Green Scare flier by Eberhardt Press.

Top of the Terrorism List

“The No. 1 domestic terrorism threat,” says John Lewis, a top FBI official, “is the eco-terrorism, animal-rights movement.”

The animal rights and environmental movements, like every other social movement throughout history, have both legal and illegal elements. There are people who leaflet, write letters, and lobby. There are people who protest and engage in non-violent civil disobedience. And there are people, like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, who go out at night with black masks and break windows, burn SUVs, and release animals from fur farms.

Animal rights and environmental advocates have not flown planes into buildings, taken hostages, or sent Anthrax through the mail. They have never even injured anyone. In fact, the only act of attempted murder in the history of the U.S. animal rights movement was coordinated by corporate provocateurs. Yet the FBI ranks these activists as the top domestic terrorism threat. And the Department of Homeland Security lists them on its roster of national security threats, while ignoring right-wing extremists who have bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, murdered doctors, and admittedly created weapons of mass destruction.

Defining the Green Scare

This disproportionate, heavy-handed government crackdown on the animal rights and environmental movements, and the reckless use of the word “terrorism,” is often called the Green Scare.

Much like the Red Scare and the communist witch hunts of the 40s and 50s, the Green Scare is using one word—this time, it’s “terrorist”—to push a political agenda, instill fear, and chill dissent. And much like the Red Scare, the Green Scare is operating on three levels: legal, legislative, and what we’ll call extra-legal, or scare-mongering.

Legal

The courts are being used to push conventional boundaries of what constitutes “terrorism” and to hit non-violent activists with disproportionate sentences.

• SHAC 7.
  

  The SHAC 7 outside the courthouse in New Jersey.

  A federal court convicted a group of animal advocates of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a controversial website that supported both legal and illegal activity against a lab called Huntingdon Life Sciences. The site also listed addresses for corporations and corporate executives. The group, dubbed the SHAC 7, were never charged with breaking windows or releasing animals, but they vocally supported those types of activities. For that, they were convicted of “conspiring” to promote “terrorism.” Here’s a closer look at the SHAC 7.
• Operation Backfire.
  

  Daniel McGowan, left, and Jonathan Paul.

  That’s the name the FBI gave to the historic roundup of environmental and animal rights activists for a string of Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front actions, including arson in the name of protecting the environment. Before these defendants ever set foot in the courtroom, they were labeled in the press as “eco-terrorists.” The government successfully pushed for “terrorism enhancement” penalties in many of these cases. As a result, many of these activists are now in prison as “terrorists,” a label that drastically changes their prison life and will follow them long after release. Another result of the “terrorism enhancement” is that the FBI claims these cases as a victory in the “War on Terrorism.”
• Government Informants and Infiltrators. Although some of the Operation Backfire defendants—Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block—refused to become government informants, the others “snitched” in exchange for reduced sentences. In fact, the government has said these arrests wouldn’t have been possible if one of the defendants, Jacob Ferguson, hadn’t agreed to wear a wire and entrap his friends. We’ve seen the same thing take place in other “eco-terrorism” cases. And in the case of Eric McDavid, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to destroy cell phone towers and other property, the FBI actually paid a young woman, “Anna,” to pose as an activist: she provided the group with bomb-making recipes; at times financed their transportation, food and housing; strung along McDavid, who had the hopes of a romantic relationship; and poked and prodded the group into action.
• Grand juries. In the name of investigating illegal activity, the government has been hauling lawful activists in front of grand juries where they must testify about their political beliefs and political associations, or face prison time. Activists like Jeff Hogg and independent journalist Josh Wolf have refused to cooperate with these witch hunts, and been punished for it. Elsewhere, noncooperation has derailed grand juries.

Legislative

Even with these sweeping, and successful, legal attacks on activists, corporations and the politicians who represent them want even more power.

• Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
  

  Project Censored honors Will Potter's investigative journalism covering the AETA.

  With just six members of Congress in the room, just hours after lawmakers and celebrities were on hand to break ground for the new memorial honoring that terrorist Martin Luther King Jr., the House of Representatives passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law so vague and broad that the non-violent tactics of MLK and Gandhi are now “terrorism.” The bill expanded the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, the law used to convict the SHAC 7 of “animal enterprise terrorism” just months earlier. In true Orwellian doublespeak, proponents said the law couldn’t be used to convict so-called extremists, and must be expanded. Here is a closer look at the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
• State-level Legislation. Even after the federal law passed, corporations still want more. There’s been a push for state “eco-terrorism” legislation similar to the federal AETA, including the the California Animal Enterprise Protection Act.

