Bluestem Prairie tracks downs shadowy group

Who put the "front" in frontiers; or, the one about those robocalls in the First
from Bluestem Prairie

Several kind readers gave us the heads-up yesterday about a fundraising email that the Walz campaign sent out. Like Kristin Gillibrand before him, Tim Walz has been hit by robocalls to his constituents asking him to support retroactive immunity for telecoms.

The appeal began:

A group calling themselves “Frontiers of Freedom” is calling voters in southern Minnesota. . . .

The group is telling voters to urge me to support retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the President’s illegal wiretapping program. They want me to cave in to the President’s demands.

Despite the pressure, I refuse to give these phone companies a free pass. I won’t let President Bush decide when he can break the law. . . .

Readers asked us to look into the Frontiers of Freedom Foundation (FOFF) to see what the group was about. Posting has been light here on the Prairie while we combed through news articles and reports about the group.

While one interest of FOFF founder chair Malcolm Wallop placed him near the heart of one of former House Majority Leader Tom Delay's less excellent adventures in Malaysia,this post will focus on FOFF's recent work for telecoms, since the calls brought up immunity.

(Continued here.)