When I was in Portland, Oregon, I sat down with the nice folks at Because We Must to film a video interview about my work, and some of the lessons learned from the corporate-led war on dissent as “terrorism.”

We filmed it in this beautiful park, and our discussion of a pretty dark topic was interrupted at one point by bald eagles cutting lines through the sky. The three of us all looked at each other after being hit with the same reminder: this is all worth fighting for.

I think this video turned out really well (and I love the Godspeed in the background — that album was on repeat many late nights writing the book). It’s really an honor to me that folks spend their time and energy producing things like this. I don’t think I say this nearly enough, but thank you all for listening to what I have to say.

Interview with Will Potter from Because We Must on Vimeo:

We are are excited to post our interview with our good friend Will Potter. Will runs the very informative blog Green is The New Red and is also the author of the recent book ‘Green Is the New Red: An Insiders Account Of A Social Movement Under Siege’. Will focuses on how the animal rights, and earth liberation movements have been targeted by the Government and labeled as ‘eco-terrorists’ and how dangerous this is for all social justice movements, present and future. After watching the interview, we would love it if you shared it with comrades, friends and family!

Every activist should know sht the FBI says.

I tried to resist. I really did. But when I jokingly posted on the GreenIsTheNewRed Facebook page that I wanted to make a “Sh*t the FBI Says” video, ya’ll went nuts about the idea.

Like the videos that started the trend, it’s pretty goofy. But sadly, it’s all based on statements the FBI has made in court, in the press, or to activists themselves (I’ve heard quite a few of these myself).

So on a serious note…

After you watch the video, please check out this great Know Your Rights booklet.

Thanks to Chris, Greg, Michael, Shannon, Brad and everyone else who helped out in the f-f-freezing cold. Please like this on YouTube or Facebook if you think they should wear the fake mustaches every day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are some of the articles that inspired this video:

* “FBI Looking for Informants to Infiltrate Vegan Potlucks”

* “Eric McDavid Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison as a Terrorist”

* “FBI: “Eco-terrorists” Are Bigger Threat Than Osama bin Laden, Hate Crimes, and Attempts to Assassinate Obama”

* Jordan Halliday prohibited with associating with the “Vegan Straight Edge”

* “Activist Secretly Videotapes FBI Visit”

* “IRS Suicide Pilot Is Not a ‘Terrorist,’ But Environmental Activists Are?”

* “FBI Harasses Sociology Professor Who Has Spoken Against Labeling His Student a ‘Terrorist’”

* “Discussion of Government Surveillance of Activists with Will Potter, Former FBI Agent, ACLU and More”

I recently wrote about Jordan Halliday, an animal rights activist who was jailed for refusing to name names before a federal grand jury investigating the release of mink from fur farms. Prosecutors urged a harsh prison sentence because Halliday has publicly vowed to resist the political witch hunt.

In the sentencing memorandum, they said that, while awaiting sentencing, Halliday continued to protest, continued to associate with animal rights activists, and continued to urge activists to support him.

And then prosecutors described to the judge what they said is an even more troubling association.

“Of More Serious Concern”

“Of more serious concern is the fact uncovered by the FBI” that Jordan Halliday was mentioned in a photo caption on this website, they said.

The FBI had given prosecutors an article I wrote titled, “BREAKING: FBI Raids Activist House in Utah, Connected to Iowa ALF Investigation.” I covered this story as it happened, and scooped local press. I was able to do this because, as I noted in the article, “I just got off the phone with multiple housemates who were there witnessing the raid, and who were able to read the warrant.” The housemates called me because I have been reporting on the FBI’s attacks on animal rights and environmental activists since 2001. I later updated the blog post with a photo from the scene that credited Jordan Halliday.

To me, this was Journalism 101 — work fast, then flesh out details and add a photo. To the FBI, this quick work was the evidence of a network of extremists. Prosecutors state in the sentencing memo: “The search warrant was sealed, as is typical, with no warning or public knowledge ahead of the time of service. Nonetheless, photograph taken contemporaneous with the execution of the search warrant service has been attributed to the defendant on the animal rights extremist website” GreenIsTheNewRed.com.

The FBI provided federal prosecutors with a blog post from this website.

