Nature has an editorial in the latest issue against “terrorism enhancement” in the cases out West, and also more broadly against the “eco-terrorism” rhetoric we’ve been seeing in legislation like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. This is big breakthrough, especially considering the source.

An excerpt:

But ‘terrorist’ is a word so debased and loaded by political use that, if it has any meaning at all, it is counterproductive. There is no such objective thing as a terrorist. A criminal is a person who has been convicted of a crime. We can examine a person’s records and make an unemotional determination of whether or not they are a criminal. But a terrorist is, in practice, a person who fights for a cause we do not believe in using methods that we do not approve of. Calling someone a terrorist is a value judgement.

The last line of the piece is especially appropriate this week, and in light of the government comparing environmentalists to the KKK: “The judge in this case should reject the call for ‘terrorism enhancement’. We must all speak more objectively and calmly.”

Nature 447, 353 (24 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/447353a; Published online 23
May 2007

Unwise branding

Equating animal-rights activism with terrorism increases the penalties
for offenders and will please many of their victims. But it is not in
the interests of science.

Terrorist is not a word you throw around lightly. And it is certainly
not a word you apply to anyone with whom you would like to have a civil
conversation. A US tendency to apply the label to militant activists who
are against animal research or genetic engineering slams shut a door
that might be difficult to reopen - to researchers’ cost.

In a courtroom in Eugene, Oregon, last week, federal prosecutors asked
for a ‘terrorism enhancement’ on the sentencing of ten environmental
activists. The activists have admitted to a string of arson attacks in
the western United States in the late 1990s and the start of this
decade. They torched places where things were done of which they
disapproved, including a lab that they believed was growing genetically
engineered poplar trees. If the judge applies the requested enhancement,
their sentences could be longer and the conditions of their imprisonment
more severe.

They are criminals, to be sure. Their arson cost millions of dollars and
destroyed scientific work in progress. But although some of their more
knuckleheaded actions could easily have accidentally hurt someone, their
ethos was to damage property, never to hurt or kill.

Other extreme activists are also being labelled terrorists. Last
November, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was signed into law in the
United States. It creates tough penalties for damaging property, making
threats and conspiring against zoos, animal labs and the like. Leaving
aside the merits of this act, its very name enshrines into law the idea
that destructive activists are terrorists.

As one of the communities targeted by these activists, scientists may be
tempted to embrace this rhetoric. Indeed, many people have personally
felt terrified by the actions of the most extreme. But ‘terrorist’ is a
word so debased and loaded by political use that, if it has any meaning
at all, it is counterproductive. There is no such objective thing as a
terrorist. A criminal is a person who has been convicted of a crime. We
can examine a person’s records and make an unemotional determination of
whether or not they are a criminal. But a terrorist is, in practice, a
person who fights for a cause we do not believe in using methods that we
do not approve of. Calling someone a terrorist is a value judgement.

It is a value judgement that seems to be increasingly used in the United
States since the attacks of 11 September 2001. Indeed, the nation is
waging, in official parlance, a “global war on terror”. The term is
useful politically exactly because it expresses an absolute rejection of
a person and their aims. The terrorist label definitively ends any
possibility of dialogue. But if there is any hope of bringing closer
together those at the extremes of scientific controversies such as
animal research and genetic engineering, the various parties must be
able to speak to one another.

Although most activists feel that the actions of the criminal few are
unproductive and embarrassing, for every activist saboteur with a
lighted match there are hundreds of people who are sympathetic to his or
her cause. Label that saboteur a terrorist, and you risk alienating all
of them. Efforts to bring together defenders and attackers of animal
research, such as those by the UK-based Boyd Group, often do not admit
those who espouse criminal acts, and that is appropriate. And it leaves
open the possibility that an activist who has renounced criminal actions
can come to the table. But who will be willing to publicly break bread
with a terrorist, reformed or otherwise?

We should avoid building an unbreachable wall between criminal activists
and their victims. The judge in this case should reject the call for
‘terrorism enhancement’. We must all speak more objectively and calmly.