Will Potter's Blog, page 27

“Ag Gag” Bills and Supporters Have Close Ties to ALEC

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and U.S. Rep. Steve King, ALEC members and Ag Gag supporters.

“Ag Gag” bills targeting undercover investigators of factory farms have been introduced in 10 states in the last year. The nearly identical legislation is no coincidence. The bills, and their supporters, have ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The Ag Gag bills parallel other national efforts by ALEC, such as “Stand Your Ground” legislation, in that they have been promulgated through model legislation, carefully coordinated task forces, and the ability to mobilize ALEC members for key votes. Whereas many ALEC efforts have remained focused on the state legislation, ALEC’s coordinated attacks on the animal rights and environmental movement have also contributed ton the passage of a new federal terrorism law.

Model Legislation

The primary tool used by ALEC is model legislation. Corporations pay thousands of dollars to be members of the group, and in turn they draft model bills which are introduced across the country, all without other lawmakers and the public having any idea of their origins.

One of ALEC’s model bills is the “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act.” The bill is so broad that it classifies non-violent civil disobedience by environmental and animal rights activists as terrorism.

The model bill is tailored to address local issues, and has appeared across the country in various forms since it was drafted in 2003. For example, when it was introduced in Washington state the sponsors focused on “terrorists” who take part in tree sits and non-violent road blockades.

The purpose of this and other model legislation is not necessarily for it to be introduced verbatim: it is to present a “wish list” of legislative language from which state lawmakers can pick and choose to satisfy their constituents. For example, the model bill spells out penalties for undercover investigators that are lockstep with the new “Ag Gag” bills, such as prohibitions against:

(b) entering an animal or research facility that is at the time closed to the public;

(c) remaining concealed in an animal or research facility with the intent to commit an act prohibited by this chapter;

(d) entering an animal or research facility and committing or attempting to commit an act prohibited by this chapter;

(e) entering an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other

means with the intent to commit criminal activities or defame the facility or its owner;

(f) entering or remaining on the premises of an animal or research facility if the person or organization:

(i) had notice that the entry was forbidden; or,

(ii) received notice to depart but failed to do so.

These provisions are the heart of every Ag Gag bill. In some cases, identical legislation has appeared in multiple states. For example, Missouri’s HB 1860 says:

A person commits the crime of agricultural production facility fraud if he or she willfully obtains access to an agricultural production facility by false pretenses or knowingly makes a false statement or misrepresentation as part of an application for employment at an agricultural production facility with the intent to commit an act not authorized by the owner.

Compare this to Iowa’s HF 589, which is the same text with a new format:

1. A person is guilty of agricultural production facility fraud if the person willfully does any of the following:

a. Obtains access to an agricultural production facility by false pretenses.

b. Makes a false statement or representation as part of an application or agreement to be employed at an agricultural production facility, if the person knows the statement to be false, and makes the statement with an intent to commit an act not authorized by the owner of the agricultural production facility, knowing that the act is not authorized.

ALEC’s model legislation originates from what it calls “task forces.” One of these is the “Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force.” Every state where an Ag Gag bill has been introduced, except for New York, has members of this task force:

Florida (2)
Illinois (2)
Indiana (3)
Iowa (9)
Minnesota (1)
Missouri (3)
New York (0)
Tennessee (4)
Utah (3)

Securing Sponsors and Votes

The secrecy of ALEC makes it difficult to know the extent to which any legislation is derived from a model bill. And when they are introduced, lawmakers and the general public have no idea if the sponsor is an ALEC member. Thanks to the document leaks of the Center for Media and Democracy, a long list of verified ALEC members has emerged.

Even from the limited list, it is clear that ALEC members have been absolutely critical to introducing, sponsoring, and bloc voting for Ag Gag bills across the country. Here are a few states where ALEC’s power has been on display:

Minnesota

In Minnesota, House File 1369 was introduced to criminalize production of an “image or sound” of animal suffering in a sweeping list of “animal facilities,” including factory farms, animal experimentation labs, and puppy mills.

The sponsors? Four of the seven are affiliated with ALEC. Rep. Paul Anderson (R-13A), Rep. Steve Drazkowski, and Rep. Connie Doepke are all ALEC members, and Rep. Dean Urdahl denies membership but has said he will introduce ALEC model bills.

Utah

Utah was the second state to approve legislation targeting undercover investigators. HB 187, “Agricultural Operation Interference,” was introduced by the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee.

Rep. Jennifer Seelig is an ALEC member, and a member of this committee that wanted to make videotaping a factory farm the same as assaulting a police officer. [As of April 9, 2012, she has not renewed her membership.]

When the bill came to the full Utah House for a vote, 14 of the 60 yea votes were from known ALEC members. Two of them, Rep. Roger Barrus and Rep. Rebecca Lockhart, are members of the ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force.

The Senate approved the bill by a voice vote, which means there is no tabulation of how each senator voted. However, there are 14 known ALEC members in the Utah Senate.

Tennessee

In Tennessee, the “Ag Gag” bill was introduced by Sen. Dolores R. Gresham, an ALEC task force member.

When it was being considered by the Tennessee Senate, 4 of the 6 votes in favor came from ALEC members.

Iowa: ALEC’s Influence on Display

Iowa Governor Branstad wears his ties to the agriculture industry on his sleeve.

Iowa was the first state to pass one of the recent “Ag Gag” bills. The Iowa Poultry Association says it helped draft the bill, and Iowa State Rep. Annette Sweeney, the most vocal sponsor, is the former executive director of the Iowa Angus Association. Supporters are quite proud of their ties to the agriculture industry (as you can see in these photos), but they also have ties to ALEC.

There are 9 Iowa lawmakers on ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, more than any other state.

Three of these lawmakers are also members of the House Agriculture Committee, where the bill originated (on the Senate side, there are 2 ALEC members on the Agriculture Committee). In their capacity as ALEC task force members, Iowa representatives Betty R. De Boef, Dave Deyoe, Steven N. Olson, are responsible for coordinating model legislation with their corporate counterparts.

As Mike McIntire reported in the New York Times:

Beyond creating model bills, ALEC keeps careful track of state legislation, as well as national issues, and tries to mobilize its lawmaker members to take action. Aides on ALEC task forces keep detailed, color-coded spreadsheets on “good bills” and “problematic bills” in all 50 states, and they regularly send e-mails to alert legislators about ones that ALEC opposes or supports.

This mobilization power of ALEC was undoubtedly on display in the passage of Iowa’s Ag Gag bill. Of the 60 Iowa lawmakers who voted in support of HF 589, at least 14 of them — 23 percent — are members of ALEC.

After the bill passed the House and Senate, it was signed into law by Governor Terry Branstad, who is not only an ALEC members, but who is is praised on the group’s own website for having a leadership role in ALEC’s “formative years.”

ALEC and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

ALEC is best known for its influence on state legislation, and according to the group itself that’s where it wields its power most effectively. However, ALEC members often move on to the U.S. Congress where they continue their relationship with the group.

Some of the most important Congressional players in efforts to label animal rights and environmental activists as “terrorists” are ALEC members. For example:

Rep. Don Young, who publicly speculated in the aftermath of 9/11 that the attacks were the work of environmentalists and called for Congressional hearings on “eco-terrorism.”
Rep. Steve King of Iowa who publicly brags about his war on vegetarians.
Sen. James Inhofe, who has had a hand in multiple versions of “eco-terrorism” bills and hearings over the last 20 years.

The federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act has striking similarities, and at points nearly verbatim language, to ALEC’s model “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act.” The bills are not the same, but that’s not the point: at both the state and federal levels, ALEC’s model bills exist to shape political discourse. They provide the framework for the debate.

The Senate version of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was sponsored by Sen. James Inhofe, a long-time key player in ALEC.

When the bill was introduced in the House, it had 44 cosponsors — of which 7 still work with ALEC.

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is currently the subject of litigation from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which argues that the law is so vague and broad that it wraps up any non-violent activism that harms corporate profits.

Corporate Ties to State and Federal Legislation

The web of connections becomes even more tangled when you examine state and federal lobbying side by side. Some of the same corporations who secretly lobby through ALEC were also involved in forming a secretive lobbying group called the Animal Enterprise Protection Coalition that existed solely to pass the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Pfizer, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline, PhRMA, Boehringer Pharmaceuticals, and the National Pork Producers Council are just some of the ALEC sponsors involved.

