TMCnet News
'Undercover' work on ACORN makes student a darling of conservativesFORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Sep 17, 2009 (Sun Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- In describing how she spent her summer, Florida International University journalism student Hannah Giles wrote that her cross-country adventure "started off as a silly idea, both absurd and incredible." Dressed in a skimpy skirt and high heels, the 20-year-old went "undercover" as a prostitute to record a hidden-camera video that has embarrassed the left-leaning advocacy group ACORN and made the fundamentalist preacher's daughter a heroine to the conservative movement. "I think you're a very courageous person," right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck told her. Since giving interviews to Fox News last week, Giles has not appeared in public. She is enrolled at FIU's Biscayne Bay campus in the school of journalism and mass communication. Her father, fundamentalist radio talk show host Doug Giles, minister of The Clash Church in Aventura, Fla., could not be reached for comment on his daughter's sudden celebrity. The FIU sophomore, along with 25-year-old James O'Keefe _ draped in fake fur, wearing shades and posing as her pimp _ has assumed a leading role in one of YouTube's most-popular videos and in Republican efforts to shut down a grassroots group that has been linked to voter fraud. The House voted Thursday to deny all federal funds for ACORN, a GOP-led move that comes four days after the Senate voted to deny housing and community grant funding to the group. The amendment passed 345-75 with two representatives voting "present." In visits to ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, Brooklyn and San Bernardino, Calif., Giles and O'Keefe recorded agency employees seeming to offer advice on how to buy a house and avoid taxes in starting up a prostitution operation they said would employ underage girls from El Salvador. Giles also visited two ACORN offices in Miami, where, according to organization officials, she presented herself as a prostitute seeking protection from an abusive pimp. Stephanie Porta, Florida organizer for ACORN, said Giles was provided with phone numbers for women's shelters and legal services. No videotape of those visits has surfaced. At times, the couple's story _ and the reaction of now-dismissed ACORN staffers taped in other cities _ seems so over the top as to be incredible. In San Bernardino, a worker told the couple she once had run a brothel, and had killed her husband. In Brooklyn, an employee suggested the couple hide their earnings in a tin can buried in the backyard. But reaction was swift. ACORN employees recorded on tape were fired, and officials announced that operations would cease for 48 hours for staff retraining. In her blog on the conservative Townhall.com Web site, Giles explained that she came up with the idea for the "undercover" operation while jogging one afternoon in Washington, where she spent the summer as an intern at the National Journalism Center. She pitched the idea to O'Keefe, a law student and anti-abortion activist. "We connected with these people on a level they were comfortable with," wrote Giles in her blog. Comedy Central host Jon Stewart said Tuesday on "The Daily Show" that the couple came off as "cast members of 'High School Musical 3.' " Yet Stewart lauded the pair's investigative effort. Asked by Beck how she funded the exercise, Giles said, "I drained my savings." Founded in Arkansas in 1970, ACORN describes itself as the nation's largest grassroots community organizing group, promoting higher minimum wages, more affordable housing and increased voter registration. But charges that ACORN had submitted false registration cards became an election issue last year, and last week Miami authorities announced the arrests of 11 former registration canvassers who submitted nearly 200 bogus forms. Bertha Lewis, ACORN chief organizer, said in a statement, that Giles and O'Keefe spent months visiting numerous ACORN offices before getting the responses they were looking for. Leroy Bell, co-chairman of ACORN's Florida operations, called Giles' video part of a "smear campaign" designed to distract from Obama's effort on health care reform. As for the employees depicted in the videos, Bell said, "An idiot is an idiot, and in this case some of these people were idiots. "But what you see on those tapes is not a reflection of what ACORN does." ___ (Sun Sentinel correspondent Anthony Man contributed to his report.) ___ (c) 2009, Sun Sentinel. Visit the Sun Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.SunSentinel.com Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |