Two activists who handed out vegan pamphlets outside of a HoneyBaked Ham store– and were harassed, spied on, and arrested for it– can proceed with a lawsuit against the cops, a federal appeals court recently ruled.

Caitlin Childs and Christopher Freeman were leafletting in an Atlanta suburb in 2003. Here’s much more from the ACLU, including photos by the Department of Homeland Security. The complaint has a good rundown of the events.

And recently, there was strikingly similar news out of Baltimore that Maryland State Police Division of Homeland Security and Intelligence had coordinated a massive spying operation against peaceful activists for 14 months. Check out the great gallery of articles by the Baltimore Sun. From the Washington Post:

The agent, called Analyst Sparwasser in police records, detailed the meeting’s activities in a single-space log, ending: “No other pertinent intelligence information was obtained.” The log was included in a database of reports on at least 27 meetings of peace activists and death penalty opponents that police infiltrated over 14 months in 2005 and 2006.

The surveillance, documented in 46 pages of records released last week to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, contained no reports of illegal activity.

Clearly, there’s no greater priority for “terrorism” investigations than vegans and death penalty opponents. Here’s a thought: perhaps the Feds should be investigating people who are encouraging violence, not opposing it.

Shock-jock talk radio host Michael Savage is suing the Council on American Islamic Relations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. RICO was originally intended to go after the mob. This is from a right-wing site applauding Savage for the lawsuit, and his attempts to label CAIR as “terrorists” using racketeering laws:

Savage and celebrity civil rights attorney Daniel Horowitz are attempting to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to make the case that “CAIR and its co-conspirators have aided, abetted and materially sponsored al-Qaida and international terrorism.”

CAIR launched a campaign against “The Savage Nation,” as the program is called, using extended audio clips of the show to make the case that advertisers who supported the talker were actually endorsing “hate speech” against Muslims.

Savage turned the tables on the activist group by initially suing for copyright violation of the show’s material. This week the suit was expanded with some of the strongest allegations ever made against CAIR publicly.

You can read the court filing here.

I’m highlighting this on GreenIsTheNewRed.com because using RICO was one of the earlier waves of attacks against animal rights activists, before corporations and the government used “animal enterprise terrorism” charges (this article has much more information on the SHAC 7 case).

As with the grand jury witch hunts against Puerto Rican activists, these government tactics are quite fluid. What is being used against one movement can easily turn into a tool to go after the new enemy of the hour. I’ll be talking more about this, and making connections between social movements, at NCOR next month.

Through my reporting, I focus on how the “War on Terrorism” is being used to target environmental and animal advocates. But one thing I try to hit home again and again is that this “Green Scare” doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The attacks on environmental and animal advocates are strikingly similar to other eras of government repression, such as the communist witch hunts in the Red Scare and COINTELPRO-style surveillance in the 60s (and beyond). What’s happening to environmental and animal advocates now is not unique, historically, and it’s unfortunately not unique in a contemporary context either.

That’s disheartening, of course. It’s easy to think, “Well if this stuff has been going on for so long, and it’s still happening, what’s the point in trying to stop it?” But it’s a mistake to fall victim to that kind of thinking. In some ways, I see it is a bigger opportunity to do something positive, like building relationships with other social movements and other communities, learning from their experiences, and working together on shared visions.

That’s a long introduction to a feature on GreenIsTheNewRed.com called “Movement Watch.” I’ll highlight non-eco news, in the hopes of making connections between the “Green Scare” and what’s going on elsewhere.

First up: grand jury subpoenas for Puerto Rican activists.

The FBI/NYPD Anti-Terrorism Task Force has been visiting Puerto Ricans in New York City, and ordering them to appear before a Brooklyn grand jury. The grand jury is investigating a violent Puerto Rican pro-independence groups called the Macheteros.

From Juan Gonzalez at the NY Daily News:

In addition to the young Pabon, Tania Frontera, a graphic designer, and Christopher Torres, a social worker, have been subpoenaed.

