In January, federal grand juries indicted 14 people on various conspiracy charges for their alleged involvement in the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).
While some federal officials and media reports liken the defendants to domestic terrorists, others, including some legal experts and free-speech groups, say the label is an intentional misnomer without legal basis. Over the past quarter century, ELF and ALF have taken responsibility for numerous crimes of arson, vandalism and property destruction against institutions they say harm people, animals or the environment.
After several recent arrests, FBI Director Robert Mueller called animal rights and environmental “extremism” one of the bureau’s highest domestic terrorism priorities.
But the activists say they are on a mission to defend, claiming that they go great lengths to avoid harming humans during their activities.
ALF and ELF activists say their goal is to engage in acts of property destruction as a means of raising the costs of doing business until they are a deterrent to conducting practices the activists oppose.
From Buzzword to Legislation
The groups railing against “eco-terrorism” cite the public support for their campaigns, yet private interests influence their policy initiatives. One industry-based advocacy group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, heads the movement for ecological terrorism laws.
Heavily funded by restaurant, alcohol and tobacco interests, the organization has pressed the FBI to investigate radical groups as well as mainstream organizations like the Humane Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Business lobbies like these have drafted model legislation to address radical environmentalist crimes. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative public-policy organization, collaborated with the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, an advocacy group for hunters, fishers and trappers, to write the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act. If passed into law, the Act would consider arson, property destruction or trespassing as acts of domestic terrorism – if committed by animal-rights activists.
While the lobbying efforts against ecoterrorism on the federal level have been largely unsuccessful, lawmakers in a number of states continue to push local versions of the ecological terrorism legislation.
Defining a Terrorist Threat
Though Justice Department officials publicly refer to ALF and ELF defendants as “terrorists,” the federal government has faced some criticism from the public and officials regarding its elastic use of the term “eco-terrorism.”
According to William Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University, both the legal term and public perception of terrorism have been redefined since September 11.
He noted that prior to the passage of the PATRIOT Act, what might now be considered “domestic terrorism” cases could be tried under conventional criminal laws. But Banks commented that while ELF and ALF activists might in some cases be considered criminals, they do not meet his threshold for domestic terrorism because they do not perpetrate violence against civilians in order to instill fear.
There is, however, some legal precedent for categorizing animal-defense groups as “terrorists” in the 1992 federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act, which defines “animal enterprise terrorism” as “physical disruption to the functioning of an animal enterprise,” including research labs, testing facilities, zoos, aquariums, and circuses.
Some lawmakers, seeking to put ecoterrorism in perspective, have criticized the targeting of environmental activists as unwarranted. At a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works last May, Senator Barak Obama (D-Illinois.) cited the FBI’s own assertions that crimes by ELF and ALF had been decreasing. Obama suggested that the FBI’s 2003 statistics showing more than 7,400 hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, and 450 environmental crimes by industries violating clean air and water laws and improperly transporting and disposing of hazardous waste, demonstrated that there were much bigger threats.
Free-speech advocates say that aside from misguided crime-fighting priorities, there are serious repercussions of the “eco-terrorism” dragnet. Larry Frankel, legislative director of the Pennsylvania branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the language of the bill introduced in his state stigmatizes only certain political viewpoints.
For example, he said, under the proposed statute, people who blockade a road to stop old
growth logging could potentially be eco-terrorists, “but if an environmental law firm was preparing a brief to go to court to file an injunction, and someone came in and trashed their offices so they couldn’t get the brief done, they wouldn’t be guilty of eco-terrorism.”
Stu Sugarman, an attorney in Portland, Ore., who has represented numerous ELF defendants, fears that the prevalence of the term “eco-terrorist” by federal officials and the press could affect the judges and juries considering the fates of defendants.
“Terrorism is a magic word,” said Sugarman. “It’s like child abuse or drunk driver. It immediately conjures up the image of a really bad person who we want out of society.”
