Will Potter's Blog, page 16

Will Potter Speaking in Madison: Criminalizing Activism

I’ll be speaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Tuesday, December 3rd at 6pm. The event is titled “Criminalizing Activism: From the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act to Ag-Gag” and it is sponsored by the UW Animal Rights Society and the Madison Infoshop, with support from Associated Students of Madison.

Here’s the Facebook event page. Hope you can make it!

Spanish Edition of “Green Is the New Red,” and Speaking Events in Madrid and Barcelona!

I am so excited to announce the Spanish translation of Green Is the New Red, published by the excellent Plaza y Valdés Editores!

Los Verdes Somos Los Nuevos Rojos: Una Mirada Desde el Interior de un Movimiento Social Acosado is available for pre-order now (or by emailing tienda@igualdadanimal.org). And the proceeds benefit Igualdad Animal.

I’m so thankful for the team of translators who volunteered to make this project a reality. The content and style of the book made that task even more difficult for them. This translation only happened because people support this work and volunteered their own time and energy to help raise awareness. I can’t thank them enough.

I’ll be in Spain very soon for the book release:

November 23, 2013 — Madrid

6pm, La Casa Encendida (Ronda de Valencia, 2)

November 24, 2013 — Barcelona

6pm, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

This corporate backlash against the animal rights and environmental movements is spreading internationally, but so is the solidarity between social movements around the world.

Meet the FBI’s Worst Nightmare

My new article is up at Mother Jones: “Meet the Former Punk Rocker Who Can Liberate Your FBI File.”

It’s about Ryan Shapiro, a Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who developed a FOIA technique so effective at unburying sensitive documents that the feds are asking the courts to stop him.

Check out the full article on Mother Jones!

Reporters Committee Weighs in on #AgGag Fight

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has an excellent article in their magazine, The News Media and the Law, about efforts by Big Ag to criminalize photography and video of factory farms, and what this means for journalists.

I’m part of a lawsuit challenging Utah’s ag-gag law, along with Amy Meyer (the first person prosecuted under ag-gag), PETA, and others.

As Jeff Zalesin writes in his piece:

“These laws do not exempt journalists, because journalists are seen as part of the threat to this industry,” he said.

As a reporter, Potter said, he could face prosecution for going undercover on a farm in an ag-gag state, either alone or accompanied by an activist.

“More broadly, though, ag-gag puts my sources at risk of prosecution for speaking with me or providing me their footage,” he added. “No journalist should have to choose between not reporting a story that is of national concern and putting a source in jail.”

Check out the full article at The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It’s a great overview of this First Amendment fight.

Camo Shorts Under Our Suits

Last week my friend Greg Bennick — who you probably know either through his spoken word tours, 100 for Haiti, or singing for hardcore bands Trial and Between Earth & Sky — had me on his podcast. He also took me metal detecting and gave me a little bag of vegan chocolate chip cookies when I had to spend a day reporting at the court of appeals. Solid dude, that Greg Bennick. The podcast was great fun, and we also managed to stop being goofy for small periods of time to have what I think was an excellent discussion about political identities, social movements, the War on Terrorism and the nature of state power. Oh, and treasure hunting.

Check it out:

Spying on Democracy

It’s about time someone reverses the spy lens, and exposes the corporations and government agencies behind a new wave of surveillance. In her new book Spying on Democracy, Heidi Boghosian draws on her extensive legal and activist experience to document a web of surveillance stretching between private industry and the state. It’s a chronicle of rogue spy operations, but it’s also a damning indictment of how our privacy rights are violated in ways that are shockingly legal. The material here is unsettling, but Boghosian’s message is not that we should attempt to hide in the shadows; it’s that we must be out front, loud, and on the side of the journalists and dissidents whose rights are most threatened.

Check out her recent interview with Bill Moyers.

I’ll be joining Heidi Boghosian at Busboys and Poets bookstore in Washington, DC to discuss these issues, and answer the question: If you’re not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone is watching you?

Wednesday, November 20th, 6:30 pm
Washington DC: Busboys and Poets Bookstore
http://bbpbooks.teachingforchange.org/book/9780872865990

Heidi Boghosian discusses Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance. She’ll be joined by Will Potter, author of Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege. Both books are published by City Lights.

Busboys and Poets is located at 2021 14th Street NW in Washington DC.

For more information, contact Don Allen at dallen@teachingforchange.org or call the store at 202-387-7638 (POET).

The event is cosponsored by Busboys and Poets, Teaching for Change, City Lights, Nader.org, and GreenistheNewRed.com

14 Incredible Photos of Brazilian Activists Liberating Beagles from Cruel Lab

Animal rights activists in Brazil rescued nearly 200 beagles last week from a laboratory that was experimenting on the dogs for the pharmaceutical industry.

According to one activist I spoke with in Brazil, the protest began with about 40 people outside of Instituto Royal in San Roque because the lab had been accused of animal cruelty. As the crowd grew to about 150 people, they could hear the cries of the dogs. Some activists entered the building, opened the cages, and began rescuing them.

Nearly 200 dogs were immediately taken to veterinary clinics in the area. They were found in filthy conditions. Some of them were mutilated and other had tumors. One dog had no eyes.

Since the rescue, Instituto Royal has been shut down pending a government investigation. The lab says that even if police recapture stolen beagles, they will be put up for adoption.

Yet, following the lead of the U.S. animal testing industry, the lab is also saying saying that the open rescue was an act of terrorism.