Guilty By Association

It is not surprising to see a government sentencing memo try to connect a defendant to “extremists.” I’ve covered this in many, many prosecutions. The intention is to use guilt by association to secure additional prison time. For example, prosecutors will say that Joe Defendant is friends with drug dealers, or that Jane Defendant’s family are in a gang.

In this case, the government labels journalism as extremism.

Prosecutors say that since my article mentioned Halliday in a photo caption, it means he placed himself “above the law” and violated an order to have “No association with animal group[s] A.L.F., E.L.F., Vegan Straight Edge (VSE).” [The ALF and ELF are the underground Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front. "Vegan Straight Edge" is a punk lifestyle, not a terrorist group, and I'm having a hard time even typing this explanation without being reminded by these lyrics.]

Packed into that short accusation are two dangerous unstated assumptions:

1. Anyone who takes a photo of law enforcement is associated with those being targeted. Keep in mind that this raid led to no arrests. Yet the government says that merely possessing a photo of it implies criminal association, and is acting “above the law.”
2. Anyone who writes about what the government is doing to animal rights activists is an “animal rights extremist” by extension. This is the most dangerous message being sent by the government. My writing and commentary on civil liberties issues has been featured by NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, and many other of the top media outlets in the country. I have lectured at nearly 100 universities and associations, including Georgetown Law School, Yale Law School, and the House of Democracy and Human Rights in Berlin. My book was awarded a Kirkus Star for “remarkable merit,” and has been praised by Publishers Weekly, Utne, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and many others. I say all this hoping to make clear that if my journalism is being labeled “extremist,” if my entire body of professional work can be reduced to extremism because I ask questions about what the government and corporations are doing, then everyone is at risk.

Chilling Free Speech

If there has been one theme running through all of my work, through every blog post and book chapter and speaking event, it is this: fear. Corporations and politicians are using post-9/11 fears of terrorism to push their political agenda. Fear is being manufactured and manipulated by people in power in order to make people think twice about using their rights.

This chilling effect on First Amendment activity is at the core of lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. The vague and overly broad language of the law, and the sweeping attempts of prosecutors to utilize it (such as this grand jury investigation), is unconstitutional not because it has expressly prohibited First Amendment activity, but because it has chilled it.

This is another representation of that constitutional threat, in two ways:

It makes me feel that using my First Amendment rights puts me at risk. Describing journalism as “extremist” in the context of a terrorism investigation is, to put it mildly, unsettling. This isn’t the first time I have learned of surveillance like this. I have previously written about how my writing and speeches have been listed in Counter-Terrorism Unit briefing documents.

More importantly, it makes me feel that using my First Amendment rights puts my sources at risk. When I saw that my work was being used by the FBI and prosecutors against Halliday, it made me sick to my stomach. It’s one thing to see my name in terrorism files, it’s another to see my work being used by prosecutors to punish people I have written about. An old muckraking motto is “comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.” To have my work afflict people who already have the full weight of the U.S. government pressing down upon them goes against everything I believe about this craft.

A Pattern on Behavior

You might be asking: Was the government really trying to send these messages? Or was this a case of bad FBI intelligence and prosecutors who don’t “get it”? (To steal a line from The Daily Show, “Are they evil, or stupid?”)

I don’t know the answer to that question. But I know government officials have done this before. When I visited Daniel McGowan in the Communications Management Unit, prison officials did not threaten me. They did not expressly prohibit me from writing about the experimental prison units. Instead, they told McGowan that if I wrote about the visit he would be punished for my words.

I also know that prosecutors said Jordan Halliday needs to be punished for his “stardom,” so “defendant’s supporters are not emboldened to follow the defendant’s contemptuous ways.” Through these and many other examples, it’s clear that the government is openly trying to send a message.

And so, as I edit this, about to hit “publish,” I keep hesitating. Will writing about this amplify that message of fear? Everything I do depends on the trust I have built with countless activists and their friends and families. What if this makes people afraid to be mentioned on this website?

The mere fact that I have to ask myself those questions is a testament to how much we have lost in the name of fighting “terrorism.”

