{"id":61674,"date":"2015-08-03T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=61674"},"modified":"2015-08-10T10:27:50","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T09:27:50","slug":"dylann-roof-is-not-a-terrorist-but-animal-rights-activists-who-free-minks-from-slaughter-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/08\/dylann-roof-is-not-a-terrorist-but-animal-rights-activists-who-free-minks-from-slaughter-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Dylann Roof Is Not a \u201cTerrorist\u201d \u2014 But Animal Rights Activists Who Free Minks From Slaughter Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 28 2015 – <\/em>The FBI on Friday [24 Jul] announced<\/a> the arrests in Oakland of two animal rights activists, Joseph Buddenberg and Nicole Kissane, and accused the\u00a0pair\u00a0of engaging in \u201cdomestic terrorism.\u201d This comes less than a month after the FBI director said<\/a> he does not consider\u00a0Charleston Church murderer Dylann Roof a\u00a0\u201cterrorist.\u201d The activists\u2019 alleged crimes: \u201cThey released thousands of minks from farms around the country and vandalized various properties.\u201d That\u2019s it. Now they\u2019re being prosecuted and explicitly vilified as \u201cterrorists,\u201d facing 10-year prison terms.<\/p>\n

Buddenberg and Kissane are scheduled to appear this morning in a federal court in San Francisco for a hearing on bail conditions, while arraignment is set for early September. The\u00a0indictment comes just days before the scheduled start of the Animal Rights National Conference<\/a>, the largest and most important annual gathering of activists. The DOJ did exactly the same thing in July of last year<\/a>: Shortly before the start of the 2014 conference, they\u00a0arrested two activists<\/a> on federal \u201cterrorism\u201d charges for freeing minks and foxes from a fur farm. The multiple\u00a0activists and lawyers who spoke to\u00a0The Intercept<\/em> since Friday\u2019s arrests are adamant that these well-timed indictments\u00a0are designed to intimidate activists at the conference and more broadly to chill campaigns to defend animal rights.<\/p>\n

This latest federal prosecution, and the public branding of these two activists\u00a0as \u201cdomestic terrorists,\u201d highlights the strikingly severe targeting over many years by the U.S. government of nonviolent<\/em> animal and environmental rights activists. The more one delves into what is being done here \u2014 the extreme abuse of the criminal law to stifle nonviolent political protest\u00a0or even just\u00a0pure political speech, undertaken with tragically little attention \u2014\u00a0the more appalling\u00a0it becomes. There are numerous cases of animal rights activists, several of whom spoke to\u00a0The Intercept<\/em>,\u00a0who weren\u2019t even accused of harming people\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>property, but who were nonetheless sent to federal prison for years<\/em>.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0obvious and significant reason for the U.S. government\u2019s fixation\u00a0is that the industries most threatened by this activism are uncontrollably powerful in Washington, virtually owning the Congress without opposition, stacking the relevant agencies with their revolving-door cronies. Another is that this movement is driven by hard-core believers impressively willing to sacrifice their own liberty in defense of their political values\u00a0\u2014 namely,\u00a0trying to stop\u00a0the mass torture and gratuitous slaughter of animals \u2014\u00a0and that frightens both industry and its\u00a0government servants; that animal rights as a cause is gaining traction worldwide makes the threat even more alarming.<\/p>\n

Yet another reason is that the specific forms of activism this movement has cultivated are\u00a0shrewd and compelling: As is true for so many types of violence,\u00a0the savagery, torture and sadism\u00a0that makes these industries so profitable will be collectively tolerated only if we are not forced to confront their\u00a0reality. That, for instance, is why the Obama DOJ is so desperately fighting the release<\/a> of torture and Guantanamo photos<\/a>, and why it\u00a0has so severely punished whistleblowers: because few things are more menacing to status quo interests than truth revealed in its most visceral form.<\/p>\n

While some E.U. countries have severely regulated or even banned<\/a> many of the animal abuses targeted by activists, the U.S. factory farms that produce\u00a0furs\u00a0are among the cruelest and most sadistic anywhere, imposing extreme amounts of suffering and torture on the animals they\u00a0slaughter \u2014 both in terms of how they confine them and then kill them. The very graphic photo\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0shows the carcasses of minks after they have been skinned;\u00a0this deeply disturbing undercover video from PETA details their treatment at\u00a0American fur factories:<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Nh9Z3MQGUPk<\/p>\n

