I will be speaking at Yale with Andy Stepanian (of the SHAC 7, and a former CMU prisoner) about corporate campaigns to silence non-violent animal rights activists as “terrorists.”

The event is June 13th (see the flier for details). If you’re in the area, please come! Andy is a fantastic speaker. PS: RSVP on Facebook and help spread the word.

A PETA activist pied the Fisheries Minister of Canada, as a publicity stunt to draw attention to Canada’s seal slaughter, and now a member of parliament says the pieing should be investigated as an act of terrorism.

The Globe and Mail reports that the member of parliament, Gerry Byrne, said:

“When someone actually coaches or conducts criminal behaviour to impose a political agenda on each and every other citizen of Canada, that does seem to me to meet the test of a terrorist organization…”

“I am calling on the Government of Canada to actually investigate whether or not this organization, PETA, is acting as a terrorist organization under the test that exists under Canadian law.”

Ingrid Newkirk, the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, called it empty posturing and said “It is unlikely to impress anyone who has a heart for animals or who is bright enough to spot the difference between a bomb and a tofu cream pie.”

The whole thing sounds a bit outlandish, huh? Well, unfortunately this isn’t the first time people have called for labeling tofu cream pies as terrorism.

To put this in a bit of historical context, pieings were much more common in the 90s when groups like the Biotic Baking Brigade and others snuck into corporate meetings to lob a pie at a dignitary. The point of the whole thing, of course, is to make a silly spectacle. It’s hard to be taken too seriously when your face is covered with vegan whipped cream.

When corporation and industry groups were calling for an expansion of “animal enterprise terrorism” statutes, one of the claims they made is that the law did not cover “not so savage acts” like pies in the face. Really. Check out this background document on the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. Ultimately, that law was expanded and became the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

I suspect this will all blow over, much to the dismay of corporate hacks like the Center for Consumer Freedom, which put out a press release egging the whole thing on. But that’s not the point.

The real danger is that this “terrorist” PR campaign, which has been going on since the 80s, has worked its way to the top levels of government, here and abroad. Regardless of how you feel about PETA, pies or parliament, that should make everyone stop dead in their tracks.

Scarce anti-terrorism resources devoted to investigating tofu cream pies, or threatening to investigate tofu cream pies, are resources better spent keeping people safe from less savory national security threats.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been classified as as a “terrorist threat” in a document created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA created a new “APHIS Facility Security Profile” form to send to animal experimentation facilities. Recipients were asked to answer about their experiences, and return the form to the government so the USDA can better meet their needs. [Update: After this article was posted, the USDA took down the form. Here is a link to a pdf of the APHIS form.]

In one section of the form, on p4, item #2 B and C, PETA is listed as a “domestic special interest terrorist”:

B. Terrorist Threat. What terrorist activities have occurred in or around your building/facility in the past 5 years (documented cases)? Please check all that apply.

[ ] Attack from international terrorists
[ ] Attack from domestic special interest terrorists
-[ ] Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
-[ ] Animal Liberation Front (ALF)
-[ ] People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
-[ ] Animal Defense League (ADL)
-[ ] Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC)
-[ ] Formal hate group(s) (please specify):
-[ ] Other (please specify): ____________________
[ ] Cyber Attack from a known or unknown source.

I have written extensively on this site about how the ELF and ALF have become the number one domestic terrorism threat, even though they have targeted property and not people. And Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty activists were convicted on “terrorism” charges for running a website that vocally supported the actions of those groups. The listing of PETA and the Animal Defense League is something else entirely.

PETA is perhaps the most recognized organization in the animal rights movement. They are known for their undercover investigations, and their use of celebrities and outlandish media stunts to draw attention to factory farming, fur, circuses and animal experimentation.

Regardless of how you feel about PETA and their tactics, they are a lawful, above-ground, national non-profit.

So why in another section of the USDA form, are they listed as a possible answer under “Greatest Threat or Danger. What do you consider the greatest source of danger to your organization and/or fellow workers?”

Because they expose what goes on behind closed doors.

Justin Goodman, research associate supervisor for PETA, had a fantastic oped in the Sacramento Bee about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and the misuses of the “terrorism” label against non-violent activists. In California, four activists are facing terrorism charges for protesting at individuals homes and allegedly creating fliers with names and addresses on them.

From Goodman’s oped:

This should give all Americans pause. People who engage in nonviolent protests and civil disobedience are sitting in jail cells, stigmatized by one of the most politically charged and discrediting labels of our time, while people who wake up every morning and go to jobs in which they torment and kill animals in laboratories continue to enjoy their freedom, paychecks, social lives and families.

