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.

Marie Mason

Marie Mason, a longtime environmental activist and mother of two, was sentenced this afternoon to 21 years in prison, as a “terrorist,” for non-violent property crimes in the name of defending the environment. It’s a historic sentence, the longest yet for any of these Green Scare cases.

In the lead up to her sentencing, the FBI took their “eco-terrorist” scare-mongering to a new level. Mason’s friends and family were prepared to attend the sentencing hearing and support her at such a terrible moment in her life. So what did the FBI do? Agents had the audacity to warn the press that “terrorists” might be attending Mason’s sentencing. They said they “expect members of the eco-terrorist groups, the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front to gather and protest.” This, of course, is a bold-faced lie. Any FBI agents worth their salt knows that clandestine organizations like the ALF and ELF do not protest: they are illegal, underground groups. This was a calculated scare-mongering move meant to make normal, everyday people afraid of showing up to a public court proceeding, lest they be labeled as members of the “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

Let me reiterate this: The government made a concerted effort to demonize not just the defendant, but anyone who supports the defendant by attending a public court proceeding. Regardless of how you feel about Marie Mason, or the Green Scare more broadly, moves like this are antithetical to any semblance of a democracy. Intimidating citizens to keep them from attending a politicized court date is a defining characteristic of an out-and-out police state.

If that isn’t enough, let’s look at Mason’s sentence. Twenty-one years for arson that caused about $1 million in damage to genetic-engineering research at Michigan State University and didn’t harm anyone.

By comparison, on Monday the FBI put out a press release patting themselves on the back for the guilty pleas of four men who assaulted three African-Americans on the night of President Barack Obama’s election victory. [I've written previously about how the FBI is more concerned about environmental activists than presidential assassination attempts].

From the FBI’s news release:

Nicoletti drove the group to the Park Hill section of Staten Island, a predominantly African-American neighborhood, where they came upon an African-American teenager and assaulted him. Nicoletti struck the teenager with a metal pipe and Garaventa hit him with a collapsible police baton.

The expected sentences for racist, violent attacks meant to punish people for voting for a black man? Between 10 and 12 years. That’s about half of Marie Mason’s.

The government’s press release said that “this successful prosecution sends a clear message.”

What is the message that you think it sends?

You know what’s pretty creepy (besides the fact that so much of the country would actually put McCain/Palin at the helm of the U.S.S. Empire)? The fact that it’s so easy to scare the crap out of corporations.

It looks like someone posted a flier on Infoshop and elsewhere calling on those who care about the environment to “give capitalism the creeps”:

This is a call for a set of international earth nights to occur over a three week period from October 18th to November 5th. Through the spirit of mischievous mayhem and a diversity of tactics it is our intention to reclaim this season in an ongoing and continuous effort to ‘Give Capitalism the Creeps.’ One can give capitalism the creeps in a number of ways. Be creative, be safe, be smart, be effective, be dangerous.

On the basis of this–a flier with very CrimethInc-ish, ambiguous rhetoric–the National Ski Areas Association notified its members about “potential acts of eco-terrorism.”

“Anytime we receive a veiled threat or call to action, we take it seriously,” said Special Agent Kathy Wright, public information officer for the FBI’s Denver field office. “But we don’t have any specific threats.”

Whaddayouknow, government scare-mongering without “any specific threats.” Looks like the feds and industry groups are trying to keep the specter of “eco-terrorism” alive and kicking, even though the rest of the country is focused on other, more pressing matters. Like, I dunno, a collapsing economy, one quarter of the world’s mammals facing extinction, failing schools, domestic spying, torture, pre-emptive police raids…

Boo!

In what I can only attribute to one-too-many viewings of Red Dawn, the Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County, South Carolina bought his department a tank. Oh, excuse me, an “armored personnel carrier”… with a .50-cal turreted machine gun. For all you city slickers, .50-cal means f’n HUGE.

From Reason:

Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle “The Peacemaker,” and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it’s generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will “save lives.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news (which, I’ve been told, may become my official title if I keep running this blog) but the tankification of this sheriff’s department isn’t an anomaly. It’s becoming par for the course as local cops clamor to join the “War on Terrorism” and the fight against “domestic terrorists,” “eco-terrorists,” and, judging by the size of this tank, terrorist Tyrannosaurus-Rexes.

