AL-QAEDA +++: How the FBI and Big Ag started treating animal rights activists as ‘bioterrorists’
As Covid raged across northern California in 2020, a pair of farm industry groups were worried about a different threat: animal rights activists. Citing an FBI memo warning that activists trespassing on factory farms could spread a viral bird disease, the groups wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom to argue that their longtime antagonists were more than a nuisance. They were potentially terrorists threatening the entire food chain. “Animal rights and environmental groups have committed more acts of terrorism than Al Qaeda,” warned an FBI agent who met with Big Ag groups.
MATT SLEDGE: As COVID raged across northern California in March 2020, a pair of farm industry groups were worried about a different threat: animal rights activists.
Citing an FBI memo warning that activists trespassing on factory farms could spread a viral bird disease, the groups wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom to argue that their longtime antagonists were more than a nuisance. They were potentially terrorists threatening the entire food chain.
“The safety of our food supply has never been more critical, and we must work together to prevent these clear threats of domestic terrorism from being realized,” the groups wrote.
A coalition of transparency and animal rights groups on Monday released that letter, along with a cache of government documents, to highlight the tight links between law enforcement and agriculture industry groups.
Activists say those documents show an unseemly relationship between the FBI and Big Ag. The government–industry fearmongering has accelerated with the spread of bird flu enabled by the industry’s own practices, they say.
The executive director of Property of the People, the nonprofit that obtained the documents via public records requests, said in a statement that the documents paint a damning picture.
“Factory farms are a nightmare for animals and public health. Yet, big ag lobbyists and their FBI allies are colluding to conceal this cruelty and rampant disease by shifting blame to the very activists working to alert the public,” Ryan Shapiro said. “Transparency is not terrorism, and the FBI should not be taking marching orders from industry flacks.”
Industry groups did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, the FBI defended its relationship with “members of the private sector.”
“Our goal is to protect our communities from unlawful activity while at the same time upholding the Constitution,” the agency said in an unsigned statement. “The FBI focuses on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security. The FBI can never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity”…
In multiple emails, Goldsmith, the FBI veterinarian, distributed to other FBI employees emails from the AAA warning about upcoming protests by the activist outfits, including Direct Action Everywhere.
Another email from a local government agency in California showed that the AAA sent out a “confidential” message to members in June 2023 asking them to track and report “animal rights activity.”
The trade group provided members with a direct FBI email address for reporting what it called ARVE: “animal rights violent extremists”…
The AAA was not the only industry group using the FBI as a resource. The March 2020 letter to Newsom casting activists as potential terrorists was penned by the leaders of the California Farm Bureau Federation and Milk Producers Council. Those groups did not respond to requests for comment…
Zoe Rosenberg, a member of Direct Action Everywhere, has been identified by name in monitoring reports from the Animal Agriculture Alliance. For the past year and a half, she has been on an ankle monitor and intense supervision after prosecutors alleged in a December 2023 court hearing that she was a “biosecurity risk” because of ongoing bird flu outbreaks.
Rosenberg said last week she was taken aback by the similar allegations contained in previously private emails between law enforcement and industry. “Instead of taking responsibility for what they are doing, they are trying to blame us. Of course, it’s always a shocking thing when nonviolent activists are called terrorists or framed as terrorists,” she said. “It just all feels backwards.” SOURCE…
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