Will Potter's Blog, page 32

Discussion of Government Surveillance of Activists with Will Potter, Former FBI Agent, ACLU and More

I was on Austin's KOOP radio a while back, and had a great discussion about the FBI's use of surveillance, infiltration and informants within social movements with Colleen Rowley (retired FBI agent), Michael May (Texas Observer managing editor), Debbie Russell (ACLU of Texas) and Scott Crow (author of Black Flags and Windmills).

You can listen to the program and download it here. Thanks to Allan Campbell for having me on the program.

Before Direct Action Was "Eco-terrorism" It Was "Ecotage"

The history of the animal rights and environmental movements has been poorly documented by the mainstream press. The stories of these movements have overwhelmingly been ignored, and when they've been reported by newspapers or television networks, it has been through the lens of corporate and government officials. The best, and sometimes only, documentation of these movements has come from activists themselves.

Zines, leaflets and newspapers are fragile by nature, though, and activist turnover (combined with FBI raids) has made them increasingly rare. Josh Harper and the crew of ConflictGypsy.com have set out to create an online archive of these publications, preserving the history of protest movements for animal rights and environmentalism.

I was thrilled to be asked to write a guest blog post about a classic publication, Ecotage. It was published in 1971, when many of the tactics now considered "eco-terrorism" were merely considered pranks or "ecotage." In this post I discuss how corporations orchestrated a change in government policy by wielding the power of language. However:

Ecotage should serve as a reminder that there is nothing inevitable about this. The FBI labels "eco-terrorism" the "number one domestic terrorism threat," but public support is not, and has never been, with the corporations destroying the environment; it's with those trying to stop them.

Head over to ConflictGypsy and read the full post, then check out the rest of the archives. As a warning, though, the massive amount of cool stuff on that site will suck you in before you know it.

Monthly Review: "Environmental Justice and the Criminalizing of Dissent"

Monthly Review, a socialist magazine, has a posted a thoughtful review/discussion of my book by Paul J. Comeau. It's wonderful to see these issues being discussed in increasingly diverse circles. Here's an excerpt:

It is a chilling thought that these laws, which criminalize the protest of the animal industry as "terrorism," are only a breath away from being reconstituted into laws criminalizing protests of any and all corporations, no matter how grossly irresponsible or harmful their actions may be in their endless drive to increase profit. It is hubris like this that destroys not only acres of forests and kills innocent animals, but also disrupts whole economies and drives thousands out of work and out of their homes, while simultaneously criminalizing any challenges to these practices.

You can read the full review here.

 

Finland Prosecutes Animal Activists for Undercover Videos Exposing Factory Farms

As animal rights activists continue to expose the systemic cruelty of factory farming, the industries targeted are doing everything they can to keep the public in the dark. I've written previously about attempts to pass new legislation criminalizing undercover investigations, how EUROPOL lists undercover videos as a terrorism threat, and how Spanish activists are being prosecuted as "terrorists" for their work. Now, two activists in Finland are being prosecuted for exposing what goes on behind closed doors at 30 pig farms. Mikko Alanne wrote at the Huffington Post:

In December 2009, Finnish media outlets stunned the nation by publishing disturbing video and photographs from inside 30 pig factory farms, the result of a two-month undercover investigation by the leading Finnish animal rights group, Justice for Animals. You can see the images and videos here.

Sights of injured, dead, and dying pigs outraged a country whose factory farmers had always touted their "humane" practices. Members of Parliament and even agribusiness representatives condemned what they saw. Police investigations were promised. There were even calls for the Minister of Agriculture to resign (she didn't).

Now, almost two years later, the events have taken a truly incredible turn.

Instead of charging a single pig factory farmer with cruelty to animals, Finnish authorities are prosecuting the two activists who made the undercover videos, Karry Hedberg and Saila Kivelä. The charges are "aggravated defamation" of the nation's pig farmers and "disturbing the peace."

Check out the rest of Mikko Alanne's excellent article here.

 

 

The Lexington High Security Unit

I spoke at the Baltimore Book Festival the other day, on a panel examining tactics the government has used against social movements throughout U.S. history. For my portion of the panel, I argued that we, as a culture, often regard periods of government repression as having an inception and a conclusion. They are finite eras, "mistakes of the past" or "dark chapters of our history." A more accurate assessment is that the backlash against social movements is constant; it exists on a continuum, sometimes with peaks or valleys, but a constant presence nonetheless.

For instance, it's striking just how little the tactics of repression have varied from one era to the next. Dominique Stevenson (co-author of Marshall Law: The life and times of a Baltimore Black Panther) echoed this in her portion of the event. Unfortunately Susan Rosenberg wasn't able to attend because of a family emergency, but her experiences offer another salient parallel.

Rosenberg worked with many radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and had been sought as an accomplice in the prison break of Assata Shakur. In 1984, she was charged with possession of explosives and weapons and sentenced to 58 years in prison. It was the longest sentence ever for such a charge, and the disproportionate treatment was clearly due to her political beliefs. She served 16 years in prison, and her sentence was commuted in 2001 by President Clinton.

For part of her sentence she was imprisoned in the Lexington High Security Unit. In Green Is the New Red I discuss the HSU in the context of modern-day Communications Management Units. Here's an excerpt:

The government has reason to be secretive about this program [Communications Management Units], because similar experiments have not been well received by civil rights and human rights organizations. The Bureau of Prisons has a history of operating pilot programs outside the confines of the Constitution.

