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Do anti-terrorism laws protect the public or protect corporate profits?
Uploaded by TheBigPictureRT on Dec 22, 2011
Well…looking at how the FBI is targeting animal rights activists – it appears anti-terror laws are being used strictly to protect corporate profits – at the expense of the public. A recent Freedom of Information Act request uncovered an FBI file that identifies animal rights activists who snuck into factory farms and videotaped the horrific conditions animals are kept in – as terrorists. That’s right – those who make videotapes exposing animal cruelty – and distribute them to the public are on par with people like Timothy McVeigh and the 9/11 hijackers according to the FBI. Why? Because the FBI argues that actions like these do “economic damage” to farm factories. And under a controversial law passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by President Bush in 2006 known as the “Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act” – you can be brought up on charges of terrorism if you economically damage factories farms by vandalizing property – interrupting or invalidating experiments – or just simply costing a factory farm “profits.” And since videos depicting animals being tortured before they’re slaughtered – and videos depicting unsanitary factories – may cause people to not buy from that particular factory – then the FBI says that these activists disrupted profits and thus are terrorism.
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FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists
greenisthenewred.com
Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:59 CST
This recent investigation of a McDonald’s egg supplier is an example of the type of activism the FBI calls terrorism.
The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has kept files on activists who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and recommended prosecuting them as terrorists, according to a new document uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act.
This new information comes as the Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a lawsuit challenging the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) as unconstitutional because its vague wording has had a chilling effect on political activism. This document adds to the evidence demonstrating that the AETA goes far beyond property destruction, as its supporters claim.
The 2003 FBI file details the work of several animal rights activists who used undercover investigation to document repeated animal welfare violations. The FBI special agent who authored the report said they “illegally entered buildings owned by [redacted] Farm… and videotaped conditions of animals.”
The animal activists caused “economic loss” to businesses, the FBI says. And they also openly rescued several animals from the abusive conditions. This was not done covertly in the style of underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front – it was an act of non-violent civil disobedience and, as the FBI agent notes, the activists distributed press releases and conducted media interviews taking responsibility for their actions.
Based on these acts – trespassing in order to photograph and videotape abuses on factory farms – the agent concludes there “is a reasonable indication” that the activists “have violated the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, 18 USC Section 43 (a).”
The file was uncovered through a FOIA request by Ryan Shapiro, who is one of the activists mentioned. The file is available for download here. [Please note that this document has additional redactions in order to protect the identities of the other activists, at their request.] Shapiro is now a doctoral candidate at MIT.
“It is deeply sobering to see one’s name in an FBI file proposing terrorism charges,” he said in an email. “It is even more sobering to realize the supposedly terroristic activities in question are merely exposing the horrific cruelty of factory farms, educating the public about what goes on behind those closed doors, and openly rescuing a few animals from one of those farms as an act of civil disobedience.”
When I testified before Congress against the AETA in 2006, one of the primary concerns I raised is that the law could be used to wrap up a wide range of activity that threatens corporate profits. Supporters of the AETA have repeatedly denied this, and said the law will only be used against people who do things like burn buildings.
So how do we explain that such a sweeping prosecution was being considered in 2003, under the law’s somewhat-narrower precursor?
One possibility is that FBI agents lack training, education, and oversight. They are spying on political activists without understanding or respecting the law.
Another explanation is that this document is no mistake, nor is it an isolated case. It is a reflection of a coordinated campaign to target animal rights activists who, as the FBI agent notes, cause “economic loss” to corporations.
Learn the full story of how corporations are targeting activists as “terrorists.”
At the state, federal, and international levels, corporations have orchestrated an attempt to silence political activists, and a key target has been undercover investigators. For example:
- An “Ag Gag” bill has been introduced in Florida to criminalize investigations. Its lead sponsor calls these investigations “terrorism.” Four similar attempts failed in other states this year.
- These state bills are similar to model “eco-terrorism” legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate front group.