This pattern of conduct by the FBI and federal prosecutors is nothing less than an attack on the First Amendment, and an attack on journalism. It is an attempt to foster distrust between author and source, and it is an attempt to shake the confidence that one can report freely and without retribution, both of which are essential to any meaningful expression of journalism in a democracy.

The Rumpus is one of my favorite websites on all of the Internetz. It’s a smart, sharp, literary site, and it was a treat to speak with Caroline Paul about my new book.

Here’s an intro from Caroline:

In 2007, I was put on Homeland Security’s Watch List. True, my brother had just been arrested. He had been a member of the underground Animal Liberation Front, freeing wild mustangs, mink, and lab animals for nigh on twenty years. But the Watch List? Me? Isn’t that for terrorists? It didn’t fully make sense until I picked up Will Potter’s book.

I was eager to speak to Potter, whose Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege shows how the US government is colluding with corporate America to suppress animal and environmental activism of all stripes.

Please head over to The Rumpus and check out the full interview, then pass it on if you like it. Thanks!

Grist.org is featuring a discussion I had with Robert Jensen, who is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Citizens of the Empire (among many books). I think the interview turned out really well, and is particularly relevant in the wake of Tim DeChristopher’s sentencing. I hope you’ll check it out. You can read the full interview on Grist, and here’s an excerpt:

Q. Whatever one thinks of the specific analyses or tactics of groups such as the Earth Liberation Front, the accelerating pace of ecological collapse suggests their call to consciousness about the larger living world is more important than ever. After your investigation into the Green Scare, what is your assessment of the likelihood the culture will listen?

A. As the scale of the ecological crisis we are facing becomes more apparent, and as the backlash against social movements that are challenging our self-destructive culture intensifies, it is difficult to not feel dark, to feel helpless. I certainly feel that way quite often — not just because of the content of my own work, but from the near-blackout in the mainstream press. Unfortunately, I do not see any of this changing anytime soon. As the ecological crisis accelerates, the accompanying crackdown by corporations and people in power will intensify as well. The people who have the most to lose will cling desperately to that culture as it is threatened, and this includes not just CEOs but much of the overwhelmingly privileged United States and so-called First World.

After all of that, this will probably sound quite odd, but in the face of this I would argue that there are reasons to be inspired. Through my work, and in particular through book and media tours, I have been fortunate to meet people all over the country from diverse backgrounds. What has been striking to me is that, even if people are unfamiliar with the Green Scare or the targeting of political activists, they are rarely surprised. People may not know the specifics, but they know that corporations have more power than people. They know the scope of ecological destruction is increasing. They know we have no choice but to change but that people in power will not change willingly. I’m not convinced that the question at hand is whether or not the culture will listen, because I think that so many people already feel this. I think the question is: Will we find the courage to be heard?

Walter Bond set fire to the Sheepskin Factory in Colorado in the name of the Animal Liberation Front, and was sentenced to five years in prison. He is awaiting trial for two other arsons, in Utah, and is being held in solitary confinement: locked down for 23 hours a day during the week, and 24 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday.

In a letter to his prison support group, he said that he has been in transit and “They wouldn’t put me in general population because they say I’m part of a government security threat group.”

In addition, Bond reports that when he has been transported between prisons and holding facilities, guards have used what are called “black boxes”: devices intended for the most dangerous prisoners that go over their handcuffs, to prevent attacks.To be clear, these conditions are not unique. I have spoken with other animal rights and environmental activists who have reported similar treatment, including black boxes, solitary confinement, and prison officials telling them that they are “security threats.”

This isn’t because these prisoners pose a risk to guards, or other prisoners. In fact, while Bonds crimes were certainly serious, no crime by the Animal Liberation Front has ever harmed a single human being. And no one has alleged that he poses a violent threat to those around him.

The reason for this treatment is the government’s classification of the ALF and ELF as “domestic terrorist organizations.” For example, when Bond was sentenced the FBI issued a press release that said: “Preventing and pursuing domestic terrorism—those acts of violence committed in furtherance of a political or social agenda—remains one of the top priorities of the FBI.”

And it’s important to note, too, that these conditions are not unique to animal rights activists. For more information about the human rights concerns of solitary confinement for all prisoners, please visit Jim Ridgeway’s website, Solitary Watch.

