Another reason to oppose the “eco-terrorism” rhetoric, and “Homegrown Terrorism” legislation, is that it eerily paves the way for things like this. I started using the analogy between the Red Scare and Green Scare simply to make a larger point, and it has been truly frightening to see the specific similarities between the two, right down to rolling back habeas corpus, creating black lists, and using parallel language.

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the long-time director of the FBI, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty…

Hoover wanted President Harry Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The FBI would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.

The names were part of an index that Hoover compiled over many years. “The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven percent are citizens of the United States,” he wrote.

Only 12,000, J. Edgar? Puhleeeze. You’ve got nothing on the Bush administration. 755,000 and counting, baby.

[And yep, that’s J. Edgar Hoover with O.J. Simpson, courtesy of this website.]

Tags: Blacklists, hoover, mass detention, o.j. simpson, Red Scare

Shock-jock talk radio host Michael Savage is suing the Council on American Islamic Relations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. RICO was originally intended to go after the mob. This is from a right-wing site applauding Savage for the lawsuit, and his attempts to label CAIR as “terrorists” using racketeering laws:

Savage and celebrity civil rights attorney Daniel Horowitz are attempting to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to make the case that “CAIR and its co-conspirators have aided, abetted and materially sponsored al-Qaida and international terrorism.”

CAIR launched a campaign against “The Savage Nation,” as the program is called, using extended audio clips of the show to make the case that advertisers who supported the talker were actually endorsing “hate speech” against Muslims.

Savage turned the tables on the activist group by initially suing for copyright violation of the show’s material. This week the suit was expanded with some of the strongest allegations ever made against CAIR publicly.

You can read the court filing here.

I’m highlighting this on GreenIsTheNewRed.com because using RICO was one of the earlier waves of attacks against animal rights activists, before corporations and the government used “animal enterprise terrorism” charges (this article has much more information on the SHAC 7 case).

As with the grand jury witch hunts against Puerto Rican activists, these government tactics are quite fluid. What is being used against one movement can easily turn into a tool to go after the new enemy of the hour. I’ll be talking more about this, and making connections between social movements, at NCOR next month.

The consequences of recklessly labeling people as “terrorists” extends far beyond the courtroom, where the word can automatically skew jurors and lead to inflated sentences. And the consequences even extend beyond the sweeping “chilling effect” that the word has on the general public, instilling fear in everyday people that they, too, could be labeled a terrorist. Even after trial, even after serving time in prison, it’s impossible to shake an “eco-terrorist” label.

I haven’t written much about this because the targets in recent “eco-terrorism” and “animal rights terrorism” cases are, overwhelmingly, still in prison. The Operation Backfire defendants are just starting their terms, and some are still in court. Peter Young, the first prosuection for “animal enterprise terrorism” is out of prison, but only one of the SHAC 7, Darius Fullmer, has been released.

Here’s a case, though, from a few years ago that’s still trailing one environmental advocate who is pursuing very mainstream, above-ground work.

As a student at Freeman High School, in 2002, John Wade and two others poured Karo syrup into the gas tanks of construction vehicles at the development site of a mall and some suburban homes. They also poured etching fluid on some glass and broke some equipment. In a turn of events quite similar to the Operation Backfire cases, one of the defendants turned on the others: the cooperating defendant received less than six months, Wade got three years.

He’s out now, and says he no longer supports property destruction. He’s now 22, studying at Virginia Commonwealth University, and putting together Richmond’s first environmental film festival (with Ralph Nader billed as a speaker). By all accounts, he was doing everything right: seeing the error of his ways, becoming a productive member of society, using lawful means to promote change.

But once you’ve been labeled an “eco-terrorist,” none of that seems to matter. Style Weekly heard about his criminal record, pulled its sponsorship of his event, and ran an article headlined, “Former Eco-Terrorist Organized Environmental Film Festival.” [As an aside, I think it’s hilarious that Style Publisher Lori Waran is quoted lamenting the situation, saying “It is too bad the history of the organizer is distracting from the message of the event.” Mind you, this is in her own publication, as it is smearing Wade as an “eco-terrorist.”]

Karri Peifer at Richmond.com interviewed Wade, and here is a highlight: Continue Reading »

This baby was detained by TSA for being on a terrorist watch list. Maybe it was for seeing that “soft-core eco-terrorism” movie, Hoot.

From The Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Dozens of police cars surrounded a home on the 700 block of Riverside Avenue in Santa Cruz on Sunday night as a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the events unfold.

According to Frank Male, the owner of the house, three UC Santa Cruz seniors live at the residence. Male said police contacted him earlier Sunday because they wanted to talk to the students about an ongoing investigation. Male said he later learned the students were animal rights activists.

Male said police told him they went to the house in the late afternoon to talk to the students, but the students slammed the door in their face and told them to get a search warrant…

Police on scene declined to say why they were there.

Santa Cruz has also been in the news for the recent tree sits.