- A recent EUROPOL report on international terrorism includes a section on undercover investigations by animal rights and environmental activists.
- 12 Spanish activists have been charged with terrorism for their investigations.
- Two activists in Finland faced similar charges.
The FBI makes clear that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is not about protecting public safety; it is about protecting corporate profits. Corporations and the politicians who represent them have repeatedly lied to the American public about the scope of this legislation, and claimed that the law only targets underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front. The truth is that this terrorism law has been slowly, methodically expanded to include the tactics of national organizations like the Humane Society of the United States.
This document illustrates how the backlash against effective activism has progressed within the animal rights movement. However, if this type of legislation is not overturned, it will set a precedent for corporations to use this model against Occupy Wall Street and anyone else who threaten business as usual
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What is the “Green Scare”?
Green Scare flier by Eberhardt Press.Welcome to GreenIsTheNewRed.com! This website focuses on how fear of “terrorism” is being exploited to push a political and corporate agenda. Specifically, I focus on how animal rights and environmental advocates are being branded “eco-terrorists” in what many are calling the Green Scare.
Top of the Terrorism List
“The No. 1 domestic terrorism threat,” says John Lewis, a top FBI official, “is the eco-terrorism, animal-rights movement.”
The animal rights and environmental movements, like every other social movement throughout history, have both legal and illegal elements. There are people who leaflet, write letters, and lobby. There are people who protest and engage in non-violent civil disobedience. And there are people, like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, who go out at night with black masks and break windows, burn SUVs, and release animals from fur farms.
Animal rights and environmental advocates have not flown planes into buildings, taken hostages, or sent Anthrax through the mail. They have never even injured anyone. In fact, the only act of attempted murder in the history of the U.S. animal rights movement was coordinated by corporate provocateurs. Yet the FBI ranks these activists as the top domestic terrorism threat. And the Department of Homeland Security lists them on its roster of national security threats, while ignoring right-wing extremists who have bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, murdered doctors, and admittedly created weapons of mass destruction.
Defining the Green Scare
This disproportionate, heavy-handed government crackdown on the animal rights and environmental movements, and the reckless use of the word “terrorism,” is often called the Green Scare.
Much like the Red Scare and the communist witch hunts of the 40s and 50s, the Green Scare is using one word—this time, it’s “terrorist”—to push a political agenda, instill fear, and chill dissent. And much like the Red Scare, the Green Scare is operating on three levels: legal, legislative, and what we’ll call extra-legal, or scare-mongering.
Legal
The courts are being used to push conventional boundaries of what constitutes “terrorism” and to hit non-violent activists with disproportionate sentences.
- SHAC 7.
The SHAC 7 outside the courthouse in New Jersey.A federal court convicted a group of animal advocates of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a controversial website that supported both legal and illegal activity against a lab called Huntingdon Life Sciences. The site also listed addresses for corporations and corporate executives. The group, dubbed the SHAC 7, were never charged with breaking windows or releasing animals, but they vocally supported those types of activities. For that, they were convicted of “conspiring” to promote “terrorism.” Here’s a closer look at the SHAC 7.
- Operation Backfire.
Daniel McGowan, left, and Jonathan Paul.That’s the name the FBI gave to the historic roundup of environmental and animal rights activists for a string of Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front actions, including arson in the name of protecting the environment. Before these defendants ever set foot in the courtroom, they were labeled in the press as “eco-terrorists.” The government successfully pushed for “terrorism enhancement” penalties in many of these cases. As a result, many of these activists are now in prison as “terrorists,” a label that drastically changes their prison life and will follow them long after release. Another result of the “terrorism enhancement” is that the FBI claims these cases as a victory in the “War on Terrorism.”