For example, the High Security Unit in the federal women's prison in Lexington, Kentucky, was created in the 1980s to house political prisoners belonging to an organization that, according to the Bureau of Prisons, "attempts to disrupt or overthrow the government of the U.S." The Lexington HSU existed belowground, in total isolation from the outside world and with radically restricted prisoner communications and visitations. The women were subjected to constant fluorescent lighting, almost daily strip searches, and sensory deprivation. The purpose of these conditions, according to a report by Dr. Richard Korn for the ACLU, was to "reduce prisoners to a state of submission essential for ideological conversion." The Lexington HSU was closed in 1988 after an outcry by Amnesty International, the ACLU and religious groups.

CMUs are not the same as the Lexington HSU. In some ways they are less severe, in some ways they are more pernicious. The danger they both pose is that they are extensions of a parallel legal system that are established for political prisoners outside the confines of the Constitution.

You can learn more about Susan Rosenberg in her excellent book, An American Radical: A political prisoner in my own country.
You can learn more about Communications Management Units here. Daniel McGowan is currently imprisoned in a CMU. Please consider writing and supporting him.

Veg News: "If you read one book in 2011, make it this one."

VegNews, one of the most popular vegetarian/vegan magazines, has a great review in the current (Sept-Oct) issue. Green Is the New Red is the editors' pick:

"Journalist and blogger Will Potter's Green Is the New Red reads like a spy-thriller novel and would be much more enjoyable if it were. Green is an expertly detailed, 100-percent factual account of how corporate interests created the term 'eco-terrorism' in the 1980s, then led the march to the passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that criminalizes and characterizes First Amendment free speech as terrorism. Potter makes a compelling argument that what's happening in the 21st century to environmental and animal advocates is a replay of Joseph McCarthy's communist 'red scare' of the 1950s. If you read one book in 2011, make it this one. Then act."

You can order a signed copy from this site or from Amazon.

Tim DeChristopher's Prison Address

Tim DeChristopher has been transferred to the prison where he is expected to do his time. How about writing him a letter of support?

Tim DeChristopher

#16156-081

FCI Herlong Federal Correctional Institution

PO Box 800

Herlong, CA 96113

USA

Here's some information from Peaceful Uprising about writing him.

Sometimes folks tell me they're nervous writing prisoners, because they don't know them personally and don't know what to say. Don't be! Tell a joke, describe something interesting you read recently, ask a question, draw a picture… anything you think might take their mind off their surroundings, if even for a moment. Now go write!

International Message to the Spanish 12 from Hundreds of Animal Rights Activists (Video)

This was filmed at the national animal rights conference in Los Angeles this summer, for the international day of solidarity with the Spanish 12. (Here's some background on the Spanish activists arrested as "terrorists.")

Hundreds of American activists sent the very clear message that activism is not terrorism. Free the Spanish 12!

Be sure to watch the whole thing for a surprise at the end. Click through for the video…

Thank to Adam, Michael and Alex at FARM for the great idea! Please consider making a donation to support the legal costs of the Spanish 12.

Baltimore Book Festival: Panel Discussion on Government Repression of Activism

I'll be speaking at the Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday, September 25th on a panel looking at state repression across social movements. It should be a great discussion, with Susan Rosenberg (author of An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country) and Dominique Stevenson (co-author of Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther). It has been organized by the kind folks at Red Emma's bookstore. If you're in the area, I hope you can make it! Here's the event page on Facebook.

From Tim DeChristopher to Tar Sands Protests, the Environmental Movement Steps Up Civil Disobedience

One month ago, environmental activist Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in prison for non-violent disobedience. The sentence was harsher than those handed down to people who burned churches and threatened black leaders. It was a sentence intended — like so many disproportionate sentences against activists — to send a message. But what message?

Environmental activists could have responded to this case in the way that corporations and politicians (who called DeChristopher an "eco-terrorist") had intended. They could have scaled back their organizing to only milquetoast tactics that are 100% "safe"; they could have responded with fear.

Instead, we're seeing something quite different as attention has shifted to the creation of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would draw oil from that tar sands of Canada to East Texas (this NPR story has a good overview). Already, more than 800 people been arrested for non-violent civil disobedience in Washington, D.C. Some of the arrests that have made headlines have included a top NASA climate scientist, Jim Hansen.

What has been even more inspirational is the response of young people who have been radicalized by both the sentencing of Tim DeChristopher and the Obama administration's deference to corporate interests. A letter from student groups and youth leaders at the Tar Sands Action said in part:

Big corporations are using their financial influence to corrupt our democracy and deepen their pockets at the expense of Americans. And it's not just related to energy and the environment; they are threatening the very foundations of our democracy, working to disenfranchise voters, attack workers' rights and the middle class…The Keystone XL decision is a significant test of President Obama's commitment to our generation, but it's not the only one.

The letter astutely taps into what is so significant about the mass civil disobedience taking place in Washington right now. It has drawn national attention to a dangerous, misguided plan that President Obama should shut down. More broadly, though, I think these 800+ arrests  represent something bigger than this particular campaign. As Tim DeChristopher recently wrote from prison: "By its very nature, civil disobedience is an act whose message is that the government and its laws are not the sole voice of moral authority. It is a statement that we the citizens recognize a higher moral code to which the law is no longer aligned, and we invite our fellow citizens to recognize the difference."

I would go even further: the government is not the sole voice of moral authority, and it is not any voice of moral authority. I don't think most Americans would even consider that a radical statement at this point. Do you? We've watched bankers get bailouts while the environmental crisis worsens and unemployment increases. I think we need to remind ourselves that this is a sentiment that environmentalists in D.C. understand just as viscerally as pissed off Texans.

For more information and to get involved, visit Tar Sands Action and  Rising Tide North America.