From DC Indymedia:

On Saturday, April 12, an FBI agent arrested an animal rights activist at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. The activist was charged with wearing a mask in public—a Class 6 felony in Virginia.

On April 5, the arrested activist attended a protest at GMU and wore a mask. After the GMU Police Department identified the activist, a warrant was issued for his arrest. When he appeared at a protest one week later, he was identified and subsequently tackled and arrested. The arrested activist was protesting Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for their history of animal abuse.

The FBI agent who arrested the activist is part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and is based in Prince William, VA. His name is Vincent Antignano and his badge number is #1035. He was stalking the arrested activist after he protested on numerous occasions against a private company, Huntingdon Life Sciences, which conducts medical tests on animals.

I spoke with the activist arrested, and I think it’s critical to note that neither he, nor the other protestors, were charged with anything like property destruction. He simply wore a mask at a lawful protest.

To those unfamiliar with activist groups or protests, that may seem odd. Why wear a mask if you aren’t going to do something wrong? What do you have to hide?

For some, it might be an attempt to look intimidating, tough, or just cool. But for many, many activists I’ve interviewed, it’s viewed as a necessity in this political climate. With the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces harassing and filming lawful protests, creating files on political activists, harassing them at home, and bringing grand jury witch hunts, activists don’t want to be singled out and targeted, and they also don’t want to stop speaking up for what they believe.
Ominously, a previous post on Indymedia about the FBI harassment said:

Help is urgent and we cannot continue this alone. Activists feel intimidated and threatened from many sides. Help is needed.

The bigger question here, though, beyond the absurdity of charging a non-violent, lawful protestor with a felony for wearing a bandana, is why the Joint Terrorism Task Force is monitoring a circus protest.

Even if you believe that groups like the Animal Liberation Front are truly the “number one domestic terrorism threat,” even if you believe that breaking a window in the name of the environment is a national security concern, protests against Ringling Bros. haven’t seen very much of that. Elephants have not been “liberated,” and the use of non-violent civil disobedience at circus protests isn’t nearly as common as it was in the late 90s. Ringling, though, has been relentless in targeting activists.

What the FBI is doing could be described, to borrow another Orwellian phrase from this “War on Terrorism,” as a pre-emptive war. Activists aren’t breaking the law, but they must be arrested because they MIGHT break the law.

Think that’s absurd? Check out the comments by FBI Special Agent Robert Springer Springer, who told a university crowd that the construction of a highway in Indiana could “arouse an eco-terrorist attack.”

But don’t worry, dear readers. As this FBI agent says, “We uphold the Constitution in everything we do…By working in domestic terrorism investigations, you get to see the First Amendment in action.”

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.