- Government Informants and Infiltrators. Although some of the Operation Backfire defendants—Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block—refused to become government informants, the others “snitched” in exchange for reduced sentences. In fact, the government has said these arrests wouldn’t have been possible if one of the defendants, Jacob Ferguson, hadn’t agreed to wear a wire and entrap his friends. We’ve seen the same thing take place in other “eco-terrorism” cases. And in the case of Eric McDavid, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to destroy cell phone towers and other property, the FBI actually paid a young woman, “Anna,” to pose as an activist: she provided the group with bomb-making recipes; at times financed their transportation, food and housing; strung along McDavid, who had the hopes of a romantic relationship; and poked and prodded the group into action.
- Grand juries. In the name of investigating illegal activity, the government has been hauling lawful activists in front of grand juries where they must testify about their political beliefs and political associations, or face prison time. Activists like Jeff Hogg and independent journalist Josh Wolf have refused to cooperate with these witch hunts, and been punished for it. Elsewhere, noncooperation has derailed grand juries.
Legislative
Even with these sweeping, and successful, legal attacks on activists, corporations and the politicians who represent them want even more power.
- Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Project Censored honors Will PotterWith just six members of Congress in the room, just hours after lawmakers and celebrities were on hand to break ground for the new memorial honoring that terrorist Martin Luther King Jr., the House of Representatives passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law so vague and broad that the non-violent tactics of MLK and Gandhi are now “terrorism.” The bill expanded the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, the law used to convict the SHAC 7 of “animal enterprise terrorism” just months earlier. In true Orwellian doublespeak, proponents said the law couldn’t be used to convict so-called extremists, and must be expanded. Here is a closer look at the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
- State-level Legislation. Even after the federal law passed, corporations still want more. There’s been a push for state “eco-terrorism” legislation similar to the federal AETA, including the the California Animal Enterprise Protection Act.
Extra-Legal
Perhaps the most dangerous wing of this Green Scare is the relentless scare-mongering.
- Ad Campaigns.
Anonymous scare-mongering ads.The new McCarthyists have used their deep pocketbooks and PR savvy to place a terrorist in every shadow. They’ve taken out full-page anonymous ads in both The New York Times and The Washington Post labeling animal rights activists as “terrorists” for being a little too successful, and knocking a controversial animal testing laboratory from the New York Stock Exchange.
- Public Relations Campaigns. Not even children’s movies are safe from the relentless green baiting and guilt by association. Industry groups labeled Hoot, a bestselling book and popular movie, “soft-core eco-terrorism” because the teenage protagonists try to save an endangered owl from developers. Apparently even E.B. White was an “eco-terrorist”: According to the Center for Consumer Freedom, the movie remake of Charlotte’s Web promotes animal rights extremism.
- Surveillance, Harassment and Infiltration. The corporate and government scare-mongering has been used to create a political climate that justifies surveillance and harassment of political advocates. For instance, the FBI is looking for informants to infiltrate vegan potlucks, Joint Terrorism Task Forces are spying on HoneyBaked Ham protestors, and corporations are tracking who activists are dating.
Secretive Political Prisons — Communications Management Units
The label of “terrorist” is applied to activists before they even enter a courtroom and, for those convicted, it follows them into the prison system. The government has acknowledged using secretive prison facilities on U.S. soil, called Communications Management Units, to house inmates labeled “domestic terrorists.”
The CMUs radically restrict prisoner communications with the outside world to levels that rival, or exceed, the most restrictive facilities in the country, including the “Supermax,” ADX-Florence. [For more information on CMUs and who is housed there: “Secretive U.S. Prison Units Used to House Muslim, Animal Rights and Environmental Activists.”]
Inmates and guards at the CMUs call them “Little Guantanamo.” They have also been described as prisons for “second-tier” terrorists.
According the Bureau of Prisons, these inmates “do not rise to the same degree of potential risk to national security” as other terrorism inmates. So who is imprisoned there?
The CMUs overwhelmingly include Muslim inmates, and have housed at least two animal rights and environmental activists: Andy Stepanian, who has been released, and Daniel McGowan, who is currently imprisoned at the CMU in Marion, Illinois.
