ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy

In 2009, workers at offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a collection of autonomous community based organizations that advocated for low and moderate income families, were secretly recorded by conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][excessive citations]} The videos purported to show low-level ACORN employees in several cities providing advice to Giles and O'Keefe on how to avoid taxes and detection by the authorities with regard to their plans to engage in tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution.^[8]

The videos were published on Andrew Breitbart's website BigGovernment from September through November 2009. They generated extensive, negative publicity for ACORN, and led to the United States Census Bureau and the IRS ending their contracts with ACORN, the U.S. Congress suspending its funding,^[9] and ACORN losing most of its private funding. This was despite several independent investigations that by December 2009 appeared to reveal that no criminal activity by ACORN staff had taken place.^{[7][10][11][12][13][14][excessive citations]}

ACORN filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on November 2, 2010, effectively closing the organization.^{[15][16][17][18][19][excessive citations]}