Bond’s birthday is April 16th. If you’d like to write him a letter, visit www.supportwalter.org.

UPDATE: His temporary address is:
Walter Bond
37096-013
Nevada Southern Detention Center
2190 E Mesquite Ave
Pahrump NV 89060

The Counter-Terrorism Unit, a division of the Bureau of Prisons, is listing prisoners who are environmentalists and animal rights activists alongside the Army of God and Aryan Nations.

The animal rights and environmental movements in the United States have never harmed a single human being, according to the FBI and DHS, but new internal documents show that prison officials classify these activists as “domestic terrorists” along with much more dangerous prisoners.

Earlier this week I reported on the internal intelligence documents that are distributed by the Counter-Terrorism Unit to prison officials and law enforcement. The unit monitors the letters, visits and phone calls of “terrorist prisoners” to identify any potential threats.

For example, some of the “domestic terrorists” monitored include:

• Clayton Lee Waagner, a member of the Army of God who plotted to murder abortion clinic employees. He was found guilty of more than fifty federal charges including threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction.
• Buford Furrow, a member of the Aryan Nations convicted for the shooting at the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center that injured three children and killed one person.

The Counter-Terrorism Unit also lists a section for “Domestic Terrorism – Environmental Extremism.” The activists listed are much different from the Waagners and Furrows of the world:

• Daniel McGowan, convicted for his role in two arsons targeting genetic engineering and the logging of old-growth forests.
• The SHAC 7, a group of animal right activists convicted of “conspiracy to commit animal enterprise terrorism” for running a website that listed personal information about corporate executives, and supported property destruction.

The documents also include a section titled “Upcoming Domestic Terrorist Releases,” which list prisoners, their release dates, and “association.” For animal rights and environmental activists, the “associations” are often incorrect. For example: members of the SHAC 7  are sometimes listed as “ALF/ELF” (for Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front) even though they have never been accused of a crime by those groups. The terrorist label is applied recklessly based loosely on perceived political beliefs.

These internal documents make clear that the labeling of activists as “eco-terrorists” is much more than public relations ploy by corporations and the politicians who represent them. The “number one domestic terrorism threat” rhetoric has worked its way into the top levels of government, and has saturated the entire criminal justice system.

Activists are being labeled “eco-terrorists” before they even set foot in a court room and, if convicted, that label follows them into the prison system where it legally redefines them. They can end up in secretive political prisons called Communications Management Units. And even if they don’t, law enforcement and prison officials are receiving bulletins like these, which serve to only further instill fear.

In the aftermath of the Arizona shooting, FBI agents are investigating what they say may be another act of domestic terrorism: spraypaint on fishing boats.

The Boston Herald reports that slogans including “Commercial fishing first class rape” and “sea life kidnapped, murdered, maliciously” were spraypainted on fishing boats in North Plymouth, Massachusetts this week.

The FBI is investigating whether it was the work of the Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, which FBI officials have called the “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

As the FBI and local press rush to label this vandalism “terrorism,” though, there’s reason to doubt whether it was a crime by environmentalists at all. Local fisherman are upset about government regulations restricting overfishing. And two of the spraypainted slogans were signed “Greenpeace” (a national group which condemns property destruction).

It reminds me of another incident in Massachusetts, where a pet store owner burned down his shop after spraypainting ALF at the scene. It was an insurance scheme.

As I wrote recently, the FBI has already been warned by the Justice Department that its obsessive focus on environmentalists ignores more violent threats.

I think it’s safe to say that this is not the “targeting” that most of the country is concerned about right now.

The FBI and a previously-unknown informant in the animal rights movement discussed, among other topics, how to disrupt political activism, according to FBI documents. The topics discussed echo COINTELPRO-era tactics of the 1960s, including the possibility of discrediting activists through planting rumors.

The FBI file is dated May 12, 2005, by the FBI’s Johnson City Resident Agency, which is part of the Knoxville  field office. It is based on conversations between an FBI agent and “Source,” who is only identified as someone who was involved in “direct actions” and is willing to share information with the government in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

The result is an FBI agent’s notes that offer a rare glimpse of how the government is targeting its “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

Spreading Rumors

Of particular interest to the FBI agent was how the animal rights movement has responded to the government’s use of informants. I have reported here previously about the FBI infiltrating vegan potlucks, and much more serious cases involving an informant named “Anna,” Brandon Darby, and Jacob Ferguson, among others.