Little information is available about the secretive facilities and the prisoners housed there. However, through interviews with attorneys, family members, and a current prisoner, it is clear that these units have been created not for violent and dangerous “terrorists,” but for political cases that the government would like to keep out of the public spotlight and out of the press.
So Why is This Happening?
Leaked State Department presentation about activists.The government and corporations haven’t tried to hide the fact that this is all meant to protect corporate profits. The Department of Homeland Security, in a bulletin to law enforcement agencies, warned: “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.”
And in a leaked PowerPoint presentation given by the State Department to corporations, we learn: “Although incidents related to terrorism are most likely to make the front-page news, animal rights extremism is what’s most likely to affect your day-to-day business operations.”
Underground activists like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front directly threaten corporate profits by doing things like burning bulldozers or sabotaging animal research equipment. But they’re not the only ones.
The entire animal rights and environmental movements, perhaps more than any other social movements, directly threaten corporate profits. They do it every day. Every time activists encourage people to go vegan, every time they encourage people to stop driving, every time they encourage people to consume fewer resources and live simply. Those boycotts are permanent, and these industries know it. In many ways, the Green Scare, like the Red Scare, can be seen as a culture war, a war of values.
What Effect Has This Had?
The point of all this, according to the government, is to crack down on underground activists. But underground activists already know what they’re doing is illegal, and it hasn’t stopped them. In fact, it may have added fuel to the fire. For instance, the same day the SHAC 7 were convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a website that posted news of both legal and illegal actions, underground activists rescued animals from a vivisection lab and named them Jake, Lauren, Kevin, Andy, Josh, and Darius, after the defendants.
This is from the communiqué:
“And while the SHAC-7 will soon go to jail for simply speaking out on behalf of animals, those of us who have done all the nasty stuff talked about in the courts and in the media will still be free. So to those who still work with HLS and to all who abuse animals: we’re coming for you, motherfuckers.”
What Now?
So if outlandish prison sentences and “eco-terrorism” rhetoric aren’t deterring crimes or solving crimes, what’s the point?
Activists protest eco-terror legislation, and get results.Fear. It’s all about fear. The point is to protect corporate profits by instilling fear in the mainstream animal rights and environmental movements—and every other social movement paying attention—and make people think twice about using their First Amendment rights.
Industry groups say “this is just the starting gun” for the Green Scare. But this could be the starting gun for activists as well. I’ve talked with hundreds of activists around the country over the years. There’s a lot of fear. But there’s also a lot of rage. And that’s a very good thing.
Because today’s repression may mimic many of the tactics of the Red Scare, but today’s response cannot. It’s not enough to cowardly distance ourselves from anyone branded a communist, I mean, terrorist. Naming names and making loyalty oaths didn’t protect activists then, and it won’t protect activists now.
The only way activists, and the First Amendment, are going to get through this is by coming out and confronting it head-on. That means reaching out to mainstream Americans and telling them that labeling activists as terrorists wastes valuable anti-terrorism resources and is an insult to everyone who died in the twin towers. That means reaching out to other activists and saying loud and clear that these activists are just the canaries in the mine.
Together, we can stop they cycle of history repeating itself.
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Are Animal Rights Activists Terrorists?
Activists challenge a federal law that defines a broad range of actions against the animal industry as “terrorism.”
—By Kate Sheppard
*ea*/FlickrIn 2006, Congress quietly passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a sweeping new law that classified many forms of animal rights campaigning as terrorism. Now the law’s critics have taken to the courts to try to kill it. In a case filed last week, five activists argue that AETA violates their rights by criminalizing constitutionally protected actions.
AETA, which replaced an earlier, weaker law called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), prohibits anything done “for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise” or that “causes the loss of any real or personal property.” (The earlier version of the law only covered “physical disruption” to operations.) The law also prohibits “economic damage” to an enterprise, which includes loss of profits and pressure put on any investors or other companies that do business with the animal enterprise. Even the definition of “animal enterprise” is so broad that it could be construed as covering any institution that has a cafeteria selling meat or cheese products, argues Rachel Meeropol, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is backing the plaintiffs in the case filed against Attorney General Eric Holder.
