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Appended is a news release issued this morning about convicted felon,
former Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles and about his request to be
permitted to work for the Disney Company instead of being sentenced to do hard
time in a federal penitentiary. The Disney program mentioned below is in fact a
joint venture between the the Walt Disney Company AND the American Recreation
Coalition.
To learn about WOW from the Wild Wilderness perspecitve, you are invited to
search the Wild Wilderness blog where many postings can be found.
 I'd just like to add that WOW is just one small component within the
recreation industry's "Kids in the Woods" initiative ... an effort to bring
technology to wild places and to turn the Great Outdoors into a lucrative,
privately managed, commercially oriented, heavily motorized, naturally scenic version of Disney
World.
To learn about "Kids in the Woods" from the Wild Wilderness perspecitive,
you are invited to search the Wild Wilderness blog where many postings can be
found.
To learn about Kids in the Woods from the recreation industry's
perspective, you need only pick up any newspaper or magazine.
Scott
--begin quoted--
News Releases
For Immediate Release: June 18, 2007
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202)
265-7337
GRILES SEEKS TO ESCAPE JAIL BY WORKING FOR DISNEY — Plea to
Judge Blurs Line between Community Service and Corporate Networking
Washington, DC — Lawyers for former Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles
are arguing that the convicted felon should not serve any prison time but
instead be sentenced to perform community service for a program funded by The
Walt Disney Company and recreational industry lobbyists, according to documents
posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The
industry consortium has already approved a slot for Griles in which he would
fundraise, secure corporate partners and handle “communication…with government
entities and the media.”
Griles pled guilty on March 23, 2007 to obstructing a congressional
investigation, a felony that carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and a
$250,000 fine. Federal sentencing guidelines call for a prison term ranging from
10 to 16 months for a first conviction. As part of the plea bargain with Griles,
the Justice Department is seeking only 5 months in prison and five months of
community service.
In a June 8th filing, lawyers for Griles maintain, however, that he should do
no prison time but instead serve three months of home confinement and perform
500 hours of community service. That community service would be split between a
Disney-funded program called WOW for the “Wonderful Outdoor World” and a program
providing college sports memorabilia to wounded Iraq war vets. Griles’ lawyers
contend that part of the community benefit is WOW could not otherwise “afford to
‘hire’ the kind of expertise that Mr. Griles can provide.”
“Griles was convicted for hiding his connections to a ‘green scam’
organization that was a conduit for peddling corporate influence through the
Interior Department and now he claims influence peddling is a service to the
community,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, referring to Griles’ ties
to Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group that funneled
money from convicted Republican uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. “Who knew Mickey
Mouse was running a halfway house?”
The WOW program was created in 2003 when several federal agencies, including
the Interior Department, entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with The
Walt Disney Company to “work together in partnership on issues of common
interest and to jointly plan and implement mutually beneficial programs and
activities.” Under the agreement, the federal agencies promise to cooperate with
Disney, which describes itself as “a diversified international entertainment
company…dedicated to integrating business needs with environmental values.” The
parties pledge to “meet periodically to assess, plan, problem solve and
implement strategies to improve the WOW…and WOW on The Water.”
“This WOW deal is sort of government-industry collaboration that leaves the
public holding the bag,” Ruch added. “It is like the Defense Department agreeing
to act for the benefit of Lockheed-Martin or the Education Department promising
to promote the interests of the student loan industry.”
One of the more interesting arguments made by Griles’ lawyers is that
sentencing him to prison “could deter others from testifying before Congress.”
Griles says he testified before a committee chaired by Senator John McCain
(R-AZ) in order “to clear his name” of charges that he was, in the words of an
Abramoff e-mail, “our guy” at Interior.
###
Read
the Griles “Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing”
View the Disney
Memorandum of Understanding
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- Activism 