Frontera and Torres were active several years ago in the successful movement to end the Navy’s use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a bombing range, acquaintances say. Protests over the grand jury investigation are expected Friday here and in Puerto Rico.

Serrano fears the federal government is once again using grand juries and law enforcement surveillance to intimidate Puerto Ricans engaged in legitimate dissent.

Back in 2000, at the congressman’s request, former FBI Director Louis Freeh declassified and released thousands of internal agency documents about the FBI’s activities in Puerto Rico.

Those documents revealed a massive campaign by the agency to disrupt and persecute independence groups from the 1930s to the late 1970s. The surveillance even targeted longtime governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marin.

According to BreakAllChains, in one recent case the FBI claimed to be investigating “the extremist group: The Welfare Poets.” The Welfare Poets is a collective of artists and activists.

The danger of grand juries is that they’re a legal black hole. The government can haul in activists, question them about their political beliefs and political associations, and throw them in jail if they refuse to cooperate. Even if activists walk in the grand jury room, but don’t answer questions, it still creates mistrust among other activists because grand jury deliberations are secret.

The government has been using grand juries to harass environmental and animal rights advocates for years. Recently, grand jury subpoenas for Tony Wong and Brandon Elder were dropped, apparently because prosecutors got the picture that the two weren’t going to cooperate in a political witch hunt.

Panel Discussion on State Repression: Past and Present
From the Green Scare to the Continued War on the Black Liberation Movement

Featuring:

Ramona Africa of MOVE
Will Potter, journalist and creator of GreenIsTheNewRed.com

Other Speakers: TO BE ANNOUNCED

Saturday, November 17 at 7 p.m.
at St. Stephen’s Church
1525 Newton Street NW
Washington, D.C.

$5-10 sliding scale, suggested donation will cover expenses and benefit
political prisoners. NO ONE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS.

Join journalists, attorneys, and former political prisoners at a forum discussing the links between past and present instances of state repression of social justice movements. From the targeting of animal and environmental activists being dubbed by many as the “Green Scare” to the 37-year-old charges being brought against former Black Panthers in San Fransisco, hear how history is repeating itself as state repression intensifies in the era of the “War on Terrorism” — and what we can do to fight it.

FEATURING:

Ramona Africa is the sole adult survivor of the massacre of 11 members of the MOVE organization. On May 13, 1985, the FBI and the City of Philadelphia dropped a C4 bomb on MOVE’s 6221 Osage Avenue home in West Philadelphia.

Carrying the young Birdie Africa (the only other survivor) with her, Ramona dodged gunfire and escaped from the fire with permanent scarring from the burns. After surviving the bombing, she was charged with conspiracy, riot, and multiple counts of simple and aggravated assault. Subsequently Ramona served 7 years in prison. If she had chosen to sever her ties with MOVE, she could have been released far earlier. In the face of this she held true to her revolutionary beliefs and was uncompromising in the face of state terror. Since her release from prison, Ramona has tirelessly worked as the MOVE Minister of Communication on behalf of the MOVE 9, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all political prisoners and prisoners of war.

Will Potter is an award-winning independent journalist based in Washington, D.C., who focuses on how the War on Terrorism affects civil liberties. He has tracked how lawmakers and corporations have labeled animal
rights and environmental activists as “eco-terrorists.” He has also closely followed the trial of the SHAC 7, a landmark First Amendment case involving a group of activists charged with “animal enterprise terrorism”
for running a controversial website.

For further information and updates, go to: www.dcinfoshop.org

Some bloggers have called the “War on Terror” the “Green Scare” for other reasons: green is the color of Islam. Check out this post, and here’s another, ok and one more.

I think it’s an important reminder of how far-reaching the War on Terrorism is, how many lives have been affected by the scare-mongering, and how important it is for environmental and animal rights activists to work wtih other social movements. Arab-Americans, remember, were rounded up, and many were assaulted verbally and physically, in the weeks after 9/11 (and are still targeted today).