“Basically, the law is saying if you cause an animal enterprise to lose profits, then you’ve committed a terrorist act,” Meeropol says. “The whole point of many protests is to cause a business to lose profits, to convince the public that a certain company doesn’t deserve to be patronized.”
Faced with the possibility of terrorism charges for engaging in many forms of protest, a number of activists have decided to curb their activity.
Sarahjane Blum, the cofounder of the anti-foie-gras group Gourmet Cruelty, is the lead plaintiff in the suit. She has spent years documenting ducks and geese that are too fat to walk or breathe in videos and photographs, posting them online. In 2004, she was charged with burglary for removing birds from a New York farm, though the charge was later downgraded and she was sentenced to community service. Blum, 33, now worries that otherwise legal activities—like picketing a restaurant that serves foie gras or running education campaigns—could lead to her being deemed a terrorist under the AETA. The law’s broad reach means Blum’s no longer comfortable participating in or encouraging much of the work that helped prompt California lawmakers to outlaw foie gras in the state starting in 2012.
“It’s impossible for me at this point to speak freely,” she says. “I feel, and I am, censored. I am censoring myself.”
One federal judge has already endorsed the idea that the government’s use of AETA has been too broad. In 2009, four protesters in California were charged under the law for allegedly chalking a sidewalk, handing out fliers, and engaging in protests at the homes of researchers that use animals. Ronald M. Whyte, a federal judge in California, threw out the charges, finding that they were too vague and included constitutionally protected actions.
The US Department of Justice has used the older version of the law successfully in some cases. In 2004, a group of animal rights advocates were convicted and imprisoned under AEPA. One of the convicted activists, Lauren Gazzola, is a plaintiff in the suit against the updated law. Gazzola, 32, was a US coordinator of an international campaign against animal product testing known as Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. The campaign started in the United Kingdom and targeted the animal testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences, which tests a variety of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and other products on animals. The SHAC campaign gained traction in the late 1990s after undercover video was released showing Huntingdon employees in the UK punching beagle puppies in the face. It eventually expanded to the US to target a Huntingdon facility in New Jersey.
Gazzola worked with other US-based activists to organize demonstrations, write press releases, and run SHAC’s websites, which advocated for and published reports on a variety of protest activity targeting Huntingdon, its employees, and companies that had done business with it. That included publishing the names, addresses, and phone numbers of Huntingdon employees and other people who had done business with the company. The actions SHAC posted on ranged from legal nonviolent protests to property destruction. In its indictment, the government argued that the SHAC website encouraged people to commit violent acts and gave them the information they needed to do so.
In March 2006, Gazzola was found guilty of six felony charges, including stalking and conspiracy to violate AEPA. Gazzola was never personally involved in any illegal protest, she says—just in writing and speaking about protest actions, and posting accounts from people who did engage in those acts. Nor were the other five SHAC activists charged with actually committing violent acts. But government prosecutors made it clear that they believed they were shutting down the activities of a group that promoted terrorist acts. (Mother Jones covered the case in 2006.)
Gazzola served over three years in a federal women’s correctional institution in Danbury, Connecticut, and another five months under supervision at halfway house. She’s now in the middle of three years of federal probation, and for next 20 years, part of her salary will be garnished to pay restitution to the companies her actions affected. She works a communications associate at the Center for Constitutional Rights and is finishing up a graduate degree from Antioch University that she began while in prison.
Although the government locked up Gazzola and other SHAC activists under the the older statute, in 2006 Congress decided to strengthen the law and rebrand it as the “Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.” The new version passed in the Senate in September 2006, where it was touted by cosponsors Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) as necessary to “enhance the effectiveness of the U.S. Department of Justice’s ability to prosecute animal rights extremists.” It passed the House without a roll-call vote several weeks later, and President George W. Bush signed it into law on Nov. 27, 2006.