This is perhaps the most important salient point to emphasize. Task forces, model bills and voting blocs are among ALEC’s tools, but ALEC itself is a tool in a bigger effort. ALEC’s ability to introduce model legislation and to mobilize its members across the country have been essential in the rise of Ag Gag laws and many other legislative campaigns. Yet ALEC is merely one vehicle among many for corporations to recraft our laws in their image, whether it’s “eco-terrorism” bills or union busting efforts in Wisconsin.

As public outrage against ALEC continues to grow, and as corporations like Coca-Cola, Kraft, and Intuit sever ties with the group, it’s important to recognize the scope of corporate influence on the legislative process. It extends beyond “Stand Your Ground,” beyond pro-fracking bills, beyond state levels bills, and even beyond ALEC to include a political system that is literally being rigged, at every level, to protect corporate profits at the expense of workers, families, animals, and the environment.

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Why Are Environmentalists “Terrorists,” But Anti-Abortion Extremists Are Not?

Anti-abortion extremists and Christian fundamentalists have resorted to physical violence and assassinations in the name of their cause, but it is not investigated as terrorism. Meanwhile, property destruction and civil disobedience by environmentalists is systematically labeled as such by the FBI, Homeland Security and Justice Department.

I spoke with Matt Harwood of Salon about the glaring contradiction. Here’s an excerpt from his excellent piece:

On Tuesday, 50-year-old Francis Grady pleaded not guilty to trying to burn down a Planned Parenthood in Grand Chute, Wis., on April 1. Earlier this month, however, during his first court appearance, Grady sang a different tune, telling the U.S. district judge he did it because “they’re killing babies there.”

An open and shut case of domestic terrorism for the state, it would seem. But curiously Grady is not facing any domestic terrorism charges, once again raising the question of whether the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices apply terrorism laws equally when prosecuting ideologically motivated crimes. While Islamists and animal rights and environmental activists regularly spend years behind bars under terrorism sentences, antiabortion criminals are seldom punished as severely. Grady, it would seem, is the latest antiabortion activist accused of a crime that would be harshly punished if, say, he had done it in the name of Allah or Mother Earth….

Journalist Will Potter, the author of “Green Is the New Red,” which explores how the war on terrorism has been used to stifle dissent and label nonviolent civil disobedience as terrorism, says the perfect illustration of this double standard is the case of Eric McDavid. McDavid was labeled an “eco-terrorist” by the FBI and sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison in May 2008 after the judge applied a terrorism enhancement to his sentence. McDavid was convicted of conspiring to destroy the Nimbus Dam and other targets with two co-conspirators. His defense attorney, however, argues he was entrapped by an FBI informant that he had developed a crush on.

During the trial, jurors were told that “Anna,” the ringleader of the group McDavid belonged to, was not a government agent, thereby precluding them from considering entrapment a legitimate defense for McDavid. After the trial, two jurors wrote letters to the judge expressing outrage when they learned Anna was indeed a government agent.

“My opinion of the case is that the FBI agents were an ‘embarrassment’ by their lack of knowledge of FBI procedures and the way they handled the investigation, specifically by allowing this case to develop the way it did using Anna and providing all of the essential tools for the group; the cabin, the money, the idea, the books, everything, and by letting Anna ‘string Eric along’ when she should have terminated the relationship clearly with him; that the main witness ‘Anna’ was not a credible witness at all,” wrote juror Diane Bennett. Later on in the same letter, Bennett added, “we would have found that he was entrapped” if the jurors knew Anna was a government agent.

Read the full article on Salon.com.

And here are some related articles for further reading on this juxtaposition:

3 Reasons Why Murdering an Abortion Doctor Isn’t Being Called “Terrorism”
If Sarah Palin Were an Animal Rights Activist, She’d Have Already Been Convicted of “Terrorism”

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FBI Seeks Activist “Liaisons” — Agent Says “We Don’t Just Work for Those Big Companies”

FBI agents visited an animal rights activist in Minnesota saying that they “don’t just work” for Big Ag corporations, and that they are in search of activist “liaisons.”

Dallas Rising is the program director for the Animal Rights Coalition, an organization in Minneapolis founded in 1980. She was at work when two people walked into the group’s storefront office. “I thought they were going to try to sell me internet service or something,” she says. Then they flipped their badges and said they were with the FBI.

“The guy said ‘Can I talk to you’ and I said ‘No, you can’t,’” she says. She called her boss to confirm that the group would have nothing to do with the FBI, and then asked them to leave.

The agent, who identified himself as Steve Molesky, told Rising that she didn’t need to talk to them, and that they just wanted to say something to her. According to Rising:

“He said, ‘I understand why you would be reluctant to talk to me and I get that, and we, as the FBI, have close relationships with animal enterprises… but we don’t just work for those big companies, we work for all the people.”

Molesky said multiple times that FBI agents “don’t want to stifle anyone’s First Amendment rights,” and that they want to work with her as a “liaison.”

According to Molesky and his partner, Elizabeth Pauling, who said she is an FBI analyst, this would mean that if anyone approached Rising with information about animal welfare violations, she would tell FBI agents about the place of concern so that they could urge the USDA to conduct an investigation.

“Is liaison a new word for informant?” Rising asked. Molesky said no, and that “if Jack and Jill come to you with information, what a liaison would do is let the FBI know where that farm is, while an informant would let the FBI know who Jack and Jill are.” That way, Molesky said, “your concerns are addressed and nobody needs to break the law.”

The visit occurred a week after two other unusual encounters at the Animal Rights Coalition. Someone had called the office saying he knew about a farm in Wisconsin abusing animals and that he wanted help “to get in there” through an Animal Liberation Front style action, Rising says. And just days earlier, a newcomer to an activist training session was asking other attendees how they feel about blowing up buildings and killing people.

In both cases, Rising said the individuals were immediately told that the Animal Rights Coalition was not involved in illegal activity. But the encounters were surprising to local activists because the group is known for organizing non-violent protests, hosting speakers, and coordinating vegan outreach.

The FBI has a long history of using informants to surveil, harass, disrupt, and entrap political activists. As I’ve documented at length on this website, the heavy-handed tactics of the COINTELPRO era have not disappeared — they have been repackaged as counter-terrorism efforts. This may take the form of threatening activists in hopes they will become informants (as I experienced personally), or attempting to infiltrate vegan potlucks. In the case of Eric McDavid, an undercover FBI informant named “Anna” repeatedly attempted to coerce him and others into illegal activity. He refused, and yet was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison on conspiracy charges.

So is this emphasis on “liaisons” a reflection of a kinder, gentler FBI?

Not likely.

“Ag Gag” bills have been introduced across the country, and passed in Iowa and Utah, targeting undercover investigators who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms. As discussed in my recent interview with a current undercover investigator, these activists are at risk — not for underground, ALF sabotage, but for non-violent investigations affiliated with mainstream organizations.

This new emphasis on using liaisons to find out farm names, at a time when investigators are being targeted for videotaping farms, is certainly noteworthy. Minnesota considered its own “Ag Gag” bill recently, co-sponsored by Representative Rod Hamilton — past president and current member of the Minnesota Pork Producers.

In other words, activists should know that there is no such thing as providing the FBI with innocuous information. Drawing a distinction between a “liaison” and an “informant” is clever, but keep in mind that this is the same FBI that says undercover investigators can be prosecuted as terrorists.

The two FBI agents who visiting Dallas Rising attempted to reassure her that they were only interested in fighting criminal activity and terrorism, and that they would protect her First Amendment rights. Her response?

“I said if you really want to help protect our First Amendment rights, you could help overturn the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.”

Molesky has not returned phone calls for comment.

These FBI agents said they would be “reaching out” to other organizations. If visited by the FBI, know your rights and call an attorney.


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Interview with an Undercover Investigator Who Risks Arrest Under New “Ag Gag” Laws

Multiple states have considered “Ag Gag” bills that criminalize investigators who document animal welfare abuses on factory farms. Iowa and Utah are the latest to approve them. These bills, lobbied for by Big Ag groups, are part of a long line of attempts to blame activists for exposing abuses, rather than hold corporations accountable.