Independent of the moral questions raised by this savage treatment of animals, these industrial practices<\/a> spawn serious environmental degradation, exploit small farmers, and produce health risks for workers:\u00a0practices that\u00a0can remain undisturbed only as long as we remain blissfully unaware\u00a0of the harms they cause.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s something deeper driving this persecution. American elites are typically willing to tolerate political protest as long as it remains constrained, controlled, and fundamentally respectful of the rules imposed by institutions of authority \u2014 i.e.<\/em>, as long as it remains neutered and impotent. When protest movements\u00a0adhere to those constraints, they are\u00a0not only often ineffective, but more so, they can unwittingly serve as a false testament to the freedom of the political process and the generosity of its rulers (they let us speak out: see, we\u2019re free!<\/em>). That kind of marginal, modest \u201cprotest\u201d\u00a0often ends up strengthening the process it believes it is subverting.<\/p>\n

When, by contrast, a movement transgresses those limitations and starts to become effective in impeding the injustices it targets \u2014 particularly when preserving those injustices is\u00a0valuable to the most powerful \u2014\u00a0that\u2019s when it has to be stopped at all costs, including criminalizing it with the harshest possible legal weapons. This is the dynamic that explains the emerging campaign<\/a> in the West to literally criminalize<\/a> the previously marginalized BDS movement designed to stop\u00a0Israeli occupation: It\u2019s gaining too much ground, becoming too effective, and thus must be banned, its proponents and leaders threatened with prosecution. The fear that the animal rights movement is\u00a0growing stronger and will succeed in exposing the horrifying realities of these industries\u2019 practices is driving the persecution\u00a0to the point of declaring it to be \u2014 and formally punishing it as \u2014\u00a0terrorism<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even beyond that, the animal rights movement strikes at the heart of what is most cherished by\u00a0American elites: the pillars of unrestrained capitalistic entitlement. That\u00a0so much industrial profit depends upon extreme, constant torture and slaughter of animals is something regarded as, in essence, a sacred right.<\/p>\n

Lauren Gazolla, who was imprisoned for 40 months in 2004<\/a> for her nonviolent\u00a0animal rights activism and now works at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that this movement \u201cstrikes at something fundamental. It\u00a0challenges a way of life: So much of how much we live our lives is based on massive violence against animals, and the more brutal these industries are, the more profit they make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anything that targets or threatens this entitlement is regarded as the highest and most severe threat. That\u2019s why the\u00a0government, at the behest of the industry interests it serves, is\u00a0calling it \u201cterrorism\u201d: to them, few things are genuinely more menacing or threatening than an effective political movement aimed at these practices.<\/p>\n

A systematic effort to convert animal rights activism into terrorism<\/strong><\/p>\n

The activists\u00a0arrested on Friday are being charged under\u00a0the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), a draconian 2006 federal law heavily lobbied for by the agriculture, pharmaceutical\u00a0and farming industries. Its drafting and enactment was led by\u00a0the notorious and powerful<\/a> American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),\u00a0with the\u00a0lobbying\u00a0industries also\u00a0hiding behind<\/a> groups such as the Animal Enterprise Protection Coalition (AEPC) and the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).<\/p>\n

As is typical for lobbyist and industry-supported bills, the AETA\u00a0passed with\u00a0overwhelming bipartisan support (its two prime Senate sponsors were James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.) and then was signed into law by George W. Bush.\u00a0This \u201cterrorism\u201d law<\/a> is violated if\u00a0one \u201cintentionally damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property (including animals or records) used by an animal enterprise . . . for the purpose of damaging or interfering with\u201d its operations. If you do that \u2014 and note that only \u201cdamage to property\u201d but not to humans is required \u2014 then you are guilty of \u201cdomestic terrorism\u201d under the law.<\/p>\n

