{"id":769216,"date":"2022-07-25T07:29:56","date_gmt":"2022-07-25T11:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=769216"},"modified":"2022-07-25T08:15:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T12:15:53","slug":"newly-released-fbi-terrorism-documents-show-agency-investigated-environmental-and-animal-rights-organizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=769216","title":{"rendered":"TERRA-RISTS: Released documents show FBI infiltrated environmental organizations, as with animal liberation groups"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Peter Young of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) said he\u2019s not surprised what the FBI did. 'If you don\u2019t have a terrorist to fight, you have to make one up. It\u2019s very convenient for the FBI to start to expand the definition of terrorism.'<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

JULES ROSCOE:<\/strong> The FBI investigated multiple environmental movements as cases of domestic ecoterrorism, according to documents obtained by Motherboard. The documents name groups like Greenpeace, Earth First!, and the Earth Liberation Front, and detail actions from scrawling \u201cELF\u201d into the side of a diesel tank to shooting flares at a nuclear power plant.<\/em><\/p>\n

Motherboard obtained the documents using a Freedom of Information Act request; in some cases, it took the FBI four years to provide the documents. They pertain primarily to the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, but have new relevance considering that some environmentalists have called for direct action to prevent or reverse the worst effects from climate change. The documents show how the FBI treated direct-action environmental organizations, and show what sorts of things the government considered to be “terrorism.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The FBI provided Motherboard with more than 100 pages of documents about Greenpeace, one of the most famous environmental organizations in the world. Most of these documents are from the 1970s and 1980s; the FBI says that the group should be monitored for causing “civil unrest”… The FBI has previously said that Greenpeace was improperly put on an agency terrorism watchlist. Other environmental and animal rights groups have also been improperly associated with terrorism….<\/em><\/p>\n

Documents obtained by Motherboard relate to Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front. Earth First!, which the FBI said was usually considered to be the \u201cmost radical\u201d of the environmental movements… The FBI said the movement was a \u201ccriminal enterprise,\u201d and filed it under cases of domestic terrorism.<\/em><\/p>\n

The FBI defines ecoterrorism as \u201cthe use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons.\u201d Though there were not any instances in the documents we received of criminal actions against people, property damage was very common.<\/em><\/p>\n

Earth First! cut bolts which were securing the pylons of a ski resort\u2019s chair lift, demanding that the trees be allowed to grow back, one document states… A letter protesting the investigation of Earth First! writes, \u201cThe Bureau\u2019s gestapo-like planting of covert agents within the Earth First! organization itself is an intolerable destruction of the civil liberties and privacy of the American public…<\/em><\/p>\n

One political activist, Peter Young, agrees. \u201cThat\u2019s the rhetoric they\u2019ve used going back to the 90s when I got involved,\u201d said Young, who associates himself with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). When he was younger, he was arrested for cutting a fence to release mink from a fur farm in Wisconsin, and served two years\u2019 time after being charged with animal enterprise terrorism. \u201cI\u2019ve been called a terrorist since I was 19.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It was at that age that Young first got involved in animal activism, but he felt that it was lacking and ineffective. So, he started doing direct action on behalf of the ALF\u2014cutting fences to release animals, or stealing equipment from slaughterhouses.<\/em><\/p>\n

Young told Motherboard he would not label himself a terrorist, but that he\u2019s not surprised that the FBI did. He said that, especially post-9\/11, the agency had a \u201cmandate\u201d to fight the war on terror harder than before. \u201c\u200b\u200bIf you don\u2019t have a terrorist to fight, you have to make one up,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s very convenient for the FBI to start to expand the definition of terrorism”…<\/em><\/p>\n

For Greenpeace… direct action is a \u201clast resort,\u201d according to Rolf Skar, a campaign organizer for the group. \u201c[Direct action] doesn\u2019t come out of nowhere,\u201d said Skar. \u201cIf we\u2019re doing our jobs right, we\u2019d rather sit down and talk first.\u201d He added that the organization focuses more on legal battles and petitioning than street-level work…<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLegal tactics can be very effective,\u201d said Young. \u201cIf you had the resources of a large group behind you, or you just had a lot of money, or connections, legal means of change can be highly highly effective.\u201d <\/em>But he notes that not everyone has those kinds of resources. And if you don\u2019t, but you still want to make a difference, he said, \u201cThe most effective thing you can do is pick a target and figure out how you\u2019re going to sabotage it”. <\/em>SOURCE…<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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