I sat down with an undercover investigator to talk about what it is like doing this work as powerful industries focus their money and political will on putting investigators in prison, and as the FBI says undercover investigators are “terrorists.”

We also discussed what being an investigator has taught her about fear, activist burnout, and connecting social justice issues. Because of her ongoing work, she requested anonymity. We’ll call her “Jane.”

How did you become an undercover investigator? (Did you seek this out? Had you been doing other activism?)

JANE: Since I became vegan I’ve been an activist for animals in different forms. I spent time working and living at animal sanctuaries, helping with national campaigns, and starting an underground vegan pop-up restaurant in my city to bring more people into the fold. I’ve always been interested in investigations but I felt like I wasn’t ready. I can’t really express what changed for me emotionally or psychologically, but the more I thought about it, the more I started realizing that if I had to, I think I could handle the difficulty of the work.

Around that time, I attended the Let Live animal rights conference in Portland, where I met the Director of Investigations with Mercy For Animals. He gave a really in depth talk about investigations and when I approached him later, he told me that he was always hiring for new investigators. Something about that really stuck with me. It occurred to me that I could really do this. I am at a flexible time in my life, no mortgage, no kids, I have the luxury of being able-bodied and energetic. I realized that if this was my window, I had better take it.

How many investigations have you done, and what types?

JANE: Although I can’t divulge specific details, I have completed numerous investigations for various organizations in multiple states and have investigated a wide variety of facilities from industrial sow farms to egg farms, turkey farms and chicken slaughter facilities.

Can you walk us through a typical day when you’re working an investigation?

JANE: Most farm work begins before dawn, which means that I typically have to be up at least an hour before my coworkers to get my equipment ready and drive the distance to work which is usually significant. For my last job, I was waking up at 3:00am every day to be at work by 4:30am. Another job I worked standing on a concrete floor in a windowless warehouse from 6:30am-6:30pm, 6 days a week. While no two jobs are the same, what remains true of every position is that the work is boring and repetitive, tedious and grueling. No matter what job you are doing, you will perform the same tasks every single day, over and over, dozens, hundreds, thousands of times without reprieve. The jobs I’ve had have included shoveling manure, removing dead animals from enclosures, administering vaccines, collecting eggs, picking up placenta, and assisting with artificial insemination.

After a full day at work, I come home and begin my second job — logging my footage and photographs into a spreadsheet and meticulously detailing each event as it appears on film. This can, and often does take hours. Then, with the little time I have left in the day, I’ll take a shower in the hottest water I can stand, call my boss to check in, make some dinner (did you know you can make quinoa in the microwave?), and set up my equipment for the following day. I try to get as much sleep as possible, but the most I’m usually able

to get is around 4 or 5 hours a night. Being an investigator is essentially a 24 hour a day job.

What is the hardest part of your job?

JANE: Easily, one of the hardest part of being an investigator, for me, is knowing that I will likely never be able to save the specific animals I am seeing and touching when I go into work every day, nor will I save the ones who will replace them or even those who replace them. The double-edged sword of investigations is that the work we do affects the industrial agriculture complex on such a large scale that the day-to-day effects on a particular farm are not often immediate.

One of the most validating days of my career was when North Carolina authorities decided to raid a facility I had worked in based on the evidence we had provided to them. Unfortunately, several animals they found were so badly injured and neglected that they were beyond medical help and needed to be humanely euthanized. I was deeply saddened that euthanasia was required, but I almost cried knowing that their suffering was finally over. I was also fulfilled knowing that justice for these animals was being carried out swiftly and tangibly. That’s the most I could ever ask for.

As difficult as it can be to go into work every day and resist the urge to grab armfuls of animals and run, ultimately I know that undercover investigations are altering the landscape of animal agriculture in a way that is so much larger than that which could be accomplished with individual acts of liberation alone. Until recently, investigations also had the benefit of being legal in most states, which is a protection that drew me to the profession, and also why lawmakers and industry officials are working so swiftly to criminalize our behavior.

Are you concerned for your personal safety on the job? (For example, if it is found out that you’re an activist.)

JANE: There is always a certain level of risk involved when we enter a facility, and each of us works hard to mitigate those risks and keep ourselves as protected as possible.

In terms of physical health, factory farms are filthy, dangerous places. I’ve always bragged about how strong my immune system is, but since I’ve become an investigator, I’ve gotten sick immediately in every job I’ve worked, sometimes for weeks on end. I also get sick much easier now and stay sick longer, even when I’m not in a facility. Injuries are commonplace. Some investigators have required trips to the emergency room and have incurred long-term health problems associated with the conditions in their facilities or the nature of the work they were assigned.

The safety risk of being discovered undercover is a constant concern. The best defense is having the verbal skills to diffuse a threat and be skilled enough as investigators to allay suspicion. I’ve heard very few stories of investigators who felt physically threatened by their coworkers. As a woman, however, I do feel as though the risks are inherently higher if I am ever discovered. As many of us in animal protection are aware, the culture that encourages the oppression of animals is often the same culture that encourages the oppression

of women. In every job I’ve had, I have experienced some level of sexual harassment. I’ve had bosses touch me inappropriately, I’ve been warned never to be alone with certain employees, and I’ve been verbally harassed regularly. Whereas the male investigators are risking the possibility of being physically attacked if they are discovered, it has occurred to me that I am additionally risking the possibility of being raped or sexually assaulted.

I have, so far, never felt that I was in imminent danger, but I’m prepared to defend myself if occurs. When I was considering becoming an investigator, this was one of my biggest concerns. I had to do a lot of soul searching to determine whether I was willing to put my body on the line in order to do this job. Ultimately, I determined that I was.

Are there different dynamics at play for investigators who are women?

JANE: Despite the risk of sexual harassment, I actually believe it’s an advantage to be a woman in this line of work. The strict adherence to patriarchal values that is so prevalent inside factory farms has, in some cases, helped me more than it has hurt me, which is in direct opposition to my everyday life and was an uncomfortable transition to make. Because of the expectations placed on my gender, I’m not obligated to perform the same masculine roles that the male investigators often are.

For instance, I’m not obligated to drive a truck or know about guns or sports in order to fit in. I’m not obligated to know how to fix things that break and it’s not always assumed that I am able to perform the most gruesome or physically demanding tasks. Although I resent the rigidity of these roles, I have been allowed to use my status as a woman to make strides within a facility that some men simply can’t make. In that same vein, there are jobs I would simply never apply for because they are jobs that women just don’t do, and even asking for them would arouse suspicion. Similarly, there are certain positions that seem to be staffed almost exclusively by women, so female investigators have been able to gain access to areas that aren’t often seen in certain industries.

Undercover footage has shown institutionalized systems of violence, along with individual workers punching, kicking and tormenting animals. For me there’s a tension between 1) recognizing that the workers do not want to be in such dangerous, violent conditions either and 2) feeling like the people abusing animals are monsters. I don’t really know how to phrase this as a question, but I’m interested in your perceptions of the people you’ve worked with. How do you feel about them?

JANE: This is one of the most difficult questions to answer and is an issue that I think needs to be addressed more meaningfully by the animal rights movement in general. I think there is a tendency to paint the employees of factory farms and slaughterhouses as, at best, apathetic and heartless or at worst, monsters and sadists. I think we owe it to ourselves, and to the human lives that suffer greatly in these places, to advance the dialogue with more nuance and less dogma.

While I have witnessed some truly unspeakable acts of deliberate, hateful cruelty toward animals, the majority of people I work with are as much products of the global culture of speciesism as the average consumer. Most people simply believe that eating animals is a necessary part of human life and that this work is the only way to carry that out. While I don’t excuse the culture, I understand how difficult it can be to see outside of it when you are told that your life and family depend on this way of being. I have had hundreds of hours of conversations with my coworkers and formed some very close friendships with them. They tell me about their families and heritage, they share food with me, we laugh with each other and commiserate about the awfulness of our work. I have also seen some of them perform quiet acts of compassion and kindness toward animals, even if it is coupled with unspeakable cruelty. I don’t hate the

people I work with and I have said as much to activists who suggest that we should. The gray areas of the human condition are vast and complex.

