"Diebold Election Systems, which makes voting machines, is waging legal war against grass-roots advocates, including dozens of college students, who are posting on the Internet copies of the company's internal communications about its electronic voting machines," reports John Schwartz.

A group calling itself Partnership for the West (PFTW) was formally unveiled in late October and aims to influence environmental legislation in Washington. "The group plans to work on 'restoring a common sense balance to economic growth and conservation in the West,'" notes Bill Berkowitz, adding that this "sounds nice, until you see who's behind it. Claiming to be a grassroots lobby group, PFTW actually represents a kinder, gentler and more politically savvy brand of anti-environmentalism. ...

As part of its PR strategy to 'by-pass the media filter' that it claims is distorting public perception of the Iraq war with too much negative reporting, the Bush administration has been granting interviews to smaller, more friendly media. A 'media by-pass' tactic of a different sort is being used by critics of the war who, as we've documented in our book Weapons of Mass Deception, have been locked out of mainstream media coverage.