While I was on book tour, I stopped by the studio of KEXP in Seattle for “Mind Over Matters.” KEXP created a video of the interview, which focused on the specific tactics that corporations and industry groups have used to create the idea of “eco-terrorism.

Thanks to Mike and the folks at KEXP for having me on the show! (Video after the jump)

From The Seattle Times:

The woman convicted in an ecoterror attack at the University of Washington has been sentenced to six years in prison.

TACOMA, Wash. -The woman convicted in an ecoterror attack at the University of Washington has been sentenced to six years in prison.

KIRO-TV reports that Briana Waters asked for mercy because she has a 3-year-old daughter.

Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year sentence. Her lawyer asked for no more than a year-and-a-half.

Waters was taken into custody after Thursday’s sentencing in federal court in Tacoma. She had been convicted March 6 of arson, and her lawyer is working on an appeal.

The 32-year-old from Berkeley, Calif., was an Evergreen State College student who acted as a lookout in 2001 when others set fire to the Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle. The Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility because it believed, mistakenly, a researcher was genetically modifying poplar trees.

Background on Briana Waters is here.

More later…

Briana Waters has been found guilty of two counts of arson for the 2001 arson at the University of Washington, claimed by the Earth Liberation Front.

The jury hasn’t been able to reach a verdict on the other three counts. Among those, the most important, using a destructive device during a crime of violence. That charge carries a mandatory minimum of 30 years in prison.

From KIRO:

After the verdict was read, 32 years old Waters touched foreheads with her boyfriend with her eyes closed in a prolonged embrace. Waters’ mother sobbed quietly in the courtroom.

Sentencing has already been set for May, but still in question is whether or not Waters will be taken into custody immediately. The U.S. Attorney wants that, but, of course, the defense is arguing against it.

The verdict comes on the heels of the high-profile arsons nearby, which the media has already labeled “eco-terrorism.”

Here’s what Olympia Civil Liberties had to say:

One thing that is certain to those close to the case is that the arson Monday has only damaged Briana’s chances of getting a fair verdict. The corporate media have consistently pointed out how curious the timing of the arson is, with the “UW Ecoterror Trial” still going on, further linking Briana with a shadowy ELF underground in the minds of the public. Anyone should have been able to predict the negative impact of an action like this on Briana’s trial, and that just makes this whole event even more frustrating.

There are many reasons to view this fire and it’s motivations as suspicious, and there is not yet any evidence that it was actually based on environmental motivations. The vast majority of arsons in this country are caused for run-of-the-mill reasons, and fraud or financial reasons are some of the biggest. The media seem all too happy to jump to conclusions about the people who started those fires based on the most preliminary investigations. Also there have often actions by agent provocateurs during political trials throughout history.

From The Seattle Times:

Burgess called jurors into the courtroom Monday morning to ask if any of them had read or heard news of an event that might cause them to be unable to continue deliberations, a reference to the arsons. No one withdrew.

Defense attorneys made an unsuccessful motion for a mistrial.

Nature has an editorial in the latest issue against “terrorism enhancement” in the cases out West, and also more broadly against the “eco-terrorism” rhetoric we’ve been seeing in legislation like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. This is big breakthrough, especially considering the source.

An excerpt:

But ‘terrorist’ is a word so debased and loaded by political use that, if it has any meaning at all, it is counterproductive. There is no such objective thing as a terrorist. A criminal is a person who has been convicted of a crime. We can examine a person’s records and make an unemotional determination of whether or not they are a criminal. But a terrorist is, in practice, a person who fights for a cause we do not believe in using methods that we do not approve of. Calling someone a terrorist is a value judgement.

The last line of the piece is especially appropriate this week, and in light of the government comparing environmentalists to the KKK: “The judge in this case should reject the call for ‘terrorism enhancement’. We must all speak more objectively and calmly.”

Nature 447, 353 (24 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/447353a; Published online 23
May 2007

Unwise branding

Equating animal-rights activism with terrorism increases the penalties for offenders and will please many of their victims. But it is not in the interests of science.

Terrorist is not a word you throw around lightly. And it is certainly not a word you apply to anyone with whom you would like to have a civil conversation. A US tendency to apply the label to militant activists who
are against animal research or genetic engineering slams shut a door that might be difficult to reopen – to researchers’ cost.