Philosophically, it remains true that human beings are agents of choice and each of us, in theory, has the capacity to “choose” whether to participate in cruelty or abstain. However, we also know that one of the most common tools of oppression is the removal of personal choice and autonomy. The overwhelming majority of people working inside these facilities are people of color and migrant workers who have been told, much like the migrant workers of the early 20th Century, that the only pathway to citizenship or livelihood is from the bottom up, and factory farms are the very bottom of America’s employment sector. The people we are employing to grow and slaughter animals in this country have been told at every turn that they are not in control of how or when they will participate in our society. As activists, I believe we can be doing more to reach out to the people who are struggling for their own rights within these power structures. We really are more alike these workers than we are different, and it’s time to address that within our movement.

I don’t dismiss the fact that people are, and should remain, culpable for their actions. I am not arguing that we excuse the behavior of all marginalized people because oppression absolves one of all wrongdoing. That’s not true and it just as harmful an ideology as the inverse. What I do believe though is that the blame for this culture of cruelty, which we are told must exist for us to continue eating animals, lies less in the individual worker and much more on the shoulders of CEOs and industry leaders who are the ones requiring

that the lines move faster, that more eggs are hatched, more milk pumped and more weight gained as quickly as possible, no matter the consequences. These are the people who are requiring their workers to toil away in filthy, unsafe environments for 10, 12, 15 hours a day with no overtime. These are the people who require that animals be kicked, beaten or thrown if they cannot walk themselves to the slaughter line. These are the people who believe it’s too costly to administer proper veterinary care to sick and injured animals or to safely euthanize them if they require it. These are the people who are spending millions of dollars paying legislators to criminalize our behavior, give themselves immunity, and lie to our faces at the grocery store.

There is no excuse for sadistic, malicious cruelty toward animals, and when we see behavior like that, we address it as such, no question. Ultimately though, our focus lies more on dismantling the power structures responsible for creating these institutionalized forms of violence that the industries have repeatedly defended as necessary for their survival.

The survival of these industries is clearly at the heart of recent “Ag Gag” legislation. Let’s talk a little about how these attacks on undercover investigators have been justified. For example, I’ve seen industry groups claim that footage is “staged” or edited to give a false impression. Could you respond to that line of argument?

JANE: This argument is completely absurd. I received extensive training in the field of investigations, and the overwhelming message throughout is always that we are solely responsible for filming conditions *only* as they would naturally occur in our absence. It is absolutely unacceptable to pressure employees into performing certain actions or to entrap anyone into saying or doing anything, particularly that which pertains to animal abuse. I would be thrilled to enter a facility and be able to tell my boss “No cruelty exists here. I have nothing to document.” The day that happens will be a banner day for animal rights, and I will celebrate

accordingly.

The strength of our work is based in the fact that we move about these facilities silently, without alteration, and allow unadulterated behavior to occur around us that we then bring to the public so that they may judge it for themselves. It’s not in anyone’s best interest for us to manipulate our footage. It doesn’t benefit the animals and it doesn’t benefit our credibility, which is of vital importance in this field. It is in the interest of that credibility that we go to such great lengths to conduct our work in accordance with absolutely every

state and federal law, and are painstaking in our quest to portray actual conditions as they exist and nothing more. I have sat in on editing sessions where we have determined that certain footage, although truthful and accurate, may appear misleading to the public or require heavy contextualization, so we have refused to use it, despite how “shocking” or “salacious” it may be.

More candidly, it’s not like any of us is getting rich off of this work. In fact, more and more, we are becoming the target of deeply troubling government repression which threatens to put all of us in jail for simply exposing the truth as it occurs in our nation’s farms and slaughterhouses. The people whose motives we should be suspicious of are those who do stand to directly profit off of the abuse of animals, which are these industry leaders who would rather allow abuse and neglect to run rampant on their farms than risk a

few pennies on each purchase to provide a higher level of care for the animals and humans that they are responsible for.

If anyone is still doubtful, I would be happy to sit down with them and watch every single minute of unedited footage I have ever shot so that they can see how false this accusation is. Unlike these factory farms, I have nothing to hide.

Along the same lines, I’ve seen some critics say things like “If these investigators cared about animal welfare, they’d report the abuse right away rather than waiting to release these films.” And some of the Ag Gag laws have requirements for this. Why do investigators often wait?

JANE: This is another red herring thrown out by the industry to attack our credibility that, ultimately, doesn’t stand up. The number one reason we wait to publicly release footage is because we are working with law enforcement. In many instances, we are legally barred from releasing footage which might impede a law enforcement investigation into the facility in question. In other cases, we have needed time for animal welfare experts to review our footage and help provide a veterinary and behavioral context for what we are

seeing so that we can better explain it to the public. In some cases, we want to give major grocery or fast food chains the time to review the footage and make meaningful animal welfare policy changes in advance of our release. What people don’t realize is that we often perform multiple releases before the footage actually becomes public. We release to law enforcement, veterinary experts, corporate representatives, and others before finally releasing to the media. These things can take time.

I’ve heard many animal activists say things like “I could never do that. I could never cope.” How do you emotionally process the suffering that you see in front of you, so that you can keep doing the work and also take care of your own mental health?

JANE: The answer to this is different for every single investigator. For me, I have come from a somewhat tumultuous family background which, fortunately or unfortunately, allows me the ability to remain emotionally stable when extremely traumatic events are happening around me. I think about it as a switch that I can turn on and off at will. When I became vegan, I gave myself permission to flip the switch that allowed me to reconnect with my real love and respect for animals. I was finally allowed to feel emotionally connected to the animals that I had been negligently including in my diet, and that alone was enough to compel me deep into animal rights. It’s the same switch that allows many people to pet some animals and eat the rest. Or to claim we are animal lovers when we go to the circus. It’s a matter of cognitive dissonance and we are all better at it than we think. Being an investigator is just a matter of flipping that switch.

Being an investigator is the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life, and I can’t exactly recommend it to everyone. It’s also the most fulfilling job I’ve ever done and one that I wish more qualified people were stepping up to do. At this point in my life, this is the single biggest thing I can be doing for animals and I plan to donate my body to the cause as long as I can. We need more people to do this work, especially now that we are becoming the target of repression and intimidation to stop us from doing it. We can’t let our own fear

stop us before we even start. That is the definition of repression and we do it to ourselves every day when we say we “can’t do this kind of work.” We can and we must.

Avoiding burnout is exactly the same as it is for all activism. You’re no good to the movement if you’re a broken down mess. Take breaks when you need them, meditate, find your form of therapy, exercise a lot, play with some animals, do what you can only when you can do it, stare wistfully at the ocean, buy weird stuff at the grocery store, learn Spanish, finish that book you started reading 8 months ago, call your parents. Forgive yourself.

“Ag Gag” supporters have gone so far as to call your work “terrorism.” How do you perceive these legislative efforts, and how have they affected what you do?

JANE: The most universal truth about activism is also the most difficult to navigate: you only know it’s working when they try to shut you down.

We have learned this time and time again throughout our history. It is this truth that plagued the civil rights movement in the middle of the last century. As their tactics escalated from symbolic gestures of legal dissent like lawful protests and letter writing campaigns, to radical forms of direct action like sit-ins at lunch counters, and illegal filings for voter registration at a time when people of color were not allowed to vote. Civil rights activists used direct action to force the government to openly confront their denial of equal rights to American citizens. These events were the “occupations” of their time. Instead of standing in the protest zone, peacefully requesting that those in power please change their minds, citizens who were being denied their rights took action to forcibly gain control of the dialogue and place their bodies on the line until their demands for equal treatment were met. This is the essence of direct action and it is one of the most significant tools we can employ against our oppressors. We know it works because they are trying to shut it down.

In 2011 alone, several landmark investigations were conducted against some of the largest animal processing companies in the world. In June, an investigation into America’s fourth largest pork supplier, Iowa Select, received international media attention and compelled several American grocery chains including Costco, Safeway and Kroger to cut their ties with the company. In November, an undercover investigation into Sparboe Egg Farms which had been providing eggs to every single McDonald’s restaurant in America west of the Mississippi river, created such a public outcry that McDonald’s immediately dropped the company as a supplier.