Animal industries are quite open about their desire to use terrorism laws to keep their practices out of the public spotlight. I recently posted about the Animal Agriculture Alliance calling for federal prosecution of undercover investigators. It’s not because the investigators are violent. It is because they pose an even greater threat: educating the public.

As Goodman wrote: “To shield them from public opinion and discussion and to protect them from peaceful and heretofore lawful pickets by locking up those who dare to challenge the suffering that occurs inside laboratories is an attack on every American’s right of protest.”

Center for Consumer Freedom Supports Terrorism

CCF’s press release and letter warns neighbors of the “potential for harassment, violence, and mass pet killings” from a “radical animal rights group.”

“It’s not unusual for ordinary people to be unsure about how to act around the group’s employees,” CCF warns. “Please be assured that most of them are harmless unless provoked.”

Lines like that might make you wonder if this is all a joke. But Rick Berman and his crew at the Center for Consumer Freedom are dead serious. The letter is part of an ongoing media campaign by the group to demonize animal rights activists as “animal rights terrorists.” And it’s part of a broader scare-mongering campaign by corporations, politicians and industry groups called the Green Scare.

It’s not just PETA they’re going after. CCF bought a full page ad in The New York Times labeling the Humane Society as a terrorist organization. Yes, the Humane Society. And they’ve gone so far as to label Charlotte’s Web “animal rights extremism.”

Stunts like this are intended to instill two types of fear. They are meant to make the general public afraid of animal rights activists. And they are meant to make animal rights activists afraid of using their rights. The sole purpose in branding groups like PETA and the Humane Society with words like “violence” and “terrorism” is to have a chilling effect on free speech.

CCF likes to call activists “crazies,” as they did in this media stunt, but I question the sanity of any group that cares more about “delicious liberties” than the real thing.

Forget the Green Scare, these animal rights activists are busy protesting other animal rights activists.

In other words: let them tear themselves apart from within.

So when I saw that Friends of Animals, an animal rights group, is protesting PETA, another animal rights group, I couldn’t help but think: Damn, the FBI couldn’t have dreamed this up.

As a bit of background, PETA has plenty of corporate enemies. They’ve been called “corporate terrorists,” they’ve been called the “number one domestic terrorist threat,” and they’ve been called “undistinguishable from al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah.”

While corporations and corporate politicians call PETA “extremist,” some activists are now saying PETA isn’t extreme enough. Its recent, historic negotiation with KFC has come under fire as being “welfarist.” Add to that the fact that PETA often uses media stunts like ladies in lettuce bikinis handing out free vegetarian food, and you have the background for this protest.

To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to this at first. But then I saw Mary Martin’s blog post, and how many people left comments supporting the counter-protest.

I was shocked. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act labels attacking corporate profits as “terrorism,” the SHAC 7 are in prison for running a controversial website, the FBI is infiltrating vegan potlucks, and on and on and on… but the best use of time and money for an animal rights group is to protest another animals rights group?

To steal a line from Propagandhi: “With friends like this, who the f* needs COINTELPRO.”

To be clear, I think it’s important to have discussions of both tactics and end goals. And I think it’s important to not gloss over strategic and ideological differences. But in this political climate, one where activists are being labeled as “terrorists” and the planet is approaching environmental collapse, I think it’s essential to think strategically, and focus energy and resources where they are needed most. Am I the only one who thinks that protesting another activist group shouldn’t be the top of anyone’s list?

We’ve got an unholy, hotter’n hell theme going this week. Here’s some of the nuttier “eco-terrorism” scare-mongering going on:
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals “is undistinguishable from al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah.” Well, except for the guns. And the tofu.
• Meanwhile, an Australian priest says Peta is “the occult.” Praise Seitan!
• Keeping with the demonic theme, I remembered this old LA Weekly article that says Los Angeles is the “‘epicenter’ of animal-rights extremism in the nation.” That’s kind of like the hellmouth.
• Speaking of hell (and I can say this because I grew up around there), did you know Dallas is ruled by animal rights groups? If by “animal rights groups” they mean “women in fur coats with big hair and men driving dualies” then yes, yes it is.

The danger of all this “terrorism” rhetoric is how politically malleable it is: industry groups can mold it into “eco-terrorism,” KFC can hammer it into “corporate terrorism” to smear Peta, and on and on and on. The word can be melted and reformed into a weapon against the latest enemy of the hour.

The flipside of that is that people in power can choose to NOT use the word, choose to not smear someone as a terrorist. And, unfortunately, it’s not too surprising what type of activity isn’t labeled “terrorism.”

So when someone spraypainted racist graffiti on Peta’s office, it wasn’t “terrorism,” it was “vandalism.”

“We have 11 different victims, vandalisms occurred sometime between 11:30 p.m. Monday and 6:00 a.m. today,” said Norfolk Police spokesman Chris Amos…

Amos says investigators don’t believe the vandalism is work of “gangs.”

