Free 'For Now,' Westwood Activist Vows More Video Exposés

The name may not ring a bell, but the online clips released by undercover activist James O’Keefe have caused a stir at the highest levels of national politics.

For the last three years, the Westwood native has served a probation sentence that largely confined him to his home state. Now free, the filmmaker is vowing a renewed push to expose what he calls a trend of government overreach.

O’Keefe rose to prominence when his hidden camera sting allegedly caught ACORN employees helping the then 26-year-old, disguised outlandishly as a pimp, set up a tax-free brothel for 13 teenage Salvadoran girls he said he planned to smuggle into the country.

The video showed two employees at the organization’s Baltimore office apparently helping him and a partner, who posed as a prostitute, find tax breaks and loopholes to hide their fake illicit business from the federal government.

The release of the video in 2009 prompted renewed conservative criticism of ACORN, which had previously been accused of voter fraud during the 2008 presidential campaign, and a vote in Congress to strip the community organizers of much of their federal funding.

A hero to the conservative press, trouble ensued for the undercover cameraman in 2010, when a visit to Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s constituent office with a fake telephone repair crew led to his arrest.

Federal authorities alleged that the filmmaker and his three-man crew intended to tamper with the phone lines, though O’Keefe said they were merely investigating the senator’s failure to respond to constituents during the congressional healthcare debate, according to a report by The Hill.

After a legal battle, the felony charges were reduced to misdemeanors to which O’Keefe pled guilty to and was sentenced to three years probation. He claims on his website that evidence proving the activists’ innocence was destroyed by authorities.

“I was placed on probation because the judge who sentenced me destroyed my video, which would have exonerated me,” he wrote. “Today we still see the federal government overstepping its bounds and severely limiting freedom of the press.”

While presenting himself as a champion of the free press, the filmmaker has come under criticism for what some say are selective editing practices and sensationalism, charges which he disputes.

O’Keefe was released from the supervision of federal authorities last month. During his time on probation, he began a nonprofit, Project Veritas, and now says that with a renewed freedom he will pick up where he left off before his “persecution.”

“Federal probation office has just informed me today is the very last day of my probation,” he tweeted last month. “Tomorrow I am a free man.”

Since that May 26 release, he is already back to work. His latest video targets workers in charge of distributing federally subsidized cell phones, and shows some looking the other way as undercover reporters reveal they intend to pawn the free phones for drug money.

He has announced that new investigations will be out soon, and "Breakthrough," a self-authored biographical manifesto for the conservative activist, hit stores this week.

The moves indicate that O'Keefe won't shrink from the national scene anytime soon, and will continue producing the videos that have garnered both praise and scorn in the mainstream media.

“After 1,210 days under constant govt surveillance I’m a free bird,” he tweeted after the end of his probation, “and this bird you cannot change.”