One man's free speech is another man's destruction tactic -- and Credo is both men

For Credo, apparently, the matter of a tactic's legitimacy and respectability can change in one moon's time.

The progressive-activist wireless phone concern regularly plagues the net with hand-wringing e-missives, urging that this or that action be undertaken lest evil befall us. But such is the counterfeit quality of Credo that it can without a moment's hesitation rip up yesterday's claimed beliefs to suit today's circumstance.

Consider:

A 7/25 Credo petition email, "Democrats Must Stand Strong On Republican Attacks On Planned Parenthood," stormed, "The right-wing has a long history of using selectively edited, secretly obtained video to discredit vital progressive institutions and provide political cover for Republicans in Congress to destroy them."

Credo's official position couldn't be clearer.In that group's estimation, undercover, edited videos secretly obtained by activists were flatly objectionable and unworthy of serious regard.

But Credo's opinion of undercover videotaping had whirled about completely by the following day.

A 7/26 Credo petition email, "Stop factory farms from hiding their abuse," was an entreaty to stop "ag-gag bills." Such legislation would criminalize activists' misrepresentations to gain access to animal facilities, and stifle undercover videotaping of dire conditions at those facilities. Numerous state legislatures have unfortunately adopted anti-speech ag-gag laws.

The 7/26 email stressed, "These so-called 'ag-gag' bills appear to be a coordinated, nationwide attempt by corporate big agriculture to silence and criminalize the heroic whistleblowers and journalists who expose abusive, unsanitary, and environmentally harmful practices on factory farms through photos and videos.

"State by state," Credo continues, "legislatures are passing bills that criminalize filming or photographing on farms without the prior consent of farm owners. Passing laws that limit the freedom of ordinary Americans, in order to hide abhorrent corporate practices, is beyond the pale. It's time for Congress to step in and reassert the people's freedom to document and stop these practices."

The activists who secretly taped Planned Parenthood officials allege that abuses and law-breaking are regularly perpetrated by that tax payer-funded private corporation. And regarding Planned Parenthood, Congress did step in - though not to defend citizen speech rights and efforts to expose wrongdoing, but to block attempts at cutting off federal funding and to "investigate" the videotapers.

Those Congressional clamp-down actions might have drawn Credo's ire, had they involved bacon and not babies.

Credo is hardly a disinterested party. According to a 2/4/2014 Huffington Post piece, Credo had that year contributed over $80,000 to Planned Parenthood.

Apparently, then, Credo supports activists exposing wrongdoing via undercover videos. Except that it doesn't.