, National Steak & Poultry
• Jane Innes, Perkins Family Restaurants, L.P.
• Steve Bartlett, Meridian Products Corporation
• Robert Basham, Outback Steakhouse, Inc.
• John F. Berglund, Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association
• Lou Chatey, Sebastiani Vineyards
• H.A. Divine, University of Denver
• Timothy J. Doke, Brinker International, Inc.
• Richard Fisher, Tetley USA, Inc.
• William L. Hyde, Jr., Ruth's Chris Steak House
• James Spector, Philip Morris, USA
• Michael Middleton, Cargill Processed Meat Products
• Daniel J. Popeo, Washington Legal Foundation
• Richard G. Scalise, Armour Swift-Eckrich
• Daniel Timm, the Bruss Company
• Carl Vogt, Fulbright & Jaworski
• Richard Walsh, Darden Restaurants, Inc.
• Terry Wheatley, Sutter Home Winery

Other representatives

In addition to these officers, several Berman & Co. employees and associates have appeared in news stories as CCF representatives:

• Mike Burita has worked for a variety of conservative causes, including Republican election campaigns, Phyllis Schlafly, Frontiers of Freedom, and Brent Bozell's Media Research Center.
• On February 24, 2000, the Washington Post reported that Tom Lauria, a sometime tobacco industry spokesman, had been hired as director of communications for CCF (then named the Guest Choice Network). Lauria left Berman's employ sometime in 2001.
• David Martosko has been described in news stories as CCF's director of research.

Affiliated organizations

In addition to the Center for Consumer Freedom, Berman & Co. sponsors several other organizations and web sites, including the Employment Policies Institute, which argues that increases in the cost of doing business in the United States, such as minimum wage increases and mandatory health insurance for workers result in higher unemployment, and the American Beverage Institute, a lobby group for restaurants, which argues that it is possible to drink responsibly and drive, and that the focus should be on preventing drunk driving, rather than forbidding any amount of drink before driving.

Notes

1. ^ Mayer, Caroline E. & Joyce, Amy. "The Escalating Obesity Wars Nonprofit's Tactics, Funding Sources Spark Controversy", The Washington Post, April 27, 2005.
2. Website of the Center for Consumer Freedom
3. "Food for Thought", Center for Consumer Freedom, February 10, 2000.
4. "About Us", Center for Consumer Freedom, retrieved December 12, 2006.

External links

• ConsumerFreedom.com
• ParentalFreedom.com Center for Parental Choice An advocacy group in opposition to CCF.

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