Shadowy Attack Group Uses Shadowy Calling FirmSo which firm is doing the Swiftboaters’ dirtiest work? The short answer: they don’t want you to know.
As I wrote yesterday, the Economic Freedom Fund’s nastiest tactics — tactics a polling expert called “egregious” — come via the phone. But try and find out who’s actually doing that work for them, and you’re bound to come up empty.
A little investigation shows that the calls come from phantom numbers connected to non-existent companies.
Constituents in West Virginia, for instance, have been bombarded with calls from the group, but when they check their caller ID, the number, (571) 522-6400, comes up as from a company called Aetr, Inc.
Who Called Us, an online site that allows users nationwide to log instances of anonymous callers, says the number also sometimes comes up on Caller IDs as originating from “Braddock, VA,” or from “ER PR.”
When I tried to call the number, I got a recording saying my call “cannot be completed as dialed.” I could find no records for a company called “ER PR” in Virginia. I did turn up records for a corporation called Aetr in the state — but its license was terminated in May for failing to pay its $100 annual registration fee with the commonwealth.
Aetr’s number is listed on internet telephone directory sites. But calling it didn’t get me any closer to talking with someone from the company. The line is answered by a female voice message explaining that “we’re currently on the line talking to other clients.” My messages have yet to be returned. (A Google search of the phone number shows that the number is also associated with “Discreet Enounters,” an escort service.)
Aetr’s corporate records are another dead end. they give only one name associated with the company — a woman at an address in an apartment building in Burke, Virginia. She does not have a listed phone number.
In the past, Aetr and its 571 phone number have been associated with other right-wing dirty doings. Aetr’s work has “prompted push poll allegations from residents in several states, including Alaska, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania,” according to the AP.
Calls from the 571 number went out in August to South Dakota residents regarding an upcoming vote on a ballot measure that would enact the tightest restrictions on access to abortion in the country, known as “Referred Law 6.” According to a local blog, the poll asked if the respondent would support the bill “if we told you that exceptions for rape or incest are in the bill?” There is no such exception in the bill. Who Called Us also shows users complaining of calls attacking the opponents of Reps. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Curt Weldon (R-PA).
The Economic Freedom Fund calls have also gone out from a Northern Virginia number with the same prefix, 571-522-1575, according to TPM Readers. Users of Who Called Us report that the call sometimes shows up as from FEDR. There is no such company in Virginia.