Prior to the 2006 enactment\u00a0of the AETA, animal rights activism that\u00a0damaged property was already illegal under a 1992 federal law, as well as various state laws, and subject to severe punishments. The primary purpose of the new 2006 law was to expand the scope of criminal offenses to include plainly protected forms of political protest, and to heighten the legal punishments and intensify social condemnation by literally labeling animal-rights\u00a0activists as \u201cdomestic terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time as this draconian statute was signed into law, numerous states enacted so-called \u201cag-gag\u201d laws<\/a> that \u2014\u00a0amazingly<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 \u201cprohibit workers from taking undercover videos at the facilities and impose fines or jail time for those who do.\u201d\u00a0Moreover, \u201croughly half a dozen states have passed laws in recent years to prevent workers from taking images or videos of agricultural facilities.\u201d They\u2019re so desperate to conceal their savage conduct from the public that they\u2019re literally\u00a0criminalizing<\/em>\u00a0reporting and whistleblowing, so that those who enable vital (and horrific\u00a0and\u00a0hard-to-watch) videos like this one \u2014 showing incomprehensible cruelty to highly intelligent and emotionally advanced pigs \u2014 are subject to prosecution:<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ul2cmwJs140<\/p>\n

For a barbaric industry, nothing is more threatening than the truth. As the Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0explained in May<\/a>: \u201cIn 2008, a California meat company recalled 143 million pounds of beef \u2014 the largest beef recall in U.S. history \u2014 after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video showing workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts to get them on their feet. The condition of the cows suggested their meat could have posed a risk to consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

That case was the result of an undercover investigation at the\u00a0Hallmark Meat Packing Co. in\u00a0Chino, which, in the words of the Humane Society<\/a>,\u00a0showed\u00a0\u201cslaughter plant workers displaying complete disregard for the pain and misery they inflicted as they repeatedly attempted to force \u2018downed\u2019 animals onto their feet and into the human food chain.\u201d Because the cows were too sick to walk, they were dragged or pushed with hot prods into the slaughterhouse. Some of that food made its way into the National Lunch Program served to public school students.<\/p>\n

In other words, cows that were too sick even to walk, because of their savage mistreatment, were being put into the human food chain. This was discovered only because an undercover video revealed it:<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zhlhSQ5z4V4<\/p>\n

Is it any wonder that these industries are demanding that such reporting and exposure be outlawed<\/em>? And is it hard to see why the brave activists bringing these truths to light and trying to stop them are regarded as criminals and even \u201cterrorists\u201d for doing so?<\/p>\n

Targeting core political speech<\/strong><\/p>\n

This latest case shows how extreme and oppressive this law is by design. No human beings were physically injured by the alleged activism of Buddenberg and Kissane, nor did they attempt to harm any. Whatever one thinks of their tactics, it was \u2014 even by the FBI\u2019s telling \u2014 confined to property damage: essentially vandalism. In its Press Releases announcing indictments, the FBI tries to depict the alleged\u00a0acts in the worst, most inflammatory light possible; for this case,\u00a0this is all it could muster: They \u201cused paint, paint stripper, a super glue-type substance, butyric acid, muriatic acid and glass etchant to vandalize Furs by Graf, a retail furrier located in San Diego.\u201d There is absolutely no commonly\u00a0understood meaning\u00a0of \u201cterrorism\u201d (to the extent such a thing exists) that can include anything they did.<\/p>\n

Ben Rosenfeld, a lawyer who has extensively represented animal and environmental activists, told\u00a0The Intercept <\/em>that\u00a0\u201ccalling this terrorism\u00a0is\u00a0utterly irresponsible and offensive to victims of real terror.\u201d Referring to both the DOJ and Congress, he said, \u201cThey should be ashamed of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that in the post-9\/11 era,\u00a0\u201cCalling this\u00a0terrorism makes it almost impossible to get a fair trial for these activists.\u00a0It\u2019s very manipulative.\u00a0Though the public is more jaded about the manipulative use of this term, it makes a huge impression on judges, most of whom have previously been prosecutors.\u201d Because it\u2019s in the title of the law, the term \u201cterrorism\u201d\u00a0even appears on verdict forms, \u201cso jurors see it very clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n

To label\u00a0this nonviolent political protest \u201cterrorism\u201d yet again illustrates the utterly malleable and propagandistic nature of that term<\/a>. This is particularly true given that the same DOJ that is charging the\u00a0activists\u00a0as \u201cterrorists\u201d just announced<\/a> that Dylann Roof \u2014 who murdered nine people in a Charleston church to advance\u00a0clear ideological and political objectives \u2014 will not be.<\/p>\n

Even more abusive prosecutions \u2014 based exclusively <\/em>on pure political speech and protest rights \u2014\u00a0have been\u00a0common. Will Potter is likely the most knowledgeable journalist in the country on these issues; he\u2019s\u00a0author of\u00a0a 2011 book entitled\u00a0Green is the New Red<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>and editor of a great website by the same name<\/a> that exhaustively covers these issues.<\/p>\n

