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Its mission statement states that "we follow the principles of Tocqueville himself ... among these liberal ideas are civil liberty, political equality, and economic freedom and opportunity."
The AdTI is most famous for its reports questioning Linux and open source software (which its detractors hold were written at the behest of Microsoft) and for its public relations work for the tobacco industry. Many opponents of the AdTI regard it as a mere public relations front for its backers. While the Institution's reports have been strongly criticised in technical circles, its intended audience is legislators, newspaper editors and talk show hosts.
The AdTI maintains a strong policy never to reveal its backers beyond legal requirements. In 2002, Greg Fossedal stated, "it isn't our general policy to discuss who does and doesn't fund de Tocqueville, except in the case of qualified press or public officials who are willing to make symmetrical disclosures." (communication with David Skoll of Roaring Penguin Software)
Ken Brown summarized the Institution's funding policy: "We don't talk about money with anybody ... but we'll accept money from anybody." (LinuxInsider, 19 May 2004)
Brown later denied influence from the Institution's backers: "I publish what I think and that's it. I don't work for anybody's PR machine." (ZDNet, 20 May 2004)
As reported by MediaTransparency , the AdTI's backers from 1988 to 2002 include:
Projects funded include:
The Capital Research Center reports funding by the Fannie Mae Foundation , the AT&T Foundation , and the Amoco Foundation .
Microsoft has been one of the Institution's backers for five years, although a Microsoft spokesman said they had not funded any specific research [1]. Microsoft funds several think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato InstituteThe Cato Institute is a non-profit public policy research foundation ( think tank) with strong libertarian leanings, headquartered in Washington, D. It is named after Cato's Letters a series of early 18th century British essays expounding the libertarian. [2] [3]