Attorney Matthew Strugar Explains the AETA 4 Case (Video)

Do you know what the most recent UC professor who experienced sabotage (car brakes cut) does for a his focus? He looks at kelp forests, and uses computer models to suggest the best areas of the coastline to put into marine reserves where fishing shouldn't be allowed. Lots of fishers and abalones harvesters had problems with this, but it has had good results where tried.. Yes, he was the head of the department. When you pick completely low level targets based on self0righteous rhetoric about primate research, maybe it is countereffective for your goals. I guess a lot of people (as shown in the video) are investing a lot of time in these campaigns. It would be sort of sad if you ended up losing or doing the work of your opponents, wouldn't it.

I went and typed up a transcript–I guess because I was bored, but now everything Matthew said is searchable and accessible.

[Matthew Strugar - AETA Legal Team]

My name's Matthew Strugar, I'm an attorney, um, used to work with the center for constitutional rights and now I co-counsel with them on a number of activist defense cases dealing with the green scare, uh, including a case known as the AETA4, which involves 4 activists from California, some northern, some southern, who have been indicted and charged with animal enterprise terrorism for essentially acts of speech and acts of protest.

AETA4 are 4 fairly young animal rights activists, their names are Joe Budenberg, Mariam Khajavi, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo. They were involved in the campaign against UC's use of primates in their research.

They are alleged to have attended a number of home demonstrations in the Northern California area, where they participated in various chants, um, some of the chants, the government alleges in the criminal complaint, that they participated in include, “1-2-3-4, open up the cage door, 5-6-7-8, we intend to literate 9-10-11-12, vivisectors go to hell.”

And the government, in the criminal complaint, with a straight face, claims that somehow this is illegal, somehow this–these chants at home demonstrations are so threatening that they are unprotected speech, that they are–that there is no problem violating the first amendment by indicting that kind of speech.

There were other chants, including,”you're a murderer” I believe was some, or “you're a fucking murderer'. Heated language for sure, but heated language that has traditionally been held protected under the first amendment.

There are also allegations that they distributed fliers that included home, um, addresses of some of these researches, and the title was “Murderers and torturers alive in your neighborhood.”

and the government's saying, not that that's slanderous or that that's some kind of libel to say that they're murderers and torturers. The government is saying that by posting those fliers, or by publishing those fliers and putting out those addresses, that they were threatening those researchers with fear of serious fear of bodily harm or injury, and that those fliers are also unprotected speech and can be the basis of, uh, an indictment and a conviction of Animal Enterprise Terrorism, carrying up to 5 years in prison.

The government is claiming that those actions violate the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, 18 USC section 43, and also that they conspired with one another to commit the violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. [] when you commit a crime and do it with others, the government can often claim that you have both violated the law and that you committed a conspiracy to violate the law, so there are two charges here.

This is a criminal charge, this is brought by the United States Government, this is the feds. A lot of the big first amendment cases come out of the South, um with sort of overzealous local prosecutors and some, you know, local, you know, cop and prosecutor are sort of not really paying attention to the law and think they can get away with it.

That's not what this is, this is the FBI and the feds, um, going after this, and I think it's, uh, it's intentional and it's coming from higher up than criminal charges normally come. I'm speculating here, but I think that the UC–the campaign against UC primate research got so heated for a couple of years–there were a lot, a lot, a lot of illegal acts in connection with the UC campaign against primate research
including car bombings and all kinds of–all kinds of vandalism.

And I think that the UC system has enough power and can throw its weight around to say, we need somebody's heads to roll. We need somebody–we need to pin something on somebody so it looks like we're not powerless here.

Animal rights activists are unfortunately a fringe movement, so the government can come in and say, look at these folks, these folks aren't like you, these folks believe something very different. Other people that believe that have crazy ideas, and, and do illegal action, you know, we should shut down this speech.

Cases like the SHAC7, it's just extremely, extremely effective activists against corporations that have a lot of political power and a lot of money, um, SHAC drove Huntingdon Life Sciences almost to be delisted form the stock exchange, um, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy [inaudible]. It's no secret that the government is responsible to those kind of,um, those kind of interests.

We are now moving forward with what we is called an as-applied challenge, which means this law is unconstitutional as applied to these individuals and the actions alleged against them. What they did is protected by the first amendment is what this motion will say.

Right now we're in a battle with the government to say what exactly the government thinks–what exactly the government's theory is in this case, because the government, in their indictment, only says: these individuals on this date violated the Act. They don't say what they said, they don't say, you know, what–whether there were fliers or what the fliers said.

Government, tell us what you think these individuals did wrong, because the indictment doesn't provide us [inaudible] this.

To dismiss on a first amendment basis, you have to use only what's in the indictment. And I think what the government's trying to do is protect themselves from judicial review, um, in the early stages, being completely ambiguous in the indictment, and saying just–just that these individuals violated it. 'Cause I don't think, I think they're embarrassed to go before the court and say, they violated it by chanting outside someone's home or making a flier. They want to put it before a jury and sort of inflame a jury with it instead of have a judge look at it and say, “Really, you're indicting people for chanting ad fliering?”

As far as what folks can do if they want to be involved, uh, check out the support committees, the support committees will have information on, you know, if you want to throw a benefit show for the AETA4 to help, you know, with the legal costs–a lot of us are working for free on this case. Um, it'll have information on where to submit that money, or, you know, where that money is going to.

You've gotta pay for investigators, you've got to pay for court filings, um, so donations, fund raisers, benefit shows, that kind of thing are-are always appreciated.

Beyond the support committees, I think people can call their congressman and talk about what the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act does and why they feel like it is unconstitutional, and that it allows for prosecutions like this, and why it allows for prosecutions of people who cause loss of profits to certain industries and that it is essentially viewpoint discrimination, if you believe, you know, one side of the debate, you know, you could–and you're effective–you could go to jail.

Come to the court hearings. It raises, you know the judge's awareness that, oh people are really paying attention here, uh, this is–this is important, you know, maybe some of these claims I should, you know, pay some careful attention to.

I think what people really should do is keep agitating for animals. Keep–you know, don't be scared, keep being an activist, keep being effective. I know that's what the SHAC 7 folks were saying when they were in jail, you know, they they wanted people to just keep–you know, hold the torch, you know, keep doing what they're doing, you know, because the government indicts some people, it's going to be hard for them to indict everybody. So just keep speaking up, keep agitating for animal rights, be it with the UC primate system or–or anything else, just stay active, stay involved. Keep–keep being in the streets.

[the next AETA4 court appearance is scheduled for:
Monday, June 7, 2010
9:00 AM
San Jose Federal Courthouse
280 S 1st. ST
San Jose, CA 95113
Courtroom #6 (4th Floor)

visit aeta4.org for more info.]

I find it interesting how anyone (at least in CA, I don't know if this is a nation-wide thing) can look up where sex offenders live on a public website, but when you give out the home addresses of people who do research on animals, it counts as threatening.

Apparently those who have been labeled sex offenders (which can be a label administered for something as benign as pissing in public) aren't thought of as worth saving from threat of bodily harm or discrimination.

I'm not saying that sex offenders are the same as animal researchers, but I do find it disturbing that when a group of people are thought of as a lesser group (like sex offenders), they can have something imposed upon them that someone who CHOOSES their job can't.