GATA started out 10 years ago when there was no public knowledge of a Gold price manipulation scheme, so the eaiest way to discredit them was to label them. Rickards would not have been so bold and said what he said in 2001 and most of the gold related websites and blogs would be nowhere near as (semi)credible as they have become without GATA. The biggest threat to the Fed right now is the snowballing effect of all the info that gets passed around on the internet as it is starting to make it into mainstream media.