Activists protesting outside this year’s meeting of the secretive Bilderberg Group say American citizens attending the meeting may be breaking the law.

The 56-year-old group, which hosts some of the world’s most influential financiers and politicians on annual basis, is alleged to have been the driving force behind the launch of several wars and behind a push to create a single global government — a claim that many observers describe as not credible.

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Among the attendees of previous years’ meetings were former President Bill Clinton; former UK prime ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher; World Bank head Robert Zoellick; Fed chairman Ben Bernanke; and US statesman Henry Kissinger. The Independent reports that this year’s attendees include Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, and Queen Reina of Spain. Russia Today reports of “rumors” that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is attending this year’s meeting.

Though, of course, there is no way to be certain who is at the conference. This year’s meeting is taking place this weekend in Sitges, Spain, a beach resort town south of Barcelona. Like every year, the meeting is closed to the press, and its agenda and list of attendees are secret.

Some protesters outside the meeting say the participation of US citizens in the meeting is forbidden by law. One protester told RT that the Logan Act of 1799 forbids US citizens from negotiating in secret with representatives of foreign governments. Thus, if any American attendee were to come to an agreement on any issue, it could be a violation of federal law.

With Europe focused on the debt crisis in Greece and other countries, European protesters focused on the Bilderberg Group’s alleged involvement in the creation of the European Union and Europe’s monetary union.

Daniel Estulin, an investigator who has written two books about Bilderberg, told RT that the big question at this year’s meeting is whether the Euro will survive the continent’s fiscal crisis.

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But Estulin said people are mistaken to think the Bilderberg Group is working towards a world government. “Their plan is not about creating one world government, as so many people mistakenly believe, but rather creating what they call themselves the ‘aristocracy of purpose’ between North American and European elites. … In other words, the creation of ‘One World Company Ltd.’ And to have one world company, you can’t have countries, you need to have economic blocks.”

‘BALONEY’

Members of the Bilderberg Group themselves may share some of the blame for the concerns about the group secretly pushing for a global government. In a 2001 book, author Jon Ronson quotes Denis Healey, one of Bilderberg founding members, as saying: “To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.”

But not everyone considers this to mean that Bilderberg is building a new world order. Investigative journalist Chip Berlet told Russia Today that the myriad conspiracy theories surrounding the Bilderberg Group are nonsense.

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“This idea that the Bilderberg Group is a secret elite force that controls the world economy and is building a new world order is a giant pot of spoiled borscht made from rotten beets,” he told the Russian news service.

Berlet noted that “there are 15 or 20 other similar groups that have secret meetings” and that “most meetings between corporate leaders and government officials are secret.”

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The theories about Bilderberg are “a hoax carried out by people who believe an elaborate fairy tale,” he said.

But Berlet admitted that “from a [public relations] perspective it’s idiotic to have secret meetings with secret guest lists and a secret agenda. Of course that encourages conspiracy theories.”

He added that “the organization itself has no power. This idea that this is a plot that is carried out by 30 or 40 countries is baloney.”

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The following video was broadcast on Russia Today, June 4, 2010.

The following video was broadcast on Russia Today, June 4, 2010.

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Correction: a prior version of this story described Ben Bernanke as the “former” Fed chairman..