Potter has a new story,\u00a0published\u00a0yesterday<\/a>,\u00a0on the arrest of four animal-rights activists in Oregon for . . . \u201callegedly writing political slogans on the public street using sidewalk chalk.\u201d Potter reports that \u201cthe chalking was done as part of the growing \u2018No New Animal Lab\u2019<\/a>\u00a0campaign, which aims to stop the construction of a new underground animal experimentation facility at the University of Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2004, Gazolla was prosecuted \u2014 and imprisoned in a federal penitentiary \u2014 for 40 months (three-and-a-half years) on charges that she and other activists maintained a website that endorsed\u00a0illegal protests, and that her chants at a protest outside an executive\u2019s house included advocacy of violence.<\/p>\n

Her co-defendant was Andy Stepanian of Fitzgibbon Media, the communications firm that\u00a0represents\u00a0The Intercept<\/em> and, on a pro bono basis, Chelsea Manning.\u00a0Stepanian\u00a0was imprisoned for three years, and during his incarceration,\u00a0was even placed<\/a> in a highly oppressive \u201cCommunications Management Unit,\u201d called \u201cGITMO North,\u201d<\/a> typically reserved for Muslims accused of terrorism. The FOIA-obtained prison document ordering his transfer<\/a> tells the story (redactions in original):<\/p>\n

\"stepanian-1000x712<\/a><\/p>\n

As Gazolla\u00a0detailed in a 2014 Salon article<\/a>, the only conceivable purpose of calling activists like her \u201cterrorists\u201d under the new 2006 law is to stifle legitimate speech:<\/p>\n

The AETA was pushed through Congress by the immensely powerful animal agriculture, animal testing and fur industries. The law is not limited to punishing illegal activity; numerous existing laws already punish vandalism, threats and other illegal forms of protest. Rather, the AETA provides special protection to a specific class of businesses by targeting and stigmatizing a particular group of protesters, hanging the specter of prosecution as \u201canimal enterprise terrorists\u201d over their heads, and ultimately scaring them into silence.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the very first case\u00a0prosecuted under the AETA\u00a0was in 2009, and it\u00a0included the same Joseph Buddenberg\u00a0who was arrested on Friday, along with three other defendants. Industry officials and their lobbyists were furious that no prosecutions had been brought in the two years since its enactment, and were aggressively pressuring the DOJ to find a case.<\/p>\n

As Potter reported at the time<\/a>, the DOJ\u2019s entire case, calling these activists \u201cterrorists,\u201d rested on their pure First Amendment activity such as chalking sidewalks, marching and chanting outside researchers\u2019 homes, and distributing fliers.\u00a0The following year, the indictments were dismissed<\/a> by a federal judge on the ground that the DOJ failed even to allege with any specificity what they did that constituted a crime.<\/p>\n

But the history since that dismissal makes clear that pure political speech and protest are the real targets of these \u201cterrorism\u201d prosecutions. Gazzola told\u00a0The Intercept<\/em> that the AETA succeeded for a time in its goal of weakening and chilling activism: \u201cMy prosecution scared people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But both Gazzola and Potter echoed what numerous activists and lawyers said: that despite the government\u2019s efforts, animal rights activism is stronger, and the cause more widely accepted, than ever before. Others noted that there\u2019s also a growing right-wing faction to the movement and that it\u2019s starting to cut across ideological lines in interesting ways. Gazzola said that \u201cmore and more people are speaking up more strongly now, and there is\u00a0more support from the broader left\u00a0and social justice attorneys. All of that\u00a0has really\u00a0helped the movement come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supporting activism,\u00a0preventing abusive prosecutions<\/strong><\/p>\n

For years, animal rights activists worked without much support, even from the left, which generally regarded them as fringe and their cause as marginal (this post<\/a> does a good job of laying that out). But all of the movement supporters interviewed by\u00a0The Intercept<\/em>\u00a0are optimistic that, for a variety of revealing reasons, they have far more support than ever before.<\/p>\n

Potter explained that the left\u2019s aversion to animal rights activism was in part fueled by caricatures created by federal authorities.\u00a0\u201cThey told the left, \u2018don\u2019t worry: we\u2019re\u00a0just going after these hard-core extremists, the ones who think you shouldn\u2019t be able to go to circuses or wear\u00a0leather shoes.’\u201d That demonization made the left wary of being associated with a movement that had been successfully marginalized.<\/p>\n