These campaigns have been so successful at generating massive consumer boycotts of companies and products that industry lobbyists have desperately attempted to wield state legislatures as a bludgeon in order to fight back. Part of the power of undercover investigations comes from the fact that they are conducted in accordance with all federal and state laws, including those governing employment and the recording of video and audio tape. The fact that such immense damage has been done to such powerful industries through perfectly legal channels, has compelled lobbyists to criminalize that which is not criminal. Enter, the “Ag-Gag” bill.

What is most significant about these bills is that they don’t only send a message to animal activists that their right to free speech comes with an asterisk, but it send a message to even apolitical journalists and whistleblowers, outside the scope of animal activism, that their right to tell the truth is only protected as long as the political winds favor their position. Control the information and then control the media that is used to present it. If these bills pass, the precedent they set would have massive implications for the application of the First Amendment, and specifically, the right to possess and share information in a public setting. These are two very basic freedoms that most Americans take for granted every day, and they are being deeply eroded by the same government officials who have sworn to uphold the document which protects those freedoms in the first place. At almost every turn, the government has tipped its hand and shown that indeed, the fox is guarding the hen house, and meaningful challenges to business as usual will not be tolerated.

As long as our ideas are threatening to those who benefit from exploitation, we will remain a target. This will continue to be true until we can change the very core ideas that allow those systems to thrive. I look back on the civil rights movement and can feel what it must have been like to believe in the sanctity of their ideas, and still be unsure whether society would ever recognize them. I imagine the indescribable joy they must have felt when battles were won, and I imagine the strength and grace of those today who lived through it and arrived on the other side of victory — the right side of history. I have faith that the same can be achieved for the liberation movements of our time, but only if we continue the fight now, when it’s the hardest and bleakest, and when victory seems immeasurably far away.

They are fighting because we are winning, and we are winning because history has already been written in our favor.

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Interview with an Undercover Investigator Who Risks Arrest Under New "Ag Gag" Laws

Multiple states have considered "Ag Gag" bills that criminalize investigators who document animal welfare abuses on factory farms. Iowa and Utah are the latest to approve them. These bills, lobbied for by Big Ag groups, are part of a long line of attempts to blame activists for exposing abuses, rather than hold corporations accountable.

I sat down with an undercover investigator to talk about what it is like doing this work as powerful industries focus their money and political will on putting investigators in prison, and as the FBI says undercover investigators are "terrorists."

We also discussed what being an investigator has taught her about fear, activist burnout, and connecting social justice issues. Because of her ongoing work, she requested anonymity. We'll call her "Jane."

How did you become an undercover investigator? (Did you seek this out? Had you been doing other activism?)

JANE: Since I became vegan I've been an activist for animals in different forms. I spent time working and living at animal sanctuaries, helping with national campaigns, and starting an underground vegan pop-up restaurant in my city to bring more people into the fold. I've always been interested in investigations but I felt like I wasn't ready. I can't really express what changed for me emotionally or psychologically, but the more I thought about it, the more I started realizing that if I had to, I think I could handle the difficulty of the work.

Around that time, I attended the Let Live animal rights conference in Portland, where I met the Director of Investigations with Mercy For Animals. He gave a really in depth talk about investigations and when I approached him later, he told me that he was always hiring for new investigators. Something about that really stuck with me. It occurred to me that I could really do this. I am at a flexible time in my life, no mortgage, no kids, I have the luxury of being able-bodied and energetic. I realized that if this was my window, I had better take it.

How many investigations have you done, and what types?

JANE: Although I can't divulge specific details, I have completed numerous investigations for various organizations in multiple states and have investigated a wide variety of facilities from industrial sow farms to egg farms, turkey farms and chicken slaughter facilities.

Can you walk us through a typical day when you're working an investigation?

JANE: Most farm work begins before dawn, which means that I typically have to be up at least an hour before my coworkers to get my equipment ready and drive the distance to work which is usually significant. For my last job, I was waking up at 3:00am every day to be at work by 4:30am. Another job I worked standing on a concrete floor in a windowless warehouse from 6:30am-6:30pm, 6 days a week. While no two jobs are the same, what remains true of every position is that the work is boring and repetitive, tedious and grueling. No matter what job you are doing, you will perform the same tasks every single day, over and over, dozens, hundreds, thousands of times without reprieve. The jobs I've had have included shoveling manure, removing dead animals from enclosures, administering vaccines, collecting eggs, picking up placenta, and assisting with artificial insemination.

After a full day at work, I come home and begin my second job — logging my footage and photographs into a spreadsheet and meticulously detailing each event as it appears on film. This can, and often does take hours. Then, with the little time I have left in the day, I'll take a shower in the hottest water I can stand, call my boss to check in, make some dinner (did you know you can make quinoa in the microwave?), and set up my equipment for the following day. I try to get as much sleep as possible, but the most I'm usually able

to get is around 4 or 5 hours a night. Being an investigator is essentially a 24 hour a day job.

What is the hardest part of your job?

JANE: Easily, one of the hardest part of being an investigator, for me, is knowing that I will likely never be able to save the specific animals I am seeing and touching when I go into work every day, nor will I save the ones who will replace them or even those who replace them. The double-edged sword of investigations is that the work we do affects the industrial agriculture complex on such a large scale that the day-to-day effects on a particular farm are not often immediate.

One of the most validating days of my career was when North Carolina authorities decided to raid a facility I had worked in based on the evidence we had provided to them. Unfortunately, several animals they found were so badly injured and neglected that they were beyond medical help and needed to be humanely euthanized. I was deeply saddened that euthanasia was required, but I almost cried knowing that their suffering was finally over. I was also fulfilled knowing that justice for these animals was being carried out swiftly and tangibly. That's the most I could ever ask for.

As difficult as it can be to go into work every day and resist the urge to grab armfuls of animals and run, ultimately I know that undercover investigations are altering the landscape of animal agriculture in a way that is so much larger than that which could be accomplished with individual acts of liberation alone. Until recently, investigations also had the benefit of being legal in most states, which is a protection that drew me to the profession, and also why lawmakers and industry officials are working so swiftly to criminalize our behavior.

Are you concerned for your personal safety on the job? (For example, if it is found out that you're an activist.)

JANE: There is always a certain level of risk involved when we enter a facility, and each of us works hard to mitigate those risks and keep ourselves as protected as possible.

In terms of physical health, factory farms are filthy, dangerous places. I've always bragged about how strong my immune system is, but since I've become an investigator, I've gotten sick immediately in every job I've worked, sometimes for weeks on end. I also get sick much easier now and stay sick longer, even when I'm not in a facility. Injuries are commonplace. Some investigators have required trips to the emergency room and have incurred long-term health problems associated with the conditions in their facilities or the nature of the work they were assigned.

The safety risk of being discovered undercover is a constant concern. The best defense is having the verbal skills to diffuse a threat and be skilled enough as investigators to allay suspicion. I've heard very few stories of investigators who felt physically threatened by their coworkers. As a woman, however, I do feel as though the risks are inherently higher if I am ever discovered. As many of us in animal protection are aware, the culture that encourages the oppression of animals is often the same culture that encourages the oppression

of women. In every job I've had, I have experienced some level of sexual harassment. I've had bosses touch me inappropriately, I've been warned never to be alone with certain employees, and I've been verbally harassed regularly. Whereas the male investigators are risking the possibility of being physically attacked if they are discovered, it has occurred to me that I am additionally risking the possibility of being raped or sexually assaulted.

I have, so far, never felt that I was in imminent danger, but I'm prepared to defend myself if occurs. When I was considering becoming an investigator, this was one of my biggest concerns. I had to do a lot of soul searching to determine whether I was willing to put my body on the line in order to do this job. Ultimately, I determined that I was.

Are there different dynamics at play for investigators who are women?

JANE: Despite the risk of sexual harassment, I actually believe it's an advantage to be a woman in this line of work. The strict adherence to patriarchal values that is so prevalent inside factory farms has, in some cases, helped me more than it has hurt me, which is in direct opposition to my everyday life and was an uncomfortable transition to make. Because of the expectations placed on my gender, I'm not obligated to perform the same masculine roles that the male investigators often are.