In Tennessee, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI held a workshop (at the First Assembly of God Church, no less) on spotting terrorists. Folks were warned to watch out for people taking too many photos. And, of course, be on the lookout for “eco-terrorists.”

Allen said environmental groups and animal rights groups may harbor terrorists, but Jackson said the FBI will not infringe on those groups’ First Amendment right to free speech.

“We will never do anything to interfere with anyone’s First Amendment rights,” Jackson said. “But we do ask people to be on the lookout for that individual who comes into the group and talks a little bit radical.”

And in Arizona, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik asked citizens to be on the lookout for domestic terrorists including environmentalists, animal rights activists, and abortion-rights advocates.

“Eco-friendly, abortion-rights and animal-rights activists are among the most active groups that have committed acts of terror in the name of their cause,” reads the December issue of “Community Connection,” a newsletter published by the department…

Dupnik’s newsletter warning excludes a few potential domestic terrorists. There’s no mention of racist skinheads, gay-bashing homophobes and anti-abortion activists who have been known to kill a doctor or two and burn down clinics.

If you’ve read this site before, you know that animal rights and environmental advocates have never killed anyone. Meanwhile, just weeks before this article was published, a white supremacist in Utah was sentenced to federal prison for five years for beating two Hispanic and Native American men. And arsonists had just torched an Albuquerque abortion clinic.

But those crimes, much like the Oklahoma City Bombing, aren’t listed as terrorism.

I think the biggest concern of all this, though, isn’t necessarily the hypocrisy of this “terrorism” rhetoric. It’s that the Bush administration, with the support of Democrats in Congress, created a massive “War on Terrorism” bureaucracy, and now, not surprisingly, local cops want to talk the talk so they can get their hands on federal resources. For some, that means trying to catch “eco-terrorists” and get a promotion. For others, it means buying tanks and playing dress up like South Carolina is Afghanistan.

Not to get all black-helicopter-crowd on you all, but I think this also needs to be put in the context of the recent “pre-emptive raids” at the RNC, and sweeping programs like Main Core. From Radar:

One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

From the CIA’s website. I have raised concerns about the “War on Terrorism” rhetoric expanding to environmentalists and animal rights activists (the SHAC 7, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act). But no one is safe from this scare-mongering. Now, judging by this logo, it seems the CIA is using the War on Terrorism to target ninjas. With the U.S. government throwing its muscle around, will this unfairly tilt the scales in the eternal battle of pirates vs. ninjas? Discuss.

The Department of Homeland Security distributed a bulletin on Thursday to help corporations fight “eco-terrorism” like “flyer distribution,” “graffiti,” and “tying up company phone lines.”

Go ahead and laugh, but it gets worse. There are two things in this bulletin that are dead serious:

1. DHS admits it has “no specific, credible information at this time suggesting animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists are planning to target known corporations.”

2. In addition to “organizing protests” and “inundating computers with e-mails,” DHS later notes other tactics like verbal harassment and vandalism. But NOWHERE in the bulletin is the word “violence” used.

So why waste taxpayer money, and valuable homeland security resources, preparing and distributing this bulletin when there is no “credible information,” and no fear of violence? Money.

Animal rights activists and environmentalists are succeeding where so many consumer boycotts, petitions and other status quo acts of protest have miserably failed: they’re hurting corporate profits.

Corporations are scared, and they’re pressuring the administration and law enforcement to step in. This bulletin is one part of the government’s corporate aid.

DHS admits as much. The very first line of the bulletin reads:

“Attacks against corporations by animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists are costly to the targeted company and, over time, can undermine confidence in the economy.”

That’s what all this “eco-terrorism” rhetoric is about — using fears of terrorism to justify cracking down on pesky activists that hurt corporate profits. It’s time we call a spade a spade, and force lawmakers to stop wasting money fighting “flyer distribution.”

P.S. Congrats to Justin Rood for getting his hands on this bulletin first.