[Don’t you love how “gangs” is in quotation marks? Curious how “eco-terrorism” rarely appears that way.]

So let’s get this all straight. Groups like Center for Consumer Freedom, which protested a book signing by Peta’s Ingrid Newkirk with black masks, religiously call vandalism “terrorism.” Yet when racists vandalize CCF’s political opponents, the group distributes emails poking fun at it: “Irony: Vandal tags PETA headquarters with spray-paint graffiti.”

Clearly, they have their priorities straight.

Meanwhile:

• In Austin, a prominent activist who had been repeatedly harassed by the FBI is found dead, and mainstream media hasn’t had much to say.
• In Idaho, fire gutted an unoccupied home. Whaddayouknow, much like the Seattle arson:
  

  The 3,000-square-foot home was going to be entered in the North Idaho Building Contractors Association Parade of Homes in August, said Todd Stam, the owner of Aspen Homes. Stam said he thought the blaze might be an act of ecoterrorism.

  Buried in the article was the fact that the $720,000 home was unsold. And insured.

• In Kansas, police say a “vandal” used a propane torch to cut through power poles and police consider “eco-terrorism.”
• A “suspicious device” was found outside a research lab in Nevada, and immediately animal rights activists are suspected.

In contrast, when a man sent 17 letters to lawmaker, activists, and journalists, with threatening statements and a substance intended to look like anthrax, he was a “hoaxer,” not a terrorist. (A hoaxer inspired by right-wingers like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin).

When the SHAC 7 post personal information about animal researchers, it’s “animal enterprise terrorism.” But when Michelle Malkin posts the names and addresses of students who protest military recruitment, it’s all in good fun.

The message we’ve seen, time and again: it’s not “terrorism” if right-wingers do it.

You might already know that the SHAC 7 were convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a controversial website that listed personal information about corporations tied to the notorious animal testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences. You might not know, though, that before that the corporations SHAC targeted hit back with various other legal tactics. Restraining orders. Injunctions. Lawsuits for damages. Notably, they even used the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, RICO, a law meant to go after the mob. Eventually, a federal “terrorism” law got the corporations what they wanted, and put the animal advocates behind bars, but that came after this series of aggressive legal moves.

Taking a page from that playbook, last week Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus continued its beleaguered attack on animal advocates by suing the ASPCA and other animal rights groups using RICO. Yep, a law meant to go after the mafia being exploited to target animal groups.

Groups like the ASPCA never sent anyone to swim with the fishes (well, not in that Godfather kind of way). But according to Bloomberg:

“This lawsuit is a direct result of the animal rights extremists’ agenda to deny families in the United States entertainment choices like the circus and their ongoing conspiracy to harm Feld Entertainment,” company spokesman Stephen Payne said in a statement.

It might seem like a stretch to argue that campaigning against animal cruelty is akin to mob bosses roughing up business owners. But it’s not that surprising if you look at how else Ringling has targeted animal groups.
According to The Washington Post, Ringling paid one investigator more than $1 million a year to infiltrate animal groups, and
hired a former CIA deputy director to help spy.

Ringling’s internal documents showed that the circus hired private investigators who infiltrated several animal rights groups across the country, obtained credit card and other personal data and stole stacks of confidential papers, such as donor lists and strategy memos.

Peta sued Ringling over this, and lost because the jury found no harm (for instance, Ringling’s attorneys argued that Peta’s fundraising kept going strong during this period). [On a related note, check out this great Salon.com article by Jeff Stein on Ringling's escapades.]

The main point here, though, is not that Ringling has spied, snooped, stolen and smeared animal advocates. (Unfortunately, in the scheme of corporate abuses, that’s pretty tame. Pfizer, a drug company targeted by SHAC and a promoter of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, is being sued by the Nigerian government for giving children an experimental drug that killed 11 and injured 189. And Chiquita has admitted paying $1.7 million to right wing death squads. The list goes on and on and on…)

The big concern, I think, is the long road Ringling has been going down. We keep seeing this over and over. Social justice advocates target a corporation, the corporation hits back to protect profits and public image, and if the corporation doesn’t succeed at first it keeps hitting and hitting and hitting, exploiting any legal tools available. In this case, that means using a mob law to go after animal groups. And if that doesn’t work? What next? Pressuring the government to use the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act?

For nonprofit organizations, who don’t have deep pockets like Ringling, these lawsuits suck up scarce time and resources. More importantly, though, they instill a level of fear in everyday people working for social change, forcing them to wonder if they’ll get sued for being a little too effective.