For instance, I'm not obligated to drive a truck or know about guns or sports in order to fit in. I'm not obligated to know how to fix things that break and it's not always assumed that I am able to perform the most gruesome or physically demanding tasks. Although I resent the rigidity of these roles, I have been allowed to use my status as a woman to make strides within a facility that some men simply can't make. In that same vein, there are jobs I would simply never apply for because they are jobs that women just don't do, and even asking for them would arouse suspicion. Similarly, there are certain positions that seem to be staffed almost exclusively by women, so female investigators have been able to gain access to areas that aren't often seen in certain industries.

Undercover footage has shown institutionalized systems of violence, along with individual workers punching, kicking and tormenting animals. For me there's a tension between 1) recognizing that the workers do not want to be in such dangerous, violent conditions either and 2) feeling like the people abusing animals are monsters. I don't really know how to phrase this as a question, but I'm interested in your perceptions of the people you've worked with. How do you feel about them?

JANE: This is one of the most difficult questions to answer and is an issue that I think needs to be addressed more meaningfully by the animal rights movement in general. I think there is a tendency to paint the employees of factory farms and slaughterhouses as, at best, apathetic and heartless or at worst, monsters and sadists. I think we owe it to ourselves, and to the human lives that suffer greatly in these places, to advance the dialogue with more nuance and less dogma.

While I have witnessed some truly unspeakable acts of deliberate, hateful cruelty toward animals, the majority of people I work with are as much products of the global culture of speciesism as the average consumer. Most people simply believe that eating animals is a necessary part of human life and that this work is the only way to carry that out. While I don't excuse the culture, I understand how difficult it can be to see outside of it when you are told that your life and family depend on this way of being. I have had hundreds of hours of conversations with my coworkers and formed some very close friendships with them. They tell me about their families and heritage, they share food with me, we laugh with each other and commiserate about the awfulness of our work. I have also seen some of them perform quiet acts of compassion and kindness toward animals, even if it is coupled with unspeakable cruelty. I don't hate the

people I work with and I have said as much to activists who suggest that we should. The gray areas of the human condition are vast and complex.

Philosophically, it remains true that human beings are agents of choice and each of us, in theory, has the capacity to "choose" whether to participate in cruelty or abstain. However, we also know that one of the most common tools of oppression is the removal of personal choice and autonomy. The overwhelming majority of people working inside these facilities are people of color and migrant workers who have been told, much like the migrant workers of the early 20th Century, that the only pathway to citizenship or livelihood is from the bottom up, and factory farms are the very bottom of America's employment sector. The people we are employing to grow and slaughter animals in this country have been told at every turn that they are not in control of how or when they will participate in our society. As activists, I believe we can be doing more to reach out to the people who are struggling for their own rights within these power structures. We really are more alike these workers than we are different, and it's time to address that within our movement.

I don't dismiss the fact that people are, and should remain, culpable for their actions. I am not arguing that we excuse the behavior of all marginalized people because oppression absolves one of all wrongdoing. That's not true and it just as harmful an ideology as the inverse. What I do believe though is that the blame for this culture of cruelty, which we are told must exist for us to continue eating animals, lies less in the individual worker and much more on the shoulders of CEOs and industry leaders who are the ones requiring

that the lines move faster, that more eggs are hatched, more milk pumped and more weight gained as quickly as possible, no matter the consequences. These are the people who are requiring their workers to toil away in filthy, unsafe environments for 10, 12, 15 hours a day with no overtime. These are the people who require that animals be kicked, beaten or thrown if they cannot walk themselves to the slaughter line. These are the people who believe it's too costly to administer proper veterinary care to sick and injured animals or to safely euthanize them if they require it. These are the people who are spending millions of dollars paying legislators to criminalize our behavior, give themselves immunity, and lie to our faces at the grocery store.

There is no excuse for sadistic, malicious cruelty toward animals, and when we see behavior like that, we address it as such, no question. Ultimately though, our focus lies more on dismantling the power structures responsible for creating these institutionalized forms of violence that the industries have repeatedly defended as necessary for their survival.

The survival of these industries is clearly at the heart of recent "Ag Gag" legislation. Let's talk a little about how these attacks on undercover investigators have been justified. For example, I've seen industry groups claim that footage is "staged" or edited to give a false impression. Could you respond to that line of argument?

JANE: This argument is completely absurd. I received extensive training in the field of investigations, and the overwhelming message throughout is always that we are solely responsible for filming conditions *only* as they would naturally occur in our absence. It is absolutely unacceptable to pressure employees into performing certain actions or to entrap anyone into saying or doing anything, particularly that which pertains to animal abuse. I would be thrilled to enter a facility and be able to tell my boss "No cruelty exists here. I have nothing to document." The day that happens will be a banner day for animal rights, and I will celebrate

accordingly.

The strength of our work is based in the fact that we move about these facilities silently, without alteration, and allow unadulterated behavior to occur around us that we then bring to the public so that they may judge it for themselves. It's not in anyone's best interest for us to manipulate our footage. It doesn't benefit the animals and it doesn't benefit our credibility, which is of vital importance in this field. It is in the interest of that credibility that we go to such great lengths to conduct our work in accordance with absolutely every

state and federal law, and are painstaking in our quest to portray actual conditions as they exist and nothing more. I have sat in on editing sessions where we have determined that certain footage, although truthful and accurate, may appear misleading to the public or require heavy contextualization, so we have refused to use it, despite how "shocking" or "salacious" it may be.

More candidly, it's not like any of us is getting rich off of this work. In fact, more and more, we are becoming the target of deeply troubling government repression which threatens to put all of us in jail for simply exposing the truth as it occurs in our nation's farms and slaughterhouses. The people whose motives we should be suspicious of are those who do stand to directly profit off of the abuse of animals, which are these industry leaders who would rather allow abuse and neglect to run rampant on their farms than risk a

few pennies on each purchase to provide a higher level of care for the animals and humans that they are responsible for.

If anyone is still doubtful, I would be happy to sit down with them and watch every single minute of unedited footage I have ever shot so that they can see how false this accusation is. Unlike these factory farms, I have nothing to hide.

Along the same lines, I've seen some critics say things like "If these investigators cared about animal welfare, they'd report the abuse right away rather than waiting to release these films." And some of the Ag Gag laws have requirements for this. Why do investigators often wait?

JANE: This is another red herring thrown out by the industry to attack our credibility that, ultimately, doesn't stand up. The number one reason we wait to publicly release footage is because we are working with law enforcement. In many instances, we are legally barred from releasing footage which might impede a law enforcement investigation into the facility in question. In other cases, we have needed time for animal welfare experts to review our footage and help provide a veterinary and behavioral context for what we are

seeing so that we can better explain it to the public. In some cases, we want to give major grocery or fast food chains the time to review the footage and make meaningful animal welfare policy changes in advance of our release. What people don't realize is that we often perform multiple releases before the footage actually becomes public. We release to law enforcement, veterinary experts, corporate representatives, and others before finally releasing to the media. These things can take time.

I've heard many animal activists say things like "I could never do that. I could never cope." How do you emotionally process the suffering that you see in front of you, so that you can keep doing the work and also take care of your own mental health?

JANE: The answer to this is different for every single investigator. For me, I have come from a somewhat tumultuous family background which, fortunately or unfortunately, allows me the ability to remain emotionally stable when extremely traumatic events are happening around me. I think about it as a switch that I can turn on and off at will. When I became vegan, I gave myself permission to flip the switch that allowed me to reconnect with my real love and respect for animals. I was finally allowed to feel emotionally connected to the animals that I had been negligently including in my diet, and that alone was enough to compel me deep into animal rights. It's the same switch that allows many people to pet some animals and eat the rest. Or to claim we are animal lovers when we go to the circus. It's a matter of cognitive dissonance and we are all better at it than we think. Being an investigator is just a matter of flipping that switch.

Being an investigator is the hardest work I've ever done in my life, and I can't exactly recommend it to everyone. It's also the most fulfilling job I've ever done and one that I wish more qualified people were stepping up to do. At this point in my life, this is the single biggest thing I can be doing for animals and I plan to donate my body to the cause as long as I can. We need more people to do this work, especially now that we are becoming the target of repression and intimidation to stop us from doing it. We can't let our own fear

stop us before we even start. That is the definition of repression and we do it to ourselves every day when we say we "can't do this kind of work." We can and we must.

