Talk:Institute for Policy Innovation

I was recently contacted by Tom Giovanetti the President of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) about the citation of an email that he wrote to Tim Lambert. He complained, not that it was inaccurate or out of context, but that it was a private email he wrote to Lambert and that its quotation in both SW and Lambert's blog was unauthorized and was violating his privacy. This is an unpersuausive argument as 1)Tom doesn't have a footer stating email content is not for citation; 2) it was an email he posted to the editor of a blog in his IPI capacity in response to a public post so its not a matter of his personal privacy 3) our citation of it was accurate and in context. The only reason to change our quote is that between posting the material from Lambert's blog and now is that Lambert has changed the text to a paraphrased version and that the original quote is not on the cited page. So I will update our page to reflect what the linked page states. --Bob Burton 01:46, 14 Jun 2006 (EDT)

Corporate Funding
IPI's president Tom Giovanetti wrote in an email exchange with Australian blogger Tim Lambert that "IPI has an absolute policy of protecting our donors' privacy". 

Giovanetti emailed Lambert claiming that continued controversy over IPI's existing or possible corporate funders would only make thr group more attractive. However, he later objected to Lambert posting this to his blog and its subsequent citation in SourceWatch. Lambert's paraphrasing of the email is that it was to the effect that "criticizing IPI will just make them seem more heroic and ensure continued funding." 

While IPI don't voluntarily disclose their corporate funders, some information is available from other sources.

Donations from Exxon to IPI: (moved this section on July 9, 2011-- seems unnecessary in light of media matters info)
 * 1997: $5,000
 * 1998: $5,000
 * 2001: $5,000 (pdf)
 * 2002: $7,500
 * 2003: $7,5000.
 * 2004: None

Projects
need corroboration: In its 2004 annual IRS return IPI lists 26 reports in English and gave testimony before Congressional committees twice. Of the reports ten related to policy affecting the drug industry (such as prescription drug policy and reimportation), eight were supporting social security privatization, four were on communications policy (such as opposing municipal broadband networks), one was on opensource software, another on internet taxation and two on general topics. Its congressional testimony was backing the dregulation of wireline communications in Texas and support for social security privatization.

IPI runs IPBlog.org, a weblog presenting a pro-"intellectual property" perspective. The site frequently features personal attacks on its ideological opponents, with comments like "Jamie Love is as undisciplined in his time management as he is in his thinking." and "Martin Khor] is an artist of distortion and misrepresentation" who posted "a useless piece of anti-IP propaganda that reveals the shallow intellectual level of their side." .

Funding
need corroboration: In 1995, the 'Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation' gave $60,000 with the comment "support Senior Research Fellow ($60k) and research on tax reform". That research fellow was most likely Aldona Robbins because she was the Bradley senior research fellow at IPI. Her husband Gary Robbins was the John M. Olin senior research fellow at IPI. - BAD LINK