The genius of the Red Scare, and now the Green Scare, is that once you have completely demonized an entire group of people (either labeling them “communists” or “eco-terrorists”) you can slowly extend that scare-mongering in ever-wider circles. So first you brand someone who vandalizes an SUV as a “terrorist” (an absurdity in its own right), then you move on to branding anyone who associates with that person as a terrorist, and then you move on to branding anyone who even ideologically supports—or does not condemn—those people as terrorists.

Seem far-fetched? It’s happened before, and it’s happening again. Here’s yet another example.

A few weeks ago mainstream animal protection groups held a conference in Washington, D.C. called Taking Action for Animals (TAFA). That conference, it should be noted, formed when some animal groups split off from the existing National Animal Rights Conference: a move motivated, in part, by a debate about whether Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and “direct action” supporters should have a voice at the podiums. Some of the TAFA folks didn’t want to be associated with the those who support illegal activity, and so they ultimately went separate ways.

TAFA has been criticized by some animal advocates as being “welfarist” (a very dirty word coming from the more hardcore animal rights crowd). An especially-heated debate started this year when TAFA organizers announced that a cattle rancher from Niman Ranch would discuss so-called “humane meat” and a representative from Whole Foods would discuss animal welfare standards. [For more on this on-going debate, see James LaVeck’s article on “neo-carns,”and Bruce Friedrich’s reply.]

Doesn’t sound like much of a “terrorist” conference, does it? The so-called “militants” in the animal rights movement have actually been criticizing the suit-wearing, mainstream, reform-oriented, non-violent, above-ground TAFA crowd as not being radical enough. In turn, TAFA supporters frequently go out of their way to condemn more militant groups.

Yet industry front groups—who said little about the Animal Rights Conference in L.A., where one of the “convicted terrorists” from SHAC was given an award—came out swinging at TAFA organizers, saying “there’s no excuse for consorting with terrorists.”

Consorting with terrorists?

So what did they do? Smuggle guns? Funnel drug money? Plot to blow up a building? Nope. TAFA organizers allowed a group called Hugs for Puppies to set up a table at the conference. Yep, set up a table.

The Center for Consumer Freedom put out a press release headlined “Animal Protection Groups Welcome Terrorism to DC Conference”:

Hugs for Puppies is the Philadelphia chapter of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), an organization convicted last year in federal court-along with six of its leaders-on domestic terrorism charges related to a violent campaign against medical researchers …

Center for Consumer Freedom Director of Research David Martosko said:
“There’s no excuse for consorting with terrorists. The Humane Society of the United States and PETA should be distancing themselves from violence. But by welcoming their movement’s most vicious activists with
open arms, they’re defending the indefensible.”

You really have to give credit to the PR machine of industry groups, and the relentless green-baiting that would make Joseph McCarthy proud. There’s so much misinformation wrapped up in their statements that it becomes hard to directly, concisely refute them. Pretty brilliant, actually. The “with us” crowd speaks in terrorism sound bites, the “against us” crowd writes insanely long blog entries debunking the myths. Ahem.

It’s guilt by association. The SHAC activists that Martosko mentioned were convicted as terrorists for running a controversial website that supported illegal tactics—for associating, ideologically at least, with the “terrorists.” Hugs for Puppies is labeled a terrorist organization for associating, ideologically, with SHAC. And now TAFA is branded as supporting terrorism for associating with Hugs for Puppies. For allowing them to set up a table.

So the question, it seems, is where does it all stop? Where do you draw the line?

I think it should be crystal clear by now that industry groups are NOT drawing the line at underground, illegal activity. That’s not the point of their terrorism rhetoric and terrorism legislation. The point is to instill fear in the mainstream, above-ground, animal advocacy movement.

I don’t just mean fear of being rounded up as a terrorist, or facing terrorism enhancement penalties. I mean fear of even working on the same campaign as convicted “terrorists.” Fear of even being at the same
conference.

The first step to confronting this is recognizing that “naming names” and pledging loyalty oaths (such as condemning other activists, or allowing petty property crimes to be labeled as terrorism) won’t work. It didn’t work during the Red Scare, and it’s not working now. Instead, animal protection groups should acknowledge that they may disagree—abolitionists may think welfarists are too mainstream, welfarists may think rowdy home demonstrations give the movement a bad name—but the bottom line is the NONE of it is terrorism.

One reason the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act passed with little opposition, even from liberal groups that have spoken out against the war and the Patriot Act, is because the animal rights movement has made itself a political leper.

A recent example:

Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko, is about the health care industry. Peta’s response? Call him a fat ass and tell him to go vegetarian.

From the opening of Ingrid Newkirk’s letter to Moore:

“Although we think that your film could actually help reform America’s sorely inadequate health care system, there’s an elephant in the room, and it is you.”

I wonder how Moore and his fans will feel the next time Peta gets labeled “eco-terrorists”?