HE'S NOT A BILLIONAIRE, BUT THEN MONEY'S NOT HIS only concern, and that partly explains his success as an entrepreneur. As well as pungent views on Europe, Declan Ganley has a plan to rescue the world from its dependency on oil and wishes he had more lives in which to transform whole industries. He's never had fewer than two businesses on the go, and if he sold up tomorrow his net worth would be in the region of €300m - not bad for a 37-year-old whose biggest enterprises are yet to come, and who just a couple of decades ago was serving beer in a London pub, recently off the boat from Ireland.

...a letter ... dated August 2005, signed by Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

 She requested Ganley's help in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Ganley duly obliged, deploying a specialised disaster communications network developed by his latest company, Rivada Networks...

Ganley's wife Delia is a first-generation Italian/Polish immigrant from Staten Island, just off the southern tip of Manhattan, and her brother-in-law was one of just two firefighters who survived from a crew of 14 on that fateful day in September, 2001...

How was it, Ganley later asked himself, that a commercially driven TV broadcaster and a fistful of cell phones had beaten the emergency services to the chase?

Maybe it was because Giuliani thought to make his rich friends richer by installing his emergency centre in WTC 7?

Rivada, which stands for "radio interoperable voice and data applications", was the result. Put simply, he has turned the old walkie-talkie into a sophisticated communications device suitable for rapid field deployment following disasters as well as everyday use.

Late in 2001, Ganley drew together a management team from his previous telco ventures, and two years later Rivada had a sophisticated product and a ream of patents protecting the intellectual property...

The intellectual property consists of what Ganley calls "the membrane around an amalgam of existing elements", the whole as opposed to the parts, which employed numerous experts and took some serious investment by Ganley, who owns 80% of the equity, the rest reserved for senior management.

Membrane around an amalgam of existing elements? Like a robber's bag?

Getting multiple public agencies to agree to a new generation of technology while tapping Federal funds? Impossible without 9/11, and almost impossible after it...

...The Rivada case study can be summarised in two lessons for would-be entrepreneurs: first, that to get the really big guys to sit up and take notice, by which we mean President Bush and his security advisers, make yourself utterly relevant to the biggest question of the day. Just as Ganley turned to metal importing as the Soviet Union cracked up, this time he turned to security in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

The second lesson is the "how to" of "making yourself utterly relevant", which in this case meant getting giant people on your board. Think John Kelly, recently retired President of Bell Textron, the global defence powerhouse, and Admiral James Loy, former head of the US Coast Guard and Acting Secretary for Homeland Security, plus three-star Marine General Dennis McCarthy, Former Head of all US Marine Forces in the continental US.

No comment.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

I have just recieved the following email from Libertas:

Dear Frank,

I just read your article on your Blog regarding the Lisbon Treaty and associated issues.  

I'd be delighted to answer any questions you have about Libertas and our opposition to the Lisbon Treaty and clear up some inaccuracies in your piece.  I got the message that you called the office on Friday but didn't manage to return the call successfully.  I think it's unfair to catagorise us as a "shadowy" organization on this basis.

Feel free to call or email any time and enjoy Lanzarote in the meantime!

Kind regards,

Naoise.

I have replied as follows:

Dear Naoise,

I will obviously be happy to clear up any factual inaccuracies in my piece if you would like too point them out.  I used the term "shadowy" because I could find none of the usual attributes of a "Think Tank" on your site - e.g. a list of distinguished scholars, lists of publications in peer reviewed scholarly journals, lists of scholarships endowed etc.

I also found it strange that you would appear to criticise the EU for a lack of accountability and transparency and yet I could find no information of your funding or membership on your site.  Indeed what is your democratic legitimacy?  It is all very well to criticise our political,parties as being "legacy organisations", but at least they do have varying degrees of a popular mandates and are therefore legitimate actors on our political stage.

On what basis does Libertas claim to have a mandate  - democratic or scholarly - from which it can it can claim to speak to the Irish People by way of a leaflet in every home claiming to debunk the considered views of most of our our Government and Opposition parties?

Are the Irish electorate not entitled to know in whose interests you are acting, in that you can hardly claim to be acting on behalf of the Irish electorate or a large part thereof.

Sincerely,

Frank

Naoise Nunn (naoise@libertas.org)
Sent: 22 January 2008 17:26:47
To:  'Frank Schnittger' (frankschnittger@hotmail.com)

Dear Frank,

Libertas was established just over a year ago as a "citizens' think tank" which sought to break the mould of traditional think tanks by pursuing activity that spoke to the European public as opposed to engaging in closed academic debate and publication. Our founding members are listed as signatories to the Libertas Charter which is on the website. They include a wide range of people from across Europe including an MEP, a number of senior constitutional lawyers, academics, professionals and PAYE workers and the president of one of Ireland's foremost academic institutions, Professor Roger Downer amongst others. Late last year, having read and analyzed the Lisbon Treaty in detail and realized the manner in which it was to be brought into being across Europe, we decided that we must oppose it. At this point, we changed our focus to become a campaigning organization with a small but broad starting base of Irish citizens from which to build a campaign against the Treaty.

Our funding as a think tank was provided by its founder members, including Declan Ganley. However, as a campaigning organization and a Standards in Public Office Commission-notified third party for the purposes of the referendum campaign, we are bound by the Electoral Acts which specify that no one person or body can make a donation in excess of €6,348 to us (that includes Declan Ganley). We are therefore now funded by donations from our supporters, many of whom have made their contributions online. Our funding is subject to statutory obligations which we will honour fully. It is a shame the same cannot be said of the European Union whose own auditors have refused to sign off its accounts for the 13th year in a row.

We are campaigning for a No vote in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty for reasons that are well-outlined on our website and in our media appearances. We are as entitled as anyone else to become involved in the political process unless one is of the view that only "State-approved organizations" may express a political opinion. There is no hidden agenda or conspiracy and we are not a "front" for any shadowy organization. We are a group of regular Irish people with centrist political views who are broadly supportive of the concept of the European Union. We believe, however, that it requires radical reform not envisaged in this Treaty, about which we have grave reservations. We are democratically entitled to promote our arguments against the Treaty to the electorate so that they can decide for themselves.

Libertas has never claimed to advise European governments nor has it done so. The Energy Initiative, details of which are posted on our website, is an on-going project aimed at European energy self-sufficiency which involves a number of MEPs, economists, scientists and business people seeking to develop a proposal which was welcomed by EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and which we hope will be presented to the European Parliament during its discussion on the second phase of the ETS.

Your claim that the Government and Opposition have a "considered view" on the Lisbon Treaty does not stand up - I can guarantee you that 90% of our elected representatives have not even read the document and everyone is being encouraged to sleep-walk into this whole new dispensation for Europe.

Here's a key quote from Michael Connarty, the pro-Treaty chairman of the UK Select Committee on European Scrutiny from last night's Lisbon Treaty debate in the Commons:

"The role of national Parliaments will be massively diminished. In fact, as recently as December it was suggested by European parliamentarians from a number of parties at a Future of Europe conference, that our Parliaments' role will be to try to influence the European Parliament, so that it can make the appropriate amendments to what comes out of the Council"

It suits national politicians to vote for this treaty because it means less work for them. When issues like water charges arise again, they can simply shrug and say "nothing to do with me, boss - that's a matter for Brussels".

At the most fundamental level, constitutions (and there is no doubt this is one) are designed to protect citizens from the excesses of Government. Sadly, the Lisbon Treaty demonstrably protects the political elites and bureaucracies against the irritating demands of citizens for democracy.  Who's is working for who here?

Kind regards,

Naoise Nunn

Executive Director

Libertas