I don’t have any more details on this right now. If you do, please post a comment…

“Whoever defines the issue controls the debate.” — Timothy Cummings, a clinical professor and poultry veterinarian at Mississippi State University.

That quote is from an article in Farmed Animal Watch on combating animal and environmental advocates. Cummings advises farmers to use terms like “exsanguinated” rather than “bled to death,” and “knifer operator” instead of “killer.”

Such euphemisms may seem silly, but Cummings knows that they work: one of the first things any high school debater (and, nerd alert, I was one) learns is to control the definitions used in the debate. In other words, don’t let your opponent define you into a corner.

I’d argue that this is exactly the tactic behind the “eco-terrorism” rhetoric. Defining someone as a “terrorist” is an automatic trump card. By default, anything that the “non-terrorists” are doing pales in comparison.

For instance, remember the Sea Shepherd activists that were held hostage by Japanese whalers, and the hostageswere called “terrorists”? Well, the saga continues. Sea Shepherd crew members have vowed to board the whaling ships again and make a citizens arrest. But opponents are saying that would be an act of “terrorism.” That helps shift the scrutiny away from the illegal whalers and onto the nonviolent activists.

Or check this out, from “Gamefowl and Cockfighting” (for only the best in cockfighting journalism): Continue Reading »

When environmental and animal rights advocates are sentenced to lengthy prison terms—many as “terrorists”—they depend on the support of friends, family and the larger activist community. They need money in their commissary account. They need books and magazines. They need visitors, phone calls, and perhaps above all else, according to many current and former prisoners I’ve interviewed, they need letters: sometimes mail call is the only thing to look forward to in prison. The support, or lack of support, of these activists also sends a message to the government and to other activists.

But doing all this prison support work can be time consuming and draining. Base-line decisions have to be made about what, at bare minimum, qualifies a prisoner for support from the wider activist community. And lately, many activists have been struggling with what disqualifies a prisoner from receiving support.

Chris “Dirt” McIntosh attempted to burn down a McDonalds in Seattle, in 2005, and is serving an eight-year prison sentence (his guilty plea dropped it down from a minimum of 30, as the government was pushing to use “terrorism” laws against him). The crime was claimed by both the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front.

The Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network just announced it is ending all support for McIntosh, and encouraging others to do the same, after investigating racist and sexist comments he has made. The support network says:

1) McIntosh has adopted White Supremacist views whilst in prison. A number of people have contacted ELP saying that McIntosh has started to associate with a racist gang and has even gone as far as to get a racist ‘white power’ tattoo. In a letter to one of his supporters McIntosh enclosed a photo of himself and referred to his tattoo which was not visible in the photo. He told another supporter how he would show off his tattoo upon his release from prison.

Continue Reading »

When’s the last time you heard anything about Osama bin Laden? Yeah, same here. Bin Laden, the face of international terrorism, hasn’t been in the news much lately, and I can’t remember the last time I heard anything about the U.S. government making any headway on his capture. Meanwhile, U.S. law enforcement agencies are going on an international manhunt for… an animal rights activist?

The FBI put out a warning to Costa Rican media that Daniel Andreas San Diego could be living in their country.

“He has links with animal rights groups in the U.S., and he could be linked with similar organizations in Costa Rica,” the FBI said. A $250,000 reward is offered for information leading to his arrest.

San Diego is a suspect in the bombing of the Chiron building in northern California, from 2003. The company had ties to Huntingdon Life Sciences, the notorious animal testing lab. It was a very serious, very dangerous crime, to be sure–the device including metal debris that could have harmed people, not just the building– but it was still a crime that only caused minor property damage and did not harm anyone. It seems a little outrageous for federal law enforcement to go on an international hunt for a domestic crime that caused little damage. And is almost five years old.

San Diego has also made it on America’s Most Wanted. Dear John Walsh: I know the “eco-terror” buzz is sexy and all, and helps break up the monotony of murderers, rapists and child abusers that typically make up your show… but seriously?

Congrats to all the law students who took part in the appellate moot court competition on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act at Harvard Feb 15-17. I think it’s incredible that law students are tackling these issues in moot court while some national organizations seem like they’d prefer just to ignore that they even exist. I hope they’ll continue to be involved in challenging the law in (real) court. Here’s the winning appellant brief from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. The case that the law students argued, by the way, involves an animal activist who used undercover investigations, protests and other tactics to affect an egg company’s business practices (not unlike what mainstream groups are doing right now).

If you needed any other indication that this “eco-terrorist” rhetoric has gone way, way too far (as if labeling a children’s movie “soft-core eco-terrorism” wasn’t bad enough) check this out. It’s the first “webisode” (I put that in quotes because it seems kind of silly to create new Internet names for everything, but anyway) of a comedy series based on a mock underground environmental group called Earth Rebel Front (as opposed to the Earth Liberation Front). I liked the bit about the undercover agent who gives the “ecoterrorists” a lesson in waterboarding. SHARK!