In a courtroom in Eugene, Oregon, last week, federal prosecutors asked for a ‘terrorism enhancement’ on the sentencing of ten environmental activists. The activists have admitted to a string of arson attacks in
the western United States in the late 1990s and the start of this decade. They torched places where things were done of which they disapproved, including a lab that they believed was growing genetically engineered poplar trees. If the judge applies the requested enhancement, their sentences could be longer and the conditions of their imprisonment more severe.

They are criminals, to be sure. Their arson cost millions of dollars and destroyed scientific work in progress. But although some of their more knuckleheaded actions could easily have accidentally hurt someone, their
ethos was to damage property, never to hurt or kill.

Other extreme activists are also being labelled terrorists. Last November, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was signed into law in the United States. It creates tough penalties for damaging property, making
threats and conspiring against zoos, animal labs and the like. Leaving aside the merits of this act, its very name enshrines into law the idea that destructive activists are terrorists.

As one of the communities targeted by these activists, scientists may be tempted to embrace this rhetoric. Indeed, many people have personally felt terrified by the actions of the most extreme. But ‘terrorist’ is a
word so debased and loaded by political use that, if it has any meaning at all, it is counterproductive. There is no such objective thing as a terrorist. A criminal is a person who has been convicted of a crime. We
can examine a person’s records and make an unemotional determination of whether or not they are a criminal. But a terrorist is, in practice, a person who fights for a cause we do not believe in using methods that we do not approve of. Calling someone a terrorist is a value judgement.

It is a value judgement that seems to be increasingly used in the United States since the attacks of 11 September 2001. Indeed, the nation is waging, in official parlance, a “global war on terror”. The term is
useful politically exactly because it expresses an absolute rejection of a person and their aims. The terrorist label definitively ends any possibility of dialogue. But if there is any hope of bringing closer
together those at the extremes of scientific controversies such as animal research and genetic engineering, the various parties must be able to speak to one another.

Although most activists feel that the actions of the criminal few are unproductive and embarrassing, for every activist saboteur with a lighted match there are hundreds of people who are sympathetic to his or
her cause. Label that saboteur a terrorist, and you risk alienating all of them. Efforts to bring together defenders and attackers of animal research, such as those by the UK-based Boyd Group, often do not admit
those who espouse criminal acts, and that is appropriate. And it leaves open the possibility that an activist who has renounced criminal actions can come to the table. But who will be willing to publicly break bread
with a terrorist, reformed or otherwise?

We should avoid building an unbreachable wall between criminal activists and their victims. The judge in this case should reject the call for ‘terrorism enhancement’. We must all speak more objectively and calmly.

A federal judge labeled property destruction in the name of the environment “terrorism” yesterday and sentenced the first of the Operation Backfire defendants to 13 years in prison. Activists around the country– and particularly the remaining nine defendants– had been watching the sentencing very carefully, because the judge’s tenor may foreshadow the remaining court dates.

Her decision may have much broader implications, though, in that it sends a clear message to prosecutors: if you bring politically-motivated prosecutions, toss around “terrorist” rhetoric in the press, and push for “terrorism enhancements” in the courtroom, there’s not much to stand in your way.

Stanislas Meyerhoff had been labeled a “snitch” by activists for offering to cooperate with the government just hours after his detention and interrogation, and before even consulting with his attorney. He has vigorously condemned his own actions, and those of his co-defendants, and he read a handwritten statement denouncing the Earth Liberation Front:

I was stupid; it was my mistaken understanding that the ELF’s ostensible aim was to initiate public discussion of issues highlighted by the dramatic occasion of crimes. The crimes were absolutely counter-productive to this goal. They cut off discussion. Meaningful discourse cannot be forced and fear cannot replace discussion. Transformation solutions will never be comprised of transgressions.

Meyerhoff’s political about-face might have helped during sentencing: his sentence is about 2 1/2 years less than the government offered in his plea deal. Without the deal, he faced 30 to life. And “had prosecutors pursued all possible charges, they earlier estimated he could have faced a minimum of 230 years,” according to The Register-Guard.

The government met Judge Aiken’s criteria for the “terrorism enhancement,” she says, because prosecutors argued that the crimes were all intended to influence government conduct (a key point in the “federal crime of terrorism” definition).

Here’s the reasoning:

• After the September 2000 arson attempt at a Eugene police substation, an anonymous communiqué dedicated the action to a group of anarchists that had been attacked by police. Police substation=government.
• After the March 2001 arson of 35 SUVs at Romania, a communiqué dedicated the action to Jeff Luers, and his prison sentence of 22 years, 8 months for an arson at the same spot. Prosecution=government.
• After a May 2001 arson at Jefferson Poplar Farm, a communiqué referenced new legislation. Legislation=government.

