Projects
The American Center for Democracy is a leading advocate in the fight for free speech.
Led by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, ACD initiated and promoted state and federal legislation to combat the chilling effects of libel tourism, a phenomenon in which wealthy foreign libel plaintiffs sue or threaten to press suit under claimant-friendly foreign libel laws in order to suppress legitimate scholarship and research in the United States. ACD efforts led to the passage of multiple state bills over the past several years as well as a federal law, the "Securing and Protecting our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act "of 2010 (SPEECH Act).
To learn more about our fight against libel tourism, please click here.
ACD is working closely with Congressional staff on legislation targeting SLAPP suits (frivolous lawsuits brought domestically to suppress free speech). We are also working to curtail foreign intervension on American educational institutions.
Be sure to track developments of our latest free speech legislative initiatives on our Free Speech Project page.
Economic Warfare Institute (EWI)
A nation's economy is its lifeblood. Economic warfare is one of the oldest methods of weakening a targeted country. Today, economic warfare is waged not only by states, but also by non-state actors.
ACD maps economic warfare against the United States and other Western democracies by: developing economic wargaming; identifiying legal and illegal sources of terrorist financing, including Islamic banking, financial fraud, drug trafficking, and transntional criminal networks; and tracking the most recent developments in the global business and financial markets. You can keep up to date on the latest commentary and analysis on current events by following the EWI Blog (soon to launch).
Click here to learn more about EWI's projects.
The ACD has introduced new methods of measuring political corruption, performing case studies in countries with high corruption indices and a high potential for change. ACD's approach focuses on analyzing the implementation mechanisms of existing legislation, public integrity, good governance, procurement, liberalization and privatization, and laws governing the financial sector, as referred to in the ACD Integrity Index. Our findings serve to design programs to address the special needs of each country, and provide the appropriate training mechanisms to correct and control those problems. Click here for further information.
As part of its mission to strengthen democracy and battle political coruption, ACD participates in election observer delegations. ACD has observed national elections in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Morocco. Click here for more.
ACD fellows are currently working on two book projects analyzing the development and operation of some of the most serious threats presented by the radical Islamic movements. The first book is "The Muslim Brotherhood, Inc.: The Evolution of the Global Muslim Brotherhood Movement." The second is "Iran's Shadow Economy: the Bonyads."
ACD's director, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, is a noted author and terrorist financing scholar. Dr. Ehrenfeld has written three books: Narco-Terrorism, Evil Money: Encounters Along the Money Trail, and Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It. More information on these books can be found here.
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