These high-profile cases have made activists fearful of FBI spying. According to the FBI agents’ notes, the informant reported that fear alone of such infiltration can be enough to sabotage political activity:

“The Animal Rights Movement does little research on newcomers into the movement and basically goes with its gut instinct as to whether a person is an informant or not. Organizers of the Animal Rights Movement can be discredited and removed from the scene by planting rumors that they are plants and/or informants.” [emphasis added]

The potential for such tactics appears to be validated in the mind of the FBI agent, who notes that there is “no risk of violence to these persons about whom these false rumors may be started as most of the animal rights people are also strict advocates of nonviolence against human persons.”

Weak Links in Security Culture

A common term in activist circles is “security culture,” which means being aware of government surveillance and taking reasonable steps to protect your privacy, and the privacy of others. One aspect of security culture, for instance, includes email encryption via PGP.

Activists who have had homes raided by the FBI or been harassed through grand jury witch hunts have learned the importance of protecting their privacy, and making it less easy for the FBI to snoop into their political activity. “Security culture” has been cited in court cases and Congressional hearings as a source of frustration for FBI agents.

In this document, the FBI agent notes “the day of those strict rules may be passing. Source believes that many of the younger activists do not subscribe to these strict requirements as they are extremely inconvenient.”

A Century of Similar Efforts

This FBI document was provided to me by Ryan Shapiro, who is a PhD candidate at MIT. Shapiro, a historian of science, is researching conflicts over animal experimentation and national security. This document surfaced in one of his Freedom of Information Act requests.

Shapiro’s research is a ground-breaking investigation of early campaigns to exploit national security fears in order to  fight animal rights activists. As he told me:

“Politicians, industry, and law enforcement have long employed the rhetoric and apparatus of national security to counter animal advocacy. Today’s Green Scare actually stands on the shoulders of a century of similar efforts to marginalize animal protectionists as threats to American security.”

COINTELPRO Tactics Resurface

Throughout U.S. history, there have been government campaigns against progressive social movements. This document reveals a continuation of that trend, not only in terms of the ideological motivations, but in terms of the specific tactics used by law enforcement.

One of the most notorious eras of FBI spying in recent memory was dubbed COINTELPRO. According to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO aimed to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” radical social movements in the 1960s, using any means at their disposal.

The tactics discussed in this document, including the details about spying, informants, and rumor-spreading, are direct parallels to those used in COINTELPRO. The Church Committee hearings in the 1970s ostensibly put an end to those operations, reining in rogue police operations. This is yet another example of how the COINTELPRO legacy has been institutionalized, and continues to endure.

Manufacturing the Threat

The FBI agent’s notes, no matter how disturbing, are actually quite astute throughout the document. That is, except for a final section on the potential threat posed by animal rights activists:

“The Animal Rights Movement activists will not resort to violence as a source of funding. By that, source means that activists will not become bank robbers or armed robbers and commit crimes of that nature in order to fund their movement.”

To anyone familiar with the animal rights movement (such as the informant), the thought of this is quite odd. Animal activists have not robbed banks. They have not taken up arms. Judging by the structure of the document, though, and the accompanying material, it is clear that these transcribed comments were the informant’s response to direct questions by the FBI agent.

In other words, the FBI agent was seriously questioning the informant about the feasibility of animal rights activists and “eco-terrorists” building a true guerilla-style revolutionary movement.

In many ways, this is the most revealing segment of the entire file. The animal rights movement has never injured a single human being in the name of protecting animals, let alone in the name of money. For the FBI to entertain the possibility, and press an informant for further information, is another reflection of how much the bureau has lost touch with reality.

As I have discussed on this website at length, the creation of animal rights and environmental activists as the “number one domestic terrorism threat” has been a coordinated campaign by corporations and the politicians who represent them. As we see here, the rhetoric has taken on a life of its own; even the most far-fetched ploys are discussed straight-faced, business as usual, and the scare-mongering has been institutionalized into national security operations.