True, these actions are all in some way related to government conduct (just like nearly all legal and illegal activist conduct). But making such simplistic parallel constructions ignores the bigger picture: many crimes could meet such low standards, but these crimes are being singled out to push a political agenda.

“If, as defendants strenuously assert, the government is overreaching due to political considerations,” Aiken said in her opinion, “either the enhancement will not apply to defendants’ offenses or defendants will be eligible for a downward departure because their conduct is outside the ‘heartland’ of terrorism offenses.”

Property crimes like this are outside of that “heartland.” To most people, the “heartland” of terrorism crimes are attacks against government like the Oklahoma City bombing, not actions calculated to destroy property but not human beings. The PR campaigns and War on Terrorism rhetoric are meant to expand that heartland, though, and envelop more and more illegal activity as “terrorism.”

In this With Us Or Against Us War on Terrorism, it seems these activists were clearly in the “against us” camp, according to Aiken. They didn’t play by the books. Their hearts were in the right place, the prosecutorial cliché goes, but they choose the wrong path.

Aiken even took the opportunity to admonish Meyerhoff for hurting the environmental movement. From Jeff Banard of AP:

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken commended Stanislas Meyerhoff for having the courage to “do the right thing” by informing on his fellow arsonists after his arrest, but declared that his efforts to save the earth by setting fires were misguided and cowardly, and contributed to an unfair characterization of others working legally to protect the environment as radicals.”

Environmentalists, rejoice! It’s all for your own good! Labeling activists as “terrorists” is certainly not about protecting corporate profits and scaring the mainstream environmental movement. Far from it. It’s about protecting your reputation!

“Terrorism enhancement” penalties may apply to a group of activists charged with property crimes in the name of protecting the environment and animal rights, a U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday. But the burden will be heavily on the government to “present clear and convincing evidence” during sentencing in order for the T-word to apply.

The opinion by Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Ore., goes step by step through a variety of arguments used by defense attorneys against the terrorism enhancement, and generally dismisses them. In taking such a strict, methodical approach to the enhancement, though, she misses the forest for the trees (or, more to the point, misses the forest for the logging company’s bulldozers).

Defining the Debate

To qualify as a “federal crime of terrorism” an offense must be “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct” and it also must be one of a series of crimes listed.

That’s the strongest thing going for the defendants, it seems. The defense attorneys argued that, through anonymous communiqués, the defendants showed they clearly intended to impact corporations, not government conduct (of course, the line between the two is quite fine these days).

Aiken notes:

As stated during argument, the court cannot determine conclusively whether the offenses were intended to influence,
affect, or retaliate against government conduct until relevant evidence is presented at the defendants’ sentencing hearings. At the same time, defendants point is well taken; the definition of “federal crime of terrorism” explicitly requires an intent “to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” Thus, the government must establish that the defendants targeted government conduct rather than the conduct of private individuals or corporations.

Danger to Human Life

Most people think of terrorism as flying planes into buildings, or carrying bombs into crowded markets. But Aiken says that to qualify for “federal crime of terrorism” an action “does not require a substantial risk of injury.”

It may defy logic and public opinion, but Aiken says it’s by the books, because other crimes listed as qualifying for the enhancement “do not need to involve substantial injury.”

Missing the Forest

Aiken prefaces her decision by attempting to excise the terrorism enhancement debate from any political context. “…for purposes of these proceedings, the debate is about the defendants’ criminal conduct – not their political beliefs.”

But at a time when the government labels the environmental and animal rights movements the “number one domestic terrorist threat,” and the government holds press conferences labeling activists as “eco-terrorists,” and corporations take out full-page scare-mongering ads, it’s impossible to divorce legal issues from the cultural and political climate in which they exist.

At the terrorism enhancement hearing, for instance, the government compared these activists, who never harmed anyone and who took precautions against harming anyone, to the KKK.

Yes, the KKK.

“This is a classic case of terrorism, despite their protests of lofty humane goals,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said in court. “It was pure luck no one was killed or injured by their actions.”

“If that is the standard, then the Ku Klux Klan did not commit terrorism” when they burned empty black churches during the civil rights upheaval in the South in the 1960s, Peifer said.