Extra-Legal

Perhaps the most dangerous wing of this Green Scare is the relentless scare-mongering.

• Ad Campaigns.
  

  Anonymous scare-mongering ads.

  The new McCarthyists have used their deep pocketbooks and PR savvy to place a terrorist in every shadow. They’ve taken out full-page anonymous ads in both The New York Times and The Washington Post labeling animal rights activists as “terrorists” for being a little too successful, and knocking a controversial animal testing laboratory from the New York Stock Exchange.
• Public Relations Campaigns. Not even children’s movies are safe from the relentless green baiting and guilt by association. Industry groups labeled Hoot, a bestselling book and popular movie, “soft-core eco-terrorism” because the teenage protagonists try to save an endangered owl from developers. Apparently even E.B. White was an “eco-terrorist”: According to the Center for Consumer Freedom, the movie remake of Charlotte’s Web promotes animal rights extremism.
• Surveillance, Harassment and Infiltration. The corporate and government scare-mongering has been used to create a political climate that justifies surveillance and harassment of political advocates. For instance, the FBI is looking for informants to infiltrate vegan potlucks, Joint Terrorism Task Forces are spying on HoneyBaked Ham protestors, and corporations are tracking who activists are dating.

So Why is This Happening?

Leaked State Department presentation about activists.

And in a leaked PowerPoint presentation given by the State Department to corporations, we learn: “Although incidents related to terrorism are most likely to make the front-page news, animal rights extremism is what’s most likely to affect your day-to-day business operations.”

Underground activists like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front directly threaten corporate profits by doing things like burning bulldozers or sabotaging animal research equipment. But they’re not the only ones.

The entire animal rights and environmental movements, perhaps more than any other social movements, directly threaten corporate profits. They do it every day. Every time activists encourage people to go vegan, every time they encourage people to stop driving, every time they encourage people to consume fewer resources and live simply. Those boycotts are permanent, and these industries know it. In many ways, the Green Scare, like the Red Scare, can be seen as a culture war, a war of values.

What Effect Has This Had?

The point of all this, according to the government, is to crack down on underground activists. But underground activists already know what they’re doing is illegal, and it hasn’t stopped them. In fact, it may have added fuel to the fire. For instance, the same day the SHAC 7 were convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a website that posted news of both legal and illegal actions, underground activists rescued animals from a vivisection lab and named them Jake, Lauren, Kevin, Andy, Josh, and Darius, after the defendants.

This is from the communiqué:

“And while the SHAC-7 will soon go to jail for simply speaking out on behalf of animals, those of us who have done all the nasty stuff talked about in the courts and in the media will still be free. So to those who still work with HLS and to all who abuse animals: we’re coming for you, motherfuckers.”

What Now?

So if outlandish prison sentences and “eco-terrorism” rhetoric aren’t deterring crimes or solving crimes, what’s the point?

Activists protest eco-terror legislation, and get results.

Fear. It’s all about fear. The point is to protect corporate profits by instilling fear in the mainstream animal rights and environmental movements—and every other social movement paying attention—and make people think twice about using their First Amendment rights.

Industry groups say “this is just the starting gun” for the Green Scare. But this could be the starting gun for activists as well. I’ve talked with hundreds of activists around the country over the years. There’s a lot of fear. But there’s also a lot of rage. And that’s a very good thing.

Because today’s repression may mimic many of the tactics of the Red Scare, but today’s response cannot. It’s not enough to cowardly distance ourselves from anyone branded a communist, I mean, terrorist. Naming names and making loyalty oaths didn’t protect activists then, and it won’t protect activists now.

The only way activists, and the First Amendment, are going to get through this is by coming out and confronting it head-on. That means reaching out to mainstream Americans and telling them that labeling activists as terrorists wastes valuable anti-terrorism resources and is an insult to everyone who died in the twin towers. That means reaching out to other activists and saying loud and clear that these activists are just the canaries in the mine.

Together, we can stop they cycle of history repeating itself.