Avoiding burnout is exactly the same as it is for all activism. You're no good to the movement if you're a broken down mess. Take breaks when you need them, meditate, find your form of therapy, exercise a lot, play with some animals, do what you can only when you can do it, stare wistfully at the ocean, buy weird stuff at the grocery store, learn Spanish, finish that book you started reading 8 months ago, call your parents. Forgive yourself.

"Ag Gag" supporters have gone so far as to call your work "terrorism." How do you perceive these legislative efforts, and how have they affected what you do?

JANE: The most universal truth about activism is also the most difficult to navigate: you only know it's working when they try to shut you down.

We have learned this time and time again throughout our history. It is this truth that plagued the civil rights movement in the middle of the last century. As their tactics escalated from symbolic gestures of legal dissent like lawful protests and letter writing campaigns, to radical forms of direct action like sit-ins at lunch counters, and illegal filings for voter registration at a time when people of color were not allowed to vote. Civil rights activists used direct action to force the government to openly confront their denial of equal rights to American citizens. These events were the "occupations" of their time. Instead of standing in the protest zone, peacefully requesting that those in power please change their minds, citizens who were being denied their rights took action to forcibly gain control of the dialogue and place their bodies on the line until their demands for equal treatment were met. This is the essence of direct action and it is one of the most significant tools we can employ against our oppressors. We know it works because they are trying to shut it down.

In 2011 alone, several landmark investigations were conducted against some of the largest animal processing companies in the world. In June, an investigation into America's fourth largest pork supplier, Iowa Select, received international media attention and compelled several American grocery chains including Costco, Safeway and Kroger to cut their ties with the company. In November, an undercover investigation into Sparboe Egg Farms which had been providing eggs to every single McDonald's restaurant in America west of the Mississippi river, created such a public outcry that McDonald's immediately dropped the company as a supplier.

These campaigns have been so successful at generating massive consumer boycotts of companies and products that industry lobbyists have desperately attempted to wield state legislatures as a bludgeon in order to fight back. Part of the power of undercover investigations comes from the fact that they are conducted in accordance with all federal and state laws, including those governing employment and the recording of video and audio tape. The fact that such immense damage has been done to such powerful industries through perfectly legal channels, has compelled lobbyists to criminalize that which is not criminal. Enter, the "Ag-Gag" bill.

What is most significant about these bills is that they don't only send a message to animal activists that their right to free speech comes with an asterisk, but it send a message to even apolitical journalists and whistleblowers, outside the scope of animal activism, that their right to tell the truth is only protected as long as the political winds favor their position. Control the information and then control the media that is used to present it. If these bills pass, the precedent they set would have massive implications for the application of the First Amendment, and specifically, the right to possess and share information in a public setting. These are two very basic freedoms that most Americans take for granted every day, and they are being deeply eroded by the same government officials who have sworn to uphold the document which protects those freedoms in the first place. At almost every turn, the government has tipped its hand and shown that indeed, the fox is guarding the hen house, and meaningful challenges to business as usual will not be tolerated.

As long as our ideas are threatening to those who benefit from exploitation, we will remain a target. This will continue to be true until we can change the very core ideas that allow those systems to thrive. I look back on the civil rights movement and can feel what it must have been like to believe in the sanctity of their ideas, and still be unsure whether society would ever recognize them. I imagine the indescribable joy they must have felt when battles were won, and I imagine the strength and grace of those today who lived through it and arrived on the other side of victory — the right side of history. I have faith that the same can be achieved for the liberation movements of our time, but only if we continue the fight now, when it's the hardest and bleakest, and when victory seems immeasurably far away.

They are fighting because we are winning, and we are winning because history has already been written in our favor.

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Did a Member of Congress Order Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher Into Isolation?

Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher was moved into the Special Housing Unit of FCI Herlong last month, and placed in isolation — a practice that human rights groups have decried as cruel and inhumane treatment and tantamount to torture. After thousands of supporters called the Bureau of Prisons and members of Congress, DeChristopher was released from "the hole." But the question remains: Why was a non-violent prisoner, with no disciplinary history, sent there?

According to DeChristopher's support crew, "Tim was informed by Lieutenant Weirich that he was being moved to the SHU because an unidentified Congressman had called from Washington DC, complaining of an email that Tim had sent to a friend."

In this email, DeChristopher said he was distressed to learn that a major donor to his defense fund was planning on moving jobs overseas. He said he would send a letter to the owners explaining his concerns, and that "this letter will include a threat to wage a campaign against them if they don't reverse course and keep the plants open."

In other words: a member of Congress sought retribution for a non-violent activist promising to protest a corporate supporter.

There's no shortage of politicians who might be concerned about DeChristopher's effective advocacy. So here's an idea: Call your members of Congress and ask them directly if they requested that Tim DeChristopher be placed isolation. Watch this video to learn more…

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“The most effective tactic… has been to turn the activists against each other”

One of the most rewarding aspects of my work has been the opportunity to learn about activist projects around the world, and in some cases contribute in whatever small way I can. A while back I was contacted by a collective of anarchist translators in Spain (you read that correctly — how great is that?) and asked to interview. Here is the result. The translation is available at La Cizalla Ácrata, “Entrevista con Will Potter, autor del libro ‘Green is the New Red.’”

Please, introduce yourself and your book “Green is the New Red”

Hello, everyone. I am an independent journalist based in Washington, DC. My work has been featured in publications including the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, and National Public Radio. The focus of my writing and lecturing is how political activists are being labeled as “terrorists” by corporations and the U.S. government. Green Is the New Red exposes how animal rights and environmental activists have become the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) “number one domestic terrorism threat.” My book is written as narrative, telling the story of some members of the Earth Liberation Front, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and other groups while also investigating how corporations manufactured the idea of “eco-terrorism.”

When we talk about the AETA, the Green Scare… Can we say it has achieved their goal? I mean, have you noticed, there in the USA, that animal rights and eco activists work have deceased since these repressive strategies begun?

This is a very difficult question to answer, because social movements, by their nature, or always changing. However, it is undeniable that these tactics have had a chilling effect, which means that they have made many activists think twice about what they say and do because they are concerned about being labeled a terrorist. That being said, the animal rights and environmental movements in the United States are vibrant and growing. There has been a resurgence of non-violent civil disobedience in protest of climate change, and animal rights activists are using undercover investigations very effectively.

I guess the mass media have supported this kind of repression. How many importance did they have (or are having at the moment) in criminalizing activists? Did some paper, TV channel… show some form of criticism about it?

For the most part, journalists in the United States have failed to critically examine these tactics. I would argue that one of the reasons that “eco-terrorism” became such a threat is that mainstream journalists used this term without questioning the source. In recent months we have seen more and more criticism of laws like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, but for the most part these have not received much attention at all.

As you know, here in Spain some activists have been charged with animal liberation related stuff. They are (or were) all involved with legal campaigning. The comparison with the SHAC 7 or the Austrian activists case is inevitable. Do you think laws like the AETA can have some “copycat” laws in other countries?

Absolutely. Spain, Austria, Finland, and elsewhere are experience similar copycat prosecutions. The corporate-led campaigns to demonize animal rights and environmental activists as “eco-terrorists” have indeed become international in scope. I would argue that this is an example of how these tactics are not “state repression,” as leftists generally describe it, but “corporate repression.” The state may be carrying out these tactics, but only because corporations are seeking to protect their profits around the world.

Which are, in your opinion, the “low points” of the movement which make it vulnerable to repressive attacks like the green scare, the AETA…?

The strategy behind the government’s tactics is fragmentation. In discussing this, I think it’s helpful to visualize social movements as having a “horizontal” and “vertical” component. The intention is to separate these movements horizontally, and create rifts between them and the broader left. Animal rights activists and environmentalists are therefore depicted as ideological extremists who, if they have their way, will stop you from eating meat and driving cars and having pets. There are of course already tensions between these movements and the more traditional left, but campaigns by corporations and politicians intend to exacerbate them. If these movements are not seen as part of a broader social justice struggle, it is easier for other leftist and progressive groups to turn their backs on their repression.

Similarly, there is a campaign to fragment these movements vertically. Aboveground lawful groups are told that they must condemn underground groups, and if they do not they will also be treated as terrorists. This two-prong strategy — breaking these movements away from other social movements, and breaking the aboveground away from the underground — isolates those who are being targeted and intensifies the repression.