AETA was passed specifically to cover a broader range of groups and activities than its predecessor, says Will Potter, a reporter who has covered the attempts to classify various forms of activism as terrorism in his blog and book Green Is the New Red. “They’re really trying to scare the hell out of people,” he says.
Gazzola and the other activists involved in the case say they want to resume their work on animal rights campaigns—but not if that means being labeled terrorists. “It’s a real problem when you’re not sure if your protest activity is protected or terrorism,” Gazzola says. “Under AETA, protest and terrorism are conflated. They’re one and the same.”
Kate Sheppard
Reporter
Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter Mother Jones’ Washington bureau. For more of her stories, click here. She Tweets here. RSS | Twitter
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Anti-TSA Activist, Labeled a Terrorist and Corporate Tool, Speaks Out
Inspired by a pilot who refused to submit to one of the TSA’s new full-body scanners or invasive pat downs — and just in time for the busy holiday travel season — George Donnelly and fellow activist James Babb launched WeWontFly.com, helping to draw attention to last week’s “National Opt-Out Day,” where travelers with no option but to fly were encouraged to opt-out of the full-body scan as a way of lodging their discontent.
And for that they’ve been viciously attacked — and not just by the usual bed-wetting right-wingers for whom no infringement of rights in the name of “security” is too much.
Speaking on The View, renowned political thinker and Sister Act star Whoopi Goldberg said Donnelly and Babb ought to be considered terrorists — a sentiment with which her fellow babbling heads readily agreed. The Nation, a stalwart defender of civil liberties during the Bush administration, even published a poor attempt at a hit piece mocking anti-TSA activists for standing up to “evil government oppressors,” suggesting — amid a conspicuous lack of evidence — that they weren’t grassroots activists or concerned citizens at all, but mere corporate tools pushing a nefarious right-wing agenda of privatization and racial profiling.
“I was mildly amused and frankly a little bit disappointed,” Donnelly tells Change.org of his reaction to the piece — an article the magazine’s editor has since apologized for publishing. “I was expecting Jim Babb and I to be cast as … a couple of crazy anarchists trying to wreak havoc in our airports.”
Instead, they were portrayed as pawns of the staid, conservative-minded Koch brothers — the billionaire oil barons and George Soros-like boogeymen of the liberal left — who are better known for sponsoring lectures on monetary policy in Eastern Europe (and basking in their state-enabled riches) than encouraging mass civil disobedience. Then again, as Donnelly notes, it’s not as if the piece’s authors, faux-journalists Mark Ames and Yasha Levine, even bothered to contact him. If they had, as he explains on his blog, they might have discovered that his brand of mutualist-oriented anarchism is more left-wing than right — and a far cry from the pro-corporate ideology backed by the brothers Koch.
But Donnelly isn’t deterred by the attacks. Instead, he’s helping organize another big day of anti-TSA activism on December 23 aimed at encouraging a boycott of flying. And in the meantime, “Everyday is We Won’t Fly Day,” he says, explaining his group’s chief recommendation: don’t fly if you can avoid it. That strategy’s aimed at hitting the airlines in their pocket, the assumption being that once their revenues take a hit they may just become allies in the fight against the TSA’s intrusive — and ineffective — policies.
“Our target right now is the travel industry,” Donnelly explains. “They need to understand how serious this issue is so that they can get on our side here, work with us, and then go up against the government and get them to listen to reason.”
Alternatively, WeWontFly.com recommends travelers opt-out of the full-body scanners and lodge formal complaints with both the government and civil liberties groups if they feel their rights have been violated. At airports across the country, activists are also distributing pamphlets informing passengers of their freedoms as well as copies of the Bill of Rights — the latter a document that, according to George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen, quite clearly makes the TSA’s new tactics not just invasive and annoying, but unconstitutional.
