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”

The recent article about how the FBI recommended prosecuting video investigators as terrorists went viral, thanks to you all! It’s pretty amazing — more than 16,000 people shared the story on Facebook, and more than 100,000 unique visitors have viewed it on this website. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (and the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit against it is being talked about on many, many websites and forums. So thank you all for sharing this!

One of the best articles I’ve seen is by Dean Kuipers of the Los Angeles Times. Here’s an excerpt:

The documents, which were first published on Will Potter’s website, Green Is the New Red, were issued by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2003 in response to an article in an animal rights publication in which Shapiro and two other activists (whose names were redacted from the document), openly claimed responsibility for shooting video and taking animals from a farm…

Potter, who has looked into these state laws in more detail, points out, “There’s no shortage of laws that could be used to prosecute someone who is trespassing or someone who is vandalizing property in the process of an investigation. But these new laws are specifically aimed at mainstream animal rights and environmental groups who investigate abuse, such as the Humane Society, Mercy for Animals and PETA.”

The GreenIsTheNewRed.com article has gotten picked up by conservative websites like Little Green Footballs, liberal sites like Alternet, and everything in between. Readers have overwhelmingly been outraged by this misuse of “terrorism” legislation.

Big Ag, however, feels differently.

Dan Murphy is a public relations consultant for the meat and dairy industries, and a long-time supporter of “eco-terror” legislation like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. In a column for Dairy Herd, he says the FBI is completely justified in targeted non-violent undercover investigators as terrorists. He goes so far as to compare the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act to hate crimes legislation targeting the KKK:

It’s no different from passing laws authorizing special punishment for so-called “hate crimes.” It’s always been possible to punish those who burn crosses, deface houses or otherwise harass people on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation. But often, the small fines and minimal jail terms prescribed by trespassing and property damage statutes don’t fit the egregious nature of the offenses. Thus, it’s necessary to identify special circumstances that change what would normally be mere misdemeanors into the more serious crimes that they are.

Murphy has this backwards, of course. The “egregious nature of the offenses” in this situation are not being committed by the activists. They are being committed by corporations. Activists have repeatedly exposed systemic animal welfare violations, and are non-violently documenting these practices to force businesses to change these practices.

It speaks volumes that the meat and dairy industries consider things like this to be less egregious than having their own institutionalized cruelty exposed.

In 2011, we saw two clear, sweeping trends regarding protest movements, and the corporate backlash against them. Before we get to that, though, take a look at the 10 most popular stories of 2011:

10) Tim DeChristopher Sentenced — What’s Next for the Environmental Movement?

9) New Lawsuit Challenges the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act as Unconstitutional

8) Supreme Court Will Not Hear SHAC 7 Case

7) 5 Reasons Why Environmentalists and Animal Activists Should Occupy Wall Street

6) If Sarah Palin Were an Animal Rights Activist, She’d Have Already Been Convicted of “Terrorism”

5) Breaking: 12 Activists Arrested in Spain, Being Charged With “Eco-Terrorism”

4) Minnesota Bill Targets Anyone Who Exposes an “Image or Sound” of Animal Suffering at Factory Farms, Puppy Mills

3) Richmond Cops Mistakenly Hand Over Anti-Protest Guides to Anarchist

2) Senate Approves NDAA Bill that Allows Military to Imprison U.S. Citizens, Without Charge, As “Terrorists”

1) FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorist

I created this list according to the number of views each article on this website received. I think some of the stories are more significant than others, but the order really isn’t important.

More important are the trends they reflect.

The first trend is an increasingly aggressive campaign led by corporations against those who effectively threaten profits. I have been writing this blog since 2006, when the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was being debated. If you had told me then that there would be a campaign in multiple states to criminalize undercover investigations, or that environmentalist Tim DeChristopher would receive two years in prison for civil disobedience, I wouldn’t have believed you. On top of that, the hubris of corporations and politicians is also being codified into law in new ways, such as the National Defense Authorization Act, and these tactics are spreading to other countries.

When you stack things up that way, it’s pretty grim.

But that’s only half of the story.

As Tim DeChristopher was being sentenced to prison for non-violent civil disobedience, activists around the country didn’t cower in fear. Thousands protested the creation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and hundreds were arrested saying, “now it’s our turn.” And as new FBI documents reveal that the government has considered terrorism prosecutions against non-violent undercover investigators, activists have hit back with a lawsuit calling the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act unconstitutional.

In other words, the second trend is that resistance is growing.