So, to answer your question more directly, the most effective tactic for repressing these movements has been to turn the activists against each other, either by pressuring them to become informants or by pressuring them to publicly condemn each other.

In the case of the prisoners who decided to cooperate, did they receive minimum sentences or are they serving similar sentences to the people who decided not to cooperate? Are they receiving any support from the movement?

Their sentences vary, but those who cooperated with the government received comparable prison sentences to those who refused. Some of the cooperating prisoners have received support from a handful of people within the movement, but the majority of the grassroots and “radical” components of these movements strongly oppose supporting them in any way.

Please, let us know which are for you the most notable information sources about repression against activists, green scare… (I mean web pages, zines, books… whatever)

A good overview of the many tactics used against activists throughout U.S. history is Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States by Jules Boykoff. For prisoner information, the Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network runs a great email list with the latest updates.

And of course, www.GreenIsTheNewRed.com has become a clearinghouse of news on these issues. I hope people reading this will also consider checking out my book, Green Is The New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege.

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"The most effective tactic… has been to turn the activists against each other"

One of the most rewarding aspects of my work has been the opportunity to learn about activist projects around the world, and in some cases contribute in whatever small way I can. A while back I was contacted by a collective of anarchist translators in Spain (you read that correctly — how great is that?) and asked to interview. Here is the result. The translation is available at La Cizalla Ácrata, "Entrevista con Will Potter, autor del libro 'Green is the New Red.'"

Please, introduce yourself and your book "Green is the New Red"

Hello, everyone. I am an independent journalist based in Washington, DC. My work has been featured in publications including the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, and National Public Radio. The focus of my writing and lecturing is how political activists are being labeled as "terrorists" by corporations and the U.S. government. Green Is the New Red exposes how animal rights and environmental activists have become the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) "number one domestic terrorism threat." My book is written as narrative, telling the story of some members of the Earth Liberation Front, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and other groups while also investigating how corporations manufactured the idea of "eco-terrorism."

When we talk about the AETA, the Green Scare… Can we say it has achieved their goal? I mean, have you noticed, there in the USA, that animal rights and eco activists work have deceased since these repressive strategies begun?

This is a very difficult question to answer, because social movements, by their nature, or always changing. However, it is undeniable that these tactics have had a chilling effect, which means that they have made many activists think twice about what they say and do because they are concerned about being labeled a terrorist. That being said, the animal rights and environmental movements in the United States are vibrant and growing. There has been a resurgence of non-violent civil disobedience in protest of climate change, and animal rights activists are using undercover investigations very effectively.

I guess the mass media have supported this kind of repression. How many importance did they have (or are having at the moment) in criminalizing activists? Did some paper, TV channel… show some form of criticism about it?

For the most part, journalists in the United States have failed to critically examine these tactics. I would argue that one of the reasons that "eco-terrorism" became such a threat is that mainstream journalists used this term without questioning the source. In recent months we have seen more and more criticism of laws like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, but for the most part these have not received much attention at all.

As you know, here in Spain some activists have been charged with animal liberation related stuff. They are (or were) all involved with legal campaigning. The comparison with the SHAC 7 or the Austrian activists case is inevitable. Do you think laws like the AETA can have some "copycat" laws in other countries?

Absolutely. Spain, Austria, Finland, and elsewhere are experience similar copycat prosecutions. The corporate-led campaigns to demonize animal rights and environmental activists as "eco-terrorists" have indeed become international in scope. I would argue that this is an example of how these tactics are not "state repression," as leftists generally describe it, but "corporate repression." The state may be carrying out these tactics, but only because corporations are seeking to protect their profits around the world.

Which are, in your opinion, the "low points" of the movement which make it vulnerable to repressive attacks like the green scare, the AETA…?

The strategy behind the government's tactics is fragmentation. In discussing this, I think it's helpful to visualize social movements as having a "horizontal" and "vertical" component. The intention is to separate these movements horizontally, and create rifts between them and the broader left. Animal rights activists and environmentalists are therefore depicted as ideological extremists who, if they have their way, will stop you from eating meat and driving cars and having pets. There are of course already tensions between these movements and the more traditional left, but campaigns by corporations and politicians intend to exacerbate them. If these movements are not seen as part of a broader social justice struggle, it is easier for other leftist and progressive groups to turn their backs on their repression.

Similarly, there is a campaign to fragment these movements vertically. Aboveground lawful groups are told that they must condemn underground groups, and if they do not they will also be treated as terrorists. This two-prong strategy — breaking these movements away from other social movements, and breaking the aboveground away from the underground — isolates those who are being targeted and intensifies the repression.

So, to answer your question more directly, the most effective tactic for repressing these movements has been to turn the activists against each other, either by pressuring them to become informants or by pressuring them to publicly condemn each other.

In the case of the prisoners who decided to cooperate, did they receive minimum sentences or are they serving similar sentences to the people who decided not to cooperate? Are they receiving any support from the movement?

Their sentences vary, but those who cooperated with the government received comparable prison sentences to those who refused. Some of the cooperating prisoners have received support from a handful of people within the movement, but the majority of the grassroots and "radical" components of these movements strongly oppose supporting them in any way.

Please, let us know which are for you the most notable information sources about repression against activists, green scare… (I mean web pages, zines, books… whatever)

A good overview of the many tactics used against activists throughout U.S. history is Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States by Jules Boykoff. For prisoner information, the Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network runs a great email list with the latest updates.

And of course, www.GreenIsTheNewRed.com has become a clearinghouse of news on these issues. I hope people reading this will also consider checking out my book, Green Is The New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege.

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Washington Post Front Page Story Features “Green Is The New Red”

The Washington Post‘s Julie Eilperin has a front page story today that offers an excellent overview of the war on “eco-terrorism,” including “Ag Gag” bills, FBI surveillance of environmental protesters, and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

Eilperin questions the two competing messages coming from the FBI and corporations that 1) “eco-terrorism” has been on the decline and 2) it should continue to be a top government priority.

Here’s an excerpt:

Despite the decline in activity [by underground groups], the level of scrutiny has continued, say several who track state and federal enforcement.

“There’s been very little change under the Obama administration,” said Will Potter, author of the book “Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Movement Under Siege.” After factoring in several state initiatives on top of federal enforcement, Potter said, “The political climate as a whole has gotten a lot worse.”

In the past few years FBI agents have suggested District police monitor animal rights protests outside the Vanguard Group’s offices downtown because of its investment in a controversial animal testing facility, and they have mined a Web site, the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, for hints on upcoming activities, according to FBI documents obtained by Ryan Shapiro, an animal rights activist, through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests and other contacts.

Eilperin does a fantastic job connecting the dots between many examples, and I hope you’ll read the full story. I’ve been covering these issues for more than a decade, as critical reporting on the topic has been completely absent from the mainstream press. This coverage on the front page of the Washington Post is yet another example of how that dialogue is quickly changing. Please share!

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Washington Post Front Page Story Features "Green Is The New Red"

The Washington Post's Julie Eilperin has a front page story today that offers an excellent overview of the war on "eco-terrorism," including "Ag Gag" bills, FBI surveillance of environmental protesters, and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

Eilperin questions the two competing messages coming from the FBI and corporations that 1) "eco-terrorism" has been on the decline and 2) it should continue to be a top government priority.

Here's an excerpt:

Despite the decline in activity [by underground groups], the level of scrutiny has continued, say several who track state and federal enforcement.

"There's been very little change under the Obama administration," said Will Potter, author of the book "Green is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Movement Under Siege." After factoring in several state initiatives on top of federal enforcement, Potter said, "The political climate as a whole has gotten a lot worse."

In the past few years FBI agents have suggested District police monitor animal rights protests outside the Vanguard Group's offices downtown because of its investment in a controversial animal testing facility, and they have mined a Web site, the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, for hints on upcoming activities, according to FBI documents obtained by Ryan Shapiro, an animal rights activist, through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests and other contacts.

Eilperin does a fantastic job connecting the dots between many examples, and I hope you'll read the full story. I've been covering these issues for more than a decade, as critical reporting on the topic has been completely absent from the mainstream press. This coverage on the front page of the Washington Post is yet another example of how that dialogue is quickly changing. Please share!

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