Declan James Ganley (born 23 July 1968) is an English-born Irish entrepreneur, businessman, and political activist.

[2][3][4][5] Primarily a telecommunications entrepreneur, Ganley has built businesses across the European Union, Russia and latterly, the United States.

[12] After leaving school in 1987,[13] Ganley has been involved in business ventures selling Russian aluminium, and in the Latvian forestry sector.

[17] Ganley has investments in joint ventures with Nana Pacific, an Alaska Native Regional Corporations with special US Government contracting access.

[19] Ganley received the Louisiana Distinguished Service Medal for his work during Hurricane Katrina, where Rivada's emergency deployable communications systems were credited by state and federal officials with dramatically improving communications between emergency response organisations, and saving countless lives.

[citation needed] As of 2022, he is the CEO and chairman of Rivada Networks,[7] a US-based firm specialising in the provision of telecommunications systems to the military, police and emergency services in disaster situations.

[26] In 2024, Ganley was threatened with jail time or a fine for failing to appear before a New York court in relation to payments that were to be made to David Shuman, a shareholder in Rivada Networks.

[27] Ganley advocates a Federal Europe, with directly elected office holders representing the people and holding the currently unelected EU Commission to account.

Libertas started in 2006 as a lobby group campaigning for a No-vote to the Lisbon Treaty in the Irish Referendum 12 June 2008, and evolved into a pan-European political movement.

[32] Libertas's political policies called for greater levels of democracy, transparency, and accountability within the EU, as well as a twenty-five-page alternative to the Lisbon Treaty.

[41] Gay Mitchell, Irish MEP, questioned whether the Libertas's €1.3 million budget was backed by the CIA or the US military - a claim Ganley and many others openly mocked.

[44] An opinion piece published by Bruce Arnold in the Irish Independent claimed Ganley was the victim of a government organised smear campaign.

[47] In January 2013, Ganley received an apology and a nominal €50 donation to a charity in an out of court settlement over a defamatory Twitter comment made about him.

On 1 May 2009, Libertas held its first Party Congress and afterwards he focused his campaign on the North-West constituency, canvassing, attending public speeches and debates and appearing on radio and TV.

One week after he launched his election campaign, incumbent MEP Jim Higgins branded Ganley a "puppet of the US military".