Not Over Yet

This isn’t a done deal, though: “Outstanding factual disputes preclude the court from determining conclusively whether the terrorism enhancement applies to any particular defendant; these issues must be resolved at each defendant’s sentencing hearing.” In other words, the terrorism enhancement may apply, in most cases it looks like, but Aiken makes a point of noting that the burden of proof is heavily on the government to show that it should apply in each specific case at sentencing.

Aiken notes a few points that indicate the government doesn’t have the smooth ride it might have hoped for:

• “If, as defendants strenuously assert, the government is overreaching due to political considerations, either the enhancement will not apply to defendants’ offenses or defendants will be eligible for a downward departure because their conduct is outside the ‘heartland’ of terrorism offenses.”
• “…the enhancement more than doubles the length of the sentence authorized by the initial sentencing guideline range for all defendants. These factors alone warrant a higher burden of proof. Thus, the government must present clear and convincing evidence that defendants’ offenses of conviction involved or were intended to promote ‘federal crimes of terrorism’”

To make its case, the government is going to have to do a whole lot better than hyperbolic comparisons of environmentalists to the KKK.

A U.S. District Judge in Oregon just ruled that “terrorism enhancement” penalties may apply to environmental and animal rights activists in the “Operation Backfire” cases.

I’m sifting through all this now and hope to post more tonight. Stay tuned.

They’ve been “terrorists” from day one. Since their arrest for a string of property crimes against corporations they believed were destroying the planet, a group of environmental activists from the Northwest have been relentlessly branded “eco-terrorists” and “domestic terrorists” in government press conferences, Congressional hearings and in the media. On Tuesday, though, in federal court in Eugene, Ore., the government will try to take the T-word one step further.

It’s not just semantics. If the government successfully argues for “terrorism enhancement” penalties, it could add up to 20 years on the sentences, and in some cases quadruple prison time. It could place defendants in cells next to more traditional “terrorists.” And it could allow harsh restrictions on contact with family and friends.

But Tuesday’s court date is about more than these 10 defendants who never harmed anyone but caused about $40 million worth of property damage. And it’s about more than whether the government can put a notch on its “War on Terrorism” bedpost, which hasn’t seen much action lately, to justify the massive investigation and expense of “Operation Backfire.”

It’s about the meaning of a word that, with every mention, can hit Americans harder and deeper than perhaps any other. The word has come to symbolize planes flying into buildings, family and friends murdered, and lives that will never be the same. The “terrorism enhancement” hearing will test how much political mileage the administration can get out of that pain.

“Terrorism is terrorism”

For over a decade, and especially since the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, activists have fiercely debated whether property destruction is “violence” or “direct action.” Ask activists how they feel about breaking windows, gluing locks and burning bulldozers, and some may tell you it only makes John Q. Public less receptive to the issues. Others may tell you that those actions stop the “real” violence: and besides, can you be violent towards an SUV?

Beyond that, even if you do believe that destroying an empty building is violence, there is an even bigger question: is it terrorism?

The FBI doesn’t see a grey area. A crime is either terrorism or it is not. You are “either with us or against us.”

“Terrorism is terrorism — no matter what the motive,” said FBI director Robert Mueller at a press conference announcing the indictments. “The FBI is committed to protecting Americans from all crime and all terrorism…”

The government hasn’t been committed to labeling all crimes “terrorism,” though. It didn’t seek “terrorism enhancement” in the Alabama church arson cases. It didn’t seek “terrorism enhancement” in the case of a firefighter who set 28 fires because she wanted overtime pay. And it hasn’t sought “terrorism enhancement” for the murder of abortion doctors.

According to Congressional Quarterly, the Department of Homeland Security does not even list right-wing terrorists on a list of national security threats. Those groups have been responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, violence against doctors and admittedly creating weapons of mass destruction. But animal rights and environmental activists still top the “domestic terrorist” list.

The government has singled out these property crimes for “terrorism enhancement” because of the politics of the crime. Motive matters. The defendants didn’t harm anyone, and they didn’t seek to benefit from the crimes, but they committed an even deadlier sin: targeting corporate profits.

“He closed the door”

The crimes didn’t cause any deaths, any injuries, or any substantial risk of death or injury, but make no mistake: these were very serious crimes nonetheless. They often involved arson, which immediately puts the actions on another level, separate from petty vandalism like graffiti or slashing the tires of SUVs. The defendants have accepted responsibility for their actions, and it’s clear they’re heading to prison.