Does this look like terrorism to you?

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Over 300 beagles were rescued from #institutoroyal last night Sign the petition, stop cruelty http://t.co/3PJRGih6Wi pic.twitter.com/fy4PkqhApv

— Erica Räth-Prado (@tropicalgothic) October 18, 2013

 

You can find out more about the campaign to shut down animal testing in Brazil at the group’s Facebook page.

FBI Investigated PETA for Anthrax Plot Based on Rumors

The FBI believed that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) might be planning the release of anthrax in Maryland, and in the late 1990s opened an investigation into the animal rights group based on rumors.

“Part of PETA’s long-range plan is to infiltrate by gaining employment with various research facilities,” one of the document says. “PETA intends to create an incident… that would benefit their cause. PETA intends to cause a release of anthrax.”

The FBI said a source reported that PETA had moved its offices from Maryland to Norfolk, VA, in order to distance itself from the anthrax. The documents also say a source told the bureau that a PETA operative got a job at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, in order to “orchestrate the anthrax release.” The FBI checked out the lead about the facility, which tests on animals, and found no one by that name.

So how did such outlandish claims gain any traction? According to the documents, a U.S. Army official learned from a reserve army officer, who in turn heard it from an “associate,” and that associate had an “unknown contact within the PETA organization.”

The six degrees of separation reasoning proved completely unfounded.

“It seems the FBI is bent on making those of us who have nothing to do with terrorism fit into its paranoid jigsaw puzzle,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk told the Virginia Pilot.

Nothing like this plot has ever happened, of course. In the history of the U.S. animal rights movement, no human being has ever been injured, according to the FBI.

Meanwhile, groups who actually have plotted to release anthrax are consistently not investigated as terrorists.

The FBI’s own office of Inspector General has criticized the bureau’s history of spying on PETA. In a report titled “A Review of the FBI’s Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups,” the inspector general found there was “little or no basis” for the terror investigations, and they were “unreasonable and inconsistent with FBI policy.”

Another inspector general report, in 2003, skewered the FBI’s focus on animal rights and environmental activists. It said: “We believe that the FBI’s priority mission to prevent high-consequence terrorist acts would be enhanced if the Counterterrorism Division did not have to spend time and resources on lower-threat activities by social protestors.”

In other words, these repeated attempts to link protesters with fabricated plots is directly putting public safety at risk.

 

 

Prisoner Sent to Solitary for Having “Copious Amounts of Anarchist Publications”

An inmate in Illinois has been in solitary confinement since July for possessing “copious amounts of Anarchist publications” and “handwritten Anarchist related essays,” according to prison documents.

Mark “Migs” Neiweem is a prisoner at the maximum security Pontiac Correctional Center who, in addition to the publications and his writings about the prison industrial complex, was also found in possession of anarchist symbols including a “Circle A” and “Circle E” (the latter, which stands for equality, is described in prison reports as representing “class warfare, the 99%”).

“I’ve been doing this work since 1979 and I can’t think of another case where someone has gotten a disciplinary report for something so obviously political as this,” said Alan Mills, who is Neiweem’s lawyer and a professor at Northwestern University…

Read my full story at VICE.

U.S. Army Lists Earth First! as Terrorist Threat Alongside Al-Qaeda

A U.S. Army training manual that instructs troops how to recognize terrorist organizations includes environmental groups like Earth First!, and lists the Animal Liberation Front alongside al-Qaeda.

The declassified manual was created by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, which says “This handbook is designed to specifically provide trainers, leaders and soldiers a ‘hip pocket’ reference to identify all the known logos used by insurgents, terrorists, paramilitary and other militant groups worldwide.”

Among the listings are a page on “Environmental Terrorists,” with images of Earth First! t-shirts and patches, and “animal liberation” t-shirts that have been sold by national non-profits since the 1990s.

Other terrorism threats identified in the United States include the Weather Underground, which dissolved in the 1970s.

The 60+ page guide does include information on groups which, unlike Earth First!, have actually murdered people. However, this training guide offers no information on the types of threats these groups pose, and in doing so presents non-violent activists as violent threats. For example, one page on terrorism groups in the United Kingdom lists the Animal Liberation Front side-by-side with Al Qaeda.

As Ali Abunimah notes at ElectronicIntifida.net notes, the guide also conflates insurgent groups with entire communities:

on page 31 of the army guide itself, a simple Palestinian flag appears next to the name “Abu Nidal Organization (Sunni).”

The group, notorious in the 1970s, is designated as “inactive” by the US Department of Homeland Security-funded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland…

In any case, even if the Palestinian flag were indeed the logo of any specific organization, the guide provides no warning or caveat that the Palestinian flag by itself should not be “recognized” as the symbol of a “terrorist, insurgent or militant” group given its global recognition as the flag of a country.

What’s especially troubling about a guide like this is that it is created “to assist units in identifying groups by their logos found in videos, magazines, newspapers, graffiti and other types of media.” In other words, it’s meant to be a cipher for decoding First Amendment activity that might be created by “terrorists.”

This has real-world consequences, as groups like Earth First! are putting their bodies on the line through tree sits, road blockades, and non-violent civil disobedience to stop environmental destruction. The Marcellus Shale campaign against fracking is just one example. Teaching military and law enforcement that these activists are on par with al-Qaeda, and that anyone who wears this logo is part of that threat, could have dangerous consequences.