What’s in store for 2012? The Occupy Wall Street movement has gone from a few dozen tents to a national movement in about 100 days. As more and more people recognize that they are part of the “99 percent,” and act accordingly, Occupy will undoubtedly attract a proportionate backlash from same “one percent” who have targeted animal rights and environmental activists for decades.

There are significant challenges ahead for all of us. It’s hard to know what is the best way to take action, or how we should proceed. But I think Woody Guthrie was on to something with his New Year’s resolution list from 1942.

Two of the items on his list for the new year: “Make up your mind… Wake up and fight.”

Did you miss some of these stories this year? Be sure to sign up for the free email newsletter. You can also follow Green Is the New Red on Facebook and Twitter.

A new lawsuit challenges the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act as unconstitutional because it has given activists reason to fear that they could be prosecuted as “terrorists” for non-violent civil disobedience, protests, and First Amendment activity.

The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of 5 longtime animal rights activists. The activists say the vague wording of the law, and the corporate-led campaigns against animal rights activism, have made them alter their own advocacy.

The landmark case has implications for all social justice movement, beyond the animal rights activists targeted. It sets a dangerous precedent for labeling anyone who effectively threatens corporate profits a “terrorist.” As the Occupy Wall Street Movement grows rapidly, and has begun reclaiming foreclosed homes from banks and shutting down ports, this lawsuit couldn’t come at a more pressing time. And with the impending passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, the dangers of this parallel legal system for “terrorists” has become strikingly clear.

The lawsuit seeks to strike down the law for violating the First and Fifth Amendments [read the criminal complaint in Blum v. Holder]. Specifically, it argues that the law is unconstitutional for 3 reasons:

1. It is so broad that it has had a chilling effect on free speech. The law hasn’t outlawed animal rights activism, but it has made activists think twice about using their rights. This was the primary point I raised in my Congressional testimony against the law in 2006, and since then the political climate has become even more toxic. The first use of the law was based on activists allegedly chalking slogans on the sidewalk and wearing bandanas. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is an attempt by corporations to use the power of fear in order to silence their opposition.
2. The language is so vague that people can’t decipher what is illegal. The law’s criminalization of “interfering with” the operations of an animal enterprise, or causing a “loss of profits,” leave activists wondering if they could be labeled a terrorist for a successful lawful campaign. This is compounded by the law’s emphasis on “tertiary targeting”: it not only protects animal enterprises,” but any business that does business with an animal enterprise. When politicians, the courts, lawyers, and national organizations cannot agree on the meaning of this law, it is dangerously overbroad.
3. It singles out animal rights activist because of their political beliefs and their effective advocacy. Meanwhile, violence by anti-abortion extremists is not being labeled as terrorism. For more on this: “If Sarah Palin Were an Animal Rights Activist, She’d Have Already Been Convicted of ‘Terrorism.” Singling out groups of people because of their political beliefs, and restricting their First Amendment rights, is antithetical to a healthy democracy.

Here is a detailed, step-by-step analysis of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act if you are interested. I wanted to focus a bit on the people involved in the lawsuit, though:

Sarahjane Blum has been an animal rights activist for 23 years. She co-founded GourmetCruelty.com in 2003, which exposed the cruelty of the foie gras industry and helped California to ban foie gras farming. According to the lawsuit: “While she had knowingly and openly violated the law many times through acts of non-violent civil disobedience, she was unwilling to face the possibility of prosecution and sentencing as a terrorist. She was stunned that the ethical, important work that she had devoted her life to had been turned overnight into terrorism.”

Ryan Shapiro is now a doctoral candidate at MIT studying the history of political repression against animal rights activists. With Sarahjane Blum, he co-founded GourmetCruelty.com, produced a documentary film, and spoke publicly about his work. He was also friends with the SHAC 7 — a group of activists convicted as terrorists. “Faced with the imprisonment of his friends, and with the passage of the AETA, Mr. Shapiro began to worry that the price for peaceful protest and civil disobedience was one he could not afford to pay.”

Lana Lehr has organized for the welfare of rabbits, and also protested the sale of their fur. After the passage of the AETA, she found herself altering her protest activity and censoring her words and her writing online.

Lauren Gazzola is one of the SHAC 7. She recounts a lecture she gave at a law school class where she censored herself from encouraging activists to follow her advocacy, because she feared her words would be used as evidence of conspiracy to violate the AETA.