From newstandardnews.net
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While some federal officials and media reports liken the defendants to domestic terrorists, others, including some legal experts and free-speech groups, say the label is an intentional misnomer without legal basis. Over the past quarter century, ELF and ALF have taken responsibility for numerous crimes of arson, vandalism and property destruction against institutions they say harm people, animals or the environment.
After several recent arrests, FBI Director Robert Mueller called animal rights and environmental “extremism” one of the bureau’s highest domestic terrorism priorities.
But the activists say they are on a mission to defend, claiming that they go great lengths to avoid harming humans during their activities.
ALF and ELF activists say their goal is to engage in acts of property destruction as a means of raising the costs of doing business until they are a deterrent to conducting practices the activists oppose.
From Buzzword to Legislation
The groups railing against “eco-terrorism” cite the public support for their campaigns, yet private interests influence their policy initiatives. One industry-based advocacy group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, heads the movement for ecological terrorism laws.
Heavily funded by restaurant, alcohol and tobacco interests, the organization has pressed the FBI to investigate radical groups as well as mainstream organizations like the Humane Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Business lobbies like these have drafted model legislation to address radical environmentalist crimes. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative public-policy organization, collaborated with the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, an advocacy group for hunters, fishers and trappers, to write the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act. If passed into law, the Act would consider arson, property destruction or trespassing as acts of domestic terrorism – if committed by animal-rights activists.
While the lobbying efforts against ecoterrorism on the federal level have been largely unsuccessful, lawmakers in a number of states continue to push local versions of the ecological terrorism legislation.
Defining a Terrorist Threat
Though Justice Department officials publicly refer to ALF and ELF defendants as “terrorists,” the federal government has faced some criticism from the public and officials regarding its elastic use of the term “eco-terrorism.”
According to William Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University, both the legal term and public perception of terrorism have been redefined since September 11.
He noted that prior to the passage of the PATRIOT Act, what might now be considered “domestic terrorism” cases could be tried under conventional criminal laws. But Banks commented that while ELF and ALF activists might in some cases be considered criminals, they do not meet his threshold for domestic terrorism because they do not perpetrate violence against civilians in order to instill fear.
There is, however, some legal precedent for categorizing animal-defense groups as “terrorists” in the 1992 federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act, which defines “animal enterprise terrorism” as “physical disruption to the functioning of an animal enterprise,” including research labs, testing facilities, zoos, aquariums, and circuses.
Some lawmakers, seeking to put ecoterrorism in perspective, have criticized the targeting of environmental activists as unwarranted. At a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works last May, Senator Barak Obama (D-Illinois.) cited the FBI’s own assertions that crimes by ELF and ALF had been decreasing. Obama suggested that the FBI’s 2003 statistics showing more than 7,400 hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, and 450 environmental crimes by industries violating clean air and water laws and improperly transporting and disposing of hazardous waste, demonstrated that there were much bigger threats.
Free-speech advocates say that aside from misguided crime-fighting priorities, there are serious repercussions of the “eco-terrorism” dragnet. Larry Frankel, legislative director of the Pennsylvania branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the language of the bill introduced in his state stigmatizes only certain political viewpoints.
For example, he said, under the proposed statute, people who blockade a road to stop old
growth logging could potentially be eco-terrorists, “but if an environmental law firm was preparing a brief to go to court to file an injunction, and someone came in and trashed their offices so they couldn’t get the brief done, they wouldn’t be guilty of eco-terrorism.”
Stu Sugarman, an attorney in Portland, Ore., who has represented numerous ELF defendants, fears that the prevalence of the term “eco-terrorist” by federal officials and the press could affect the judges and juries considering the fates of defendants.
“Terrorism is a magic word,” said Sugarman. “It’s like child abuse or drunk driver. It immediately conjures up the image of a really bad person who we want out of society.”
From newstandardnews.net
---
© 2006 The NewStandard. All rights reserved. The NewStandard is a non-profit publisher that encourages noncommercial reproduction of its
content. Reprints must prominently attribute the author and The
NewStandard, hyperlink to
http://newstandardnews.net (online) or display newstandardnews.net (print), and carry this notice. For more information or commercial reprint rights, please see the TNS reprint policy.
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