But it’s critical to note in a debate about “terrorism enhancements” that the defendants went to great lengths to make sure they didn’t harm anyone. That’s a concern not shared by suicide bombers and anthrax mailers.

“A terrorist acts from hate and aims to create fear,” says Kevin Tubbs’ attorney in his sentencing memo. “A terrorist’s goal is to cause death, because is the ultimate tool. Death is the ultimate source of fear.”

The government admits as much. In a 148-page document, prosecutors spell out how some of the defendants set fire to the Vail ski resort and caused $24.5 million in damage. During that action, William “Bill” Rodgers had “opened a door and observed two hunters sleeping. He closed the door and did not set that building on fire.”

Daniel McGowan’s attorneys say in “terrorism enhancement” memo that the many precautions taken to “honor human life” separate these activists from what most reasonable people consider “terrorists.”

It is “perhaps the most compelling reason why none of them should be branded a terrorist, why none of them should bear conditions of confinement that are not only degrading and punitive, but that are affirmatively damaging to their mental health, and why none of them should be permanently catalogued in our nation’s history books alongside the names of Mohammed Atta, Theodore Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, or Eric Rudolph.”

These cases don’t fit most people’s ideas of “terrorism.” They don’t neatly fit the legal definition, either. To qualify for the “terrorism enhancement,” the government must show that an action “involved or was intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism.” A “federal crime of terrorism” has a specific definition. It has to be one of a laundry list of specific offenses, including presidential assassination, use of weapons of mass destruction, and arson of property used in interstate commerce. It also has to be “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.”

That last part is the kicker. The actions targeted corporations and aimed to stop environmental destruction, not influence the government.

Anti-corporate rhetoric permeates the communiqués written about the crimes, like the one for arson at Superior Lumber that labels the company a “typical earth raper contributing to the ecological destruction of the Northwest” and calls for tactics against “capitalism and industry.” Another, for arson at Jefferson Poplar tree farm, shows that these crimes weren’t meant to influence government, because the defendants had lost all faith that government could be influenced. Instead, they targeted the bottom line.

The court will decide technical matters like this at the hearing on Tuesday. But the push for “terrorism enhancement” penalties should ultimately pose more questions than it answers.

Since 9/11, the T-word has been stretched and pulled and hemmed and cuffed and torn and mended to fit a growing body of political whims. This hearing is ultimately about how far the government can push its political tailoring. It’s also about the point at which we’ve outgrown the rhetoric, and we decide to stop wearing the past.

Will Potter is an award-winning reporter who focuses on how lawmakers and corporations have labeled animal rights and environmental activists as “eco-terrorists.” Will has written for publications including The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News and Legal Affairs, and has testified before the U.S. Congress about his reporting. He is the creator of GreenIsTheNewRed.com, where he blogs about the Green Scare and history repeating itself.

Just received this, about the “terrorism enhancement” hearing for the Operation Backfire cases. Activists are also holding a rally at the same time, outside the courthouse…

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release: May 10, 2007

Contacts:
Lauren Regan, Civil Liberties Defense Center, Eugene, OR, 541-687-9180
Alejandro Queral, NW Constitutional Rights Center, Portland, OR, 503-295-6400, 202-491-6204

Defendants Decry Gov’t Attempt to Label Crimes “Terrorism”
Civil liberties groups: provision does not apply to nonviolent actions

Eugene, OR — On May 15 defense attorneys representing environmental activists accused of arson and property destruction will argue to U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken that the “terrorism enhancement” provision of the federal sentencing guidelines – which would add an extra 20 years of prison time to each defendant’s sentence – should not be applied to their clients.

A press conference will be held outside the courthouse at noon. Speakers will include defense attorneys for Daniel McGowan, along with representatives from the Civil Liberties Defense Center and the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center. The two organizations have opposed the prosecutors’ attempt to label the actions by the defendants as acts of “terrorism,” because their acts did not cause, nor were intended to cause, any harm to human or animal life. “When everyone is a terrorist, no one is.”

WHAT: Federal Terrorism Enhancement Hearings for all Oregon Green Scare defendants
WHEN: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 – 10 am
WHERE: New Eugene Federal Building (405 East 8th Ave.), Judge Aiken’s courtroom (spillover seating will be available)

Copies of a press packet with current related articles, background information, historical examples of sabotage in the U.S., and a history of F.B.I. repression of political activism will be available at the event.