Jay Johnson, who has confirmed that he has been placed on a terrorist watchlist, has witnessed the chilling effect on grassroots animal rights activism. After the case of the SHAC 7 and the passage of the AETA, protest attendance plummeted. For instance, he recounts a protest against a company affiliated with Huntingdon Life Sciences: “When he arrived at the site of the planned protest, he was met by over 40 police officers in riot gear, and not a single other protestor.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I have known several of these plaintiffs for well over a decade, as activists and as friends.

I point this out because I want to take the liberty of saying that this lawsuit was not an easy decision for them. There’s of course a fear of drawing a giant red target on one’s back, but the primary concern of these plaintiffs is not themselves — it’s the animals, and those advocating on their behalf. All of these activists are deeply committed to the animal rights movement, and they had to answer the uncomfortable question: “Does acknowledging fear draw even more attention to it? Could this make even more people afraid?”

But this lawsuit is more about courage than fear. It is about these plaintiffs and the CCR having the courage to acknowledge that this political climate exists, that what we are experiencing is real and it is valid, and that we can’t move forward by pretending it doesn’t affect us. It is to say, unequivocally: “Yes, we have been afraid. Yes, we have all known fear. And now it is time to fight back.”

Two animal rights activists in Finland have been found not guilty on nearly all charges related to their undercover investigations of factory farms, which revealed sick, injured, and dying pigs.

Karry Hedberg and Saila Kivelä of Oikeutta Eläimille (Justice for Animals) were charged with “aggravated defamation” because of their exposés.

According to Finnish news outlet Helsingin Sanoma.

…the court found that the aim of the defendants was to raise critical debate on the conditions in which pigs are kept in Finland. With that in mind, they had recorded material which was disadvantageous from the point of view of the owners of the piggeries.

As it had not been asserted that the recordings had been doctored in any way, the court found that selective use of camera angles could not be seen to constitute false or suggestive information.

In the view of the court, freedom of speech needs to be considered, even though the pig farms were depicted in a negative light in interviews

In other words, the videos and websites the group created were free speech, and did not qualify as “defamation” because they were accurate depictions of the cruelty of factory farms aimed to “raise critical debate.”

Hedberg was given a 20-day suspended sentence because he trespassed in order to create one of the videos.

This is major victory against “Green Scare” style court cases in Finland, and let’s hope it’s foreshadowing of what will happen in the case of the Spanish 12 and ag-gag bills in the United States.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan on their podcast, Our Hen House. It was a great discussion! We talked about why animal activists should join Occupy Wall Street, the possible resurgence of ag-gag bills, and the importance of vibrant, grassroots activism.

Here’s an excerpt:

Jasmin: “…what kinds of activists should AR activists focus on?”

Will: “I do my best to refrain from trying to answer that, because I don’t think I am any more of an expert that anyone listening to this program. I don’t intend that as the total cop out it sounds like, but — I don’t know what the right way to social change is. Through my work I try to raise the point that I don’t think any of us do. I think we all should do what we find most appropriate, given our skills, given our resources, and give our passions. The reason I pursue my work as a form of activism, journalism as activism, is quite simply because I didn’t know what else to do. And I think a lot of people are feeling that way… We all have to find our niches.”

You can listen to the entire show at Our Hen House. My segment of the radio show starts at about 32:34. I hope you’ll listen, and also check out the other Our Hen House podcasts. Jasmin and Mariann offer a wonderful self-reflective voice in the animal rights movement.

I’ll turn one of the questions over to you all: What do you think are the greatest challenges facing the animal rights and environmental movements?

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!

City by city, it’s growing. If you have been watching the rise of Occupy Wall Street from the sidelines, maybe it’s because you’re not sure if you’re part of the “99 percent” or maybe it’s because you just have other things to do. Here’s the thing: This is bigger than one person, one issue, or one movement.

Here are five reasons why environmental activists and animal rights activists should Occupy Wall Street:

1) Corporations are destroying the planet. And, as Bill McKibben wrote, “For too long, Wall Street has been occupying the offices of our government, and the cloakrooms of our legislatures.” The first official Declaration of the Occupation of New York City articulated some of the many facets of this movement, including environmental and animal rights concerns. Here are a few highlights:

“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies..

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices…

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil…

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit…”

2) Corporations are attacking you. Since the 1980s, corporations have campaigned to label activists as “eco-terrorists.” They have pushed for outrageous prison sentences of activists like Tim DeChristopher. They have lobbied for federal legislation like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and state legislation to label civil disobedience as “eco-terrorism.” They are doing everything in their power to marginalize and disrupt the environmental and animal rights movements. (In other words, as this clever Greenpeace video depicts, they’re afraid of you.) Rather than protesting bill by bill, arrest by arrest, this is an opportunity to challenge the true problem: unchecked corporate power.