\"Debra<\/a>

Debra Reid\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

Beyond that, he said, there\u2019s a strong human incentive to avoid thinking about what is done to animals. Potter explained: \u201cPeople don\u2019t want to engage with these issues because it challenges the most fundamental assumptions about how we\u2019ve structured our society. It makes people confront the assumption we\u2019ve adopted that we, as humans, have the right to do anything we want to the planet and other species for any reason: clothes, food, entertainment, transportation.\u00a0Once you engage with those issues, it can be a shocking confrontation with how you\u2019ve been living your life for awhile. These activists are threatening not only corporate profit, but also the fundamental precept that humans are the center of the universe and have the right to do whatever they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

But activists\u00a0point to a number of positive developments as evidence that animal rights is now becoming far more mainstream. There have been a few successful\u00a0ballot initiatives<\/a> to limit the worst abuses in agriculture. A single documentary on animal abuses at\u00a0Sea World all but destroyed that company<\/a>. Mainstream, influential figures advocate vegetarianism. The widespread availability of cheaper technology and access to the internet makes it far easier than ever to produce undercover videos and ensure widespread dissemination. Legal changes are, for the first time, recognizing pets and other animals as having emotional worth, beyond their value as \u201cchattel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In sum, said Potter, we are collectively\u00a0\u201cexpanding our circles of compassion, or at least\u00a0consideration, in terms\u00a0of the law and our moral framework.\u201d For the first time in the U.S., it is now being recognized that \u201canimals are worthy of moral consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n

But these changes, while positive, are limited, and far from what is needed to shield animal rights activism from vindictive prosecution and additional industry-fueled retribution. Potter used the term \u201cgreenwashing\u201d\u00a0to explain that \u201cthe Federal Government loves to tell you that it\u2019s great for you to love the environment, but only if you do it in benign ways that don\u2019t threaten industry.\u201d You can and should recycle, but don\u2019t impede lumber companies from cutting down trees or get in the way of whaling ships. Only \u201ceco-terrorists\u201d do that.<\/p>\n

The same dynamic is at play in animal rights activism. We\u2019re told that it\u2019s great to love your pets. It\u2019s fine to get outraged when some revolting, piggish\u00a0Minnesota dentist<\/a> \u2014 or the hideous spawn of Donald Trump<\/a> \u2014 slaughter majestic animals in Africa for their own twisted pleasure or to compensate for their glaring sense of inadequacy. \u201cBut whatever you do,\u201d said Potter, \u201cdon\u2019t turn your gaze to the everyday behavior of America\u2019s largest food companies and farming industries in order to shine a light on their wholesale torture and slaughter of animals.\u201d No matter how much people have learned to love animals and regard them as possessing moral worth,\u00a0that type of activism \u2014 effective and subversive of industry \u2014 is still radioactive.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what most needs to change. The countless hours of interviews and reading I\u2019ve now done has made me, for the first time, fully cognizant of the shocking amount of legal abuses being undertaken here. At the very least, the activists who are sacrificing their own liberty in order to protect animals from being tortured and slaughtered \u2014 activists who are often poor and thus vulnerable to most abusive prosecutions \u2014 deserve a vibrant legal defense.<\/p>\n

A legal defense fund has now been created to ensure that both Buddenberg and Kissane have the funds needed to defend themselves. You can, and I hope will, donate to that here<\/a>. Beyond that, both CCR<\/a> and the Civil Liberties Defense Center<\/a>\u00a0have done stalwart work in fighting the pernicious efforts to equate this activism with \u201cterrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The propagandistic\u00a0exploitation of the term \u201cterrorism\u201d has produced a wide range of harms all over the globe. Few harms are as severe as its ongoing use not only to stifle, but outright criminalize, political speech and noble activism.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/p>\n

Contact the Author: glenn.greenwald@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FBI on Friday [24 Jul] announced the arrests in Oakland of two animal rights activists and accused the pair of engaging in \u201cdomestic terrorism.\u201d This comes less than a month after the FBI director said he does not consider Charleston Church murderer Dylann Roof a \u201cterrorist.\u201d The activists\u2019 alleged crimes: \u201cThey released thousands of minks from farms around the country and vandalized various properties.\u201d That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,65,170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-anglo-america","category-animal-rights-vegetarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}