“Unfortunately,” says Donnelly, “to a limited extent [opposition to the TSA] seems to be falling into the Red Team/Blue Team trap at this point.” The tribalistic left, for instance, which would’ve burned effigies of Bush had he been directing the government to grope your grandma — typified by the likes of The Nation’s Ames and Levine (and not to be confused with the principled, non-partisan lefties at Firedoglake) — has begun casting opposition to the TSA’s tactics as much ado about nothing, with liberal blogger Kevin Drum penning a typically condescending, our-betters-are-just-trying-to-keep-us-safe! piece for Mother Jones. And as Donnelly acknowledges, the issue has become something of a cause célèbre among the conservative right, which is of course guilty of its own glaring hypocrisy (see: Jan. 20, 2001 — Jan. 21, 2009).
But it shouldn’t be that way.
“This is not a a partisan issue,” says Donnelly. “This is an issue that affects everyone because we’re being forced to trade our basic human dignity for no additional security.” The debate has been falsely cast as one between privacy and security, he argues, but “right now we don’t have either. This is security theater.”
Photo Credit: We Won’t Fly
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The prison system in the United States is a profit-making industry.
Private corporations operate over 200 facilities nationwide and are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Six corporations control virtually all American media.
News Corp. owns over 27 television stations and over 150 newspapers. Time Warner has over 100 subsidiaries including CNN, Time Magazine, and The CW.
The FBI admits to infiltrating & disrupting peaceful political groups in the United States.
The Womens’ and Civil Rights movements were among those targeted, with their members being beaten, imprisoned, and assassinated.
In 1977 it was revealed that random American citizens were abducted & tortured for research by the CIA.
Project MK Ultra was the code name for a series of covert activities in the early 1950’s.
A plan to attack American cities to justify war with Cuba was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962.
Rejected by President Kennedy, Operation Northwoods remained classified for 35 years.
xjunior #5 makes me think about 9/11 ifeveryoneknew.com 32 days ago · reply · retweet · favorite
mavcunha If Everyone Knew | 5 facts that everyone should know. ifeveryoneknew.com 32 days ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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Question of the day! “Do anti-terrorism laws protect the public or protect corporate profits? “
Well…looking at how the FBI is targeting animal rights activists – it appears anti-terror laws are being used strictly to protect corporate profits – at the expense of the public. A recent Freedom of Information Act request uncovered an FBI file that identifies animal rights activists who snuck into factory farms and videotaped the horrific conditions animals are kept in – as terrorists. That’s right – those who make videotapes exposing animal cruelty – and distribute them to the public are on par with people like Timothy McVeigh and the 9/11 hijackers according to the FBI. Why? Because the FBI argues that actions like these do “economic damage” to farm factories. And under a controversial law passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by President Bush in 2006 known as the “Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act” – you can be brought up on charges of terrorism if you economically damage factories farms by vandalizing property – interrupting or invalidating experiments – or just simply costing a factory farm “profits.” And since videos depicting animals being tortured before they’re slaughtered – and videos depicting unsanitary factories – may cause people to not buy from that particular factory – then the FBI says that these activists disrupted profits and thus are terrorism.
Related articles
- FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists (usapartisan.com)
- Who Is a Terrorist? FBI Says Activists Investigating Abuses at Factory Farms May Be Terrorists (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
- FBI Documents Characterize Farm & Animal Welfare Activists As Terrorists (treehugger.com)
- Expose Factory Farm Abuses? You’re Obviously A Terrorist! (dvorak.org)
- Animal rights activists challenge 2006 federal law (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Animal rights activists challenge 2006 federal law (sfgate.com)
- Animal Rights Activists Sue to Challenge 2006 Law (abcnews.go.com)
- Does This Law Treat Animal Activists Like Terrorists? (huffingtonpost.com)
- Animal Rights Activists Now Considered Terrorists – Filing Lawsuit to Get Their 1st Amendment Rights Back (planetsave.com)
- You: State attorney alleges judicial misconduct in granting Berenson permission to holiday in NY (washingtonpost.com)
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Terrorism Breeds Terrorism 