3) You have experiences to share about tactics. Occupy Wall Street has locked arms to blockade the banks, and marched to the mansions of millionaires. Sound familiar? More than 800 1,200 environmentalists were arrested in a massive civil disobedience against the XL Pipeline. And the SHAC campaign brought a multinational corporation near bankruptcy through a diversity of tactics including home demonstrations. This obviously isn’t to say that environmentalists and animal rights activists created tactics like civil disobedience or home demonstrations, but they have, more than any other contemporary social movement, put them to unique and effective use targeting corporations. There are lessons to be shared– good, bad, and ugly– that will benefit everyone.

4) You have experiences to share about dealing with corporate and government repression. Occupy Wall Street has already seen some of the overt tactics used to target social movements, such as the police beating and pepper-spraying activists. As this movement grows, however, so will the proportionate backlash. You have experiences with informants, infiltrators, and corporate espionage. You have resisted grand jury witch hunts and fought back against restraining orders and injunctions. You have defeated draconian state legislation and organized effective prisoner support campaigns. To be clear, ya’ll aren’t alone! Other social movements have dealt with, are dealing with, this as well. But the backlash against the animal rights and environmental movements, the “Green Scare,” is a case study in all the post 9/11 tools available to corporations and those who represent them. I’ve sounded like a broken record on this website, but I’ll say it again. There’s nothing inevitable about any of this. By coming together and sharing experiences, we can coordinate and fight back.

5) This is bigger than all of us. By “this” I don’t mean Occupy Wall Street (although that’s part of it). I mean the task at hand. We all, out of necessity, focus on the issues that are most dear to us. We have limited time, limited money, limited resources. That’s why, for instance, I have carved out the field of work that I have. But listen: there are times for carving out our niches, and times for doing the hard work, the messy and uncomfortable and frustrating work, of trying to connect all of the pieces. Animal rights activists and environmentalists are often pegged by the broader, capital-L “Left” as “single issue,” but I have never found that to be true. This is an opportunity for all of us to share, as the Zapatista saying goes, “One no, many yeses.”

Slavoj Zizek captured this sentiment beautifully in an address to Occupy Wall Street:

In an old joke from the defunct German Democratic Republic, a German worker gets a job in Siberia; aware of how all mail will be read by censors, he tells his friends: “Let’s establish a code: if a letter you will get from me is written in ordinary blue ink, it is true; if it is written in red ink, it is false.” After a month, his friends get the first letter written in blue ink: “Everything is wonderful here: stores are full, food is abundant, apartments are large and properly heated, movie theatres show films from the West, there are many beautiful girls ready for an affair—the only thing unavailable is red ink.” And is this not our situation till now? We have all the freedoms one wants—the only thing missing is the red ink: we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom. What this lack of red ink means is that, today, all the main terms we use to designate the present conflict—’war on terror,’ “democracy and freedom,’ ‘human rights,’ etc—are FALSE terms, mystifying our perception of the situation instead of allowing us to think it.

You, here, you are giving to all of us red ink.

Want to take action? Start at the Occupy Wall Street main website. What are you planning in your city?

As animal rights activists continue to expose the systemic cruelty of factory farming, the industries targeted are doing everything they can to keep the public in the dark. I’ve written previously about attempts to pass new legislation criminalizing undercover investigations, how EUROPOL lists undercover videos as a terrorism threat, and how Spanish activists are being prosecuted as “terrorists” for their work. Now, two activists in Finland are being prosecuted for exposing what goes on behind closed doors at 30 pig farms. Mikko Alanne wrote at the Huffington Post:

In December 2009, Finnish media outlets stunned the nation by publishing disturbing video and photographs from inside 30 pig factory farms, the result of a two-month undercover investigation by the leading Finnish animal rights group, Justice for Animals. You can see the images and videos here.

Sights of injured, dead, and dying pigs outraged a country whose factory farmers had always touted their “humane” practices. Members of Parliament and even agribusiness representatives condemned what they saw. Police investigations were promised. There were even calls for the Minister of Agriculture to resign (she didn’t).

Now, almost two years later, the events have taken a truly incredible turn.

Instead of charging a single pig factory farmer with cruelty to animals, Finnish authorities are prosecuting the two activists who made the undercover videos, Karry Hedberg and Saila Kivelä. The charges are “aggravated defamation” of the nation’s pig farmers and “disturbing the peace.”

Check out the rest of Mikko Alanne’s excellent article here.