Green Scare / AETA 4 updates

---------------Via Freedom Archives Political Prisoner News------------

Surge in government repression: FBI visits, warrants, more

by Voice of the Voiceless ( info [at] voiceofthevoiceless.org )
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/31/18657228.php


Tuesday Aug 31st, 2010 1:30 AM

A roundup of recent FBI visits, subpoenas, and other government assaults on the animal liberation movement

A roundup of recent FBI visits, subpoenas, and other government assaults on the animal liberation movement:

New AETA 4 DNA warrant

This week, Joseph Buddenberg of the AETA 4 was the target of a warrant for his DNA. A quote from the agent who authored the affidavit:

"I believe probable cause exists that Buddenberg was involved in the February 24, 2008 altercation at the L.H./J.R. residence in Santa Cruz.... The samples from the bullhorn found in Khajavi's vehicle will yield evidence that Buddenberg was involved in force, violence, and threats involving animal enterprises, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 43 & 371"

Read the full affidavit here.

Buddenberg submitted himself to FBI agents this week, who took four swabs of DNA.

While the AETA 4 indictment was recently thrown out, this recent government offensive indicates the case is not yet over. The case , if continued, stands to be a precedent-setting Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act case with implications for all activists.

Carrie Feldman Re-subpoenaed

Last week, Carrie Feldman was approached by FBI agents in Rock Island, IL, and handed a subpoena,ordering her to testify at the trial of Scott DeMuth. DeMuth is charged with a conspiracy role in the A.L.F. raid of the University of Iowa, in which 401 animals were rescued. The trial is set to begin on September 13th.

Feldman was previously jailed for four months after refusing to testify to the grand jury investigating the Iowa raid.

FBI visit

The FBI reportedly visited a former east coast activist last week, inquiring about an animal rights activist in Utah. The questioning appears to be related to the recent raid of an activist house in Salt Lake City.

Rod Coronado sent back to prison

Rod Coronado has been sentenced to four months in prison for a probation violation. A judge found him guilty of adding well-known Earth First! co-founder Mike Rosselle as a friend on Facebook, which the judge found violated his probation conditions. The conditions bar Coronado from associating with anyone involved with Earth First. He was also found to have used a computer which was not approved by the probation department.

Another FBI Visit

An activist in Minneaoplis was approached by two FBI agents at a gas station August 16th. The report does not specify what the agents were investigating, or what information was sought. The person refused to speak to them, and drove away. Read the full report below.

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Here’s what I recall about my encounter with the FBI today: I was topping off a full tank of gas at the Holiday Gas Station in Plymouth (Rockford Road and HWY 169) at 10:28am this morning when two FBI agents approached me. They identified themselves. One was heavset with dark short hair. The other was skinnier with a goatee and shorter dark hair. The skinnier agent did all the talking. I mostly ignored their presence by looking at them and stating, “I have nothing to say to you guys.” I then hung up my gas pump and walked into the Holiday Gas Station to pay. The two agents followed me as I walked across the parking lot to pay inside the gas station. They stopped at the door and waited for me when I went inside to pay.

After I paid and exited the building, the two agents followed me to my vehicle. They were persistenly asking me to cooperate with them and repeatedly mentioned that they wanted to give me an “opportunity.” Again, I ignored their presence as I walked to my vehicle, opened my door, and drove away. It was 10:32am when I left the parking of the gas station. To my knowledge, they did not follow me.

They were standing by a red (metallic red) four door (pontiac?) with licence plate # MNB 615 (or a combination of those letters and numbers).

Dialogue I remember them saying to me as I was ignoring them:

“Dominoes are starting to fall all around,” and “we want to give you an opportunity,” and

“it would be shame if you didn’t talk to us.” My daughter was concerned because she heard them say the word “kids” when I was getting into the car and shutting the door. I don’t know what exactly they said, but it was probably something to push my buttons. My two children were with me when the agents approached me today. All three of us are fine now.

Feel free to pass this info on to any lists or groups that you wish.

Dr. Toxic

If you have been conctacted by he FBI, call the National Lawyers Guild Green Scare Hotline at: 1-888-NLG-ECOL.

- Peter Young
http://www.voiceofthevoiceless.org/

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Indictment of AETA 4 unconstitutional. YAY!

Note that state charges can still be brought, though...

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Animal Rights Activists Win Dissent Victory

Monday 19 July 2010

by: Bill Quigley and Rachel Meeropol, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Photo: TimWilson; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Police reports state that on October 21, 2007, a group of about 20 people trespassed onto the front lawn of the home of a Berkeley professor involved in bio-medical research on animals. According to the US government, some of the protesters had bandanas covering the lower half of their faces and they made "a lot of noise, chanting animal rights slogans" like "1,2,3,4, open up the cage door; 5,6,7,8, smash the locks and liberate, 9,10,11,12, vivisectors go to hell."

A year and a half later, four young activists were indicted in California federal court under the little known and rarely used "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act" (AETA) for their alleged involvement in this and others pickets.

The federal criminal indictment charged Joseph Buddenberg, Maryam Khajavi, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo (now the AETA 4) with one count of "animal enterprise terrorism," and one count of conspiracy. They each would face 10 years in prison if convicted.

Strangely, the criminal indictment against them doesn't actually say anything about their chants or leaflets, or what else they are supposed to have done to violate the law.

There is some good news here. On July 12, 2010, a federal judge threw out that indictment, explaining that is was so general and vague it failed to provide the defendants with notice of what criminal act they are accused of committing, a constitutional requirement.

In his order, Judge Ronald M. Whyte described the indictment as "quite generic." For "an indictment to fulfill its constitutional purposes," he explained, "it must allege facts that sufficiently inform each defendant of what it is he or she is alleged to have done that constitutes a crime. This is particularly important where the species of behavior in question spans a wide spectrum from criminal conduct to constitutionally protected political protest." According to the judge's ruling, the government can re-indict these activists if it makes the charges much more specific.

AETA prosecutions are not your average criminal cases. Trespass, threats, harassment -- these are all activities that violate state law and carry criminal penalties. And any violence by activists, of course, can also be punished under state law.

The animal rights and radical environmental movements aren't violent against people. The alleged illegal action that has occurred within those groups has primarily been the type of time-honored nonviolent civil disobedience Martin Luther King Jr. made famous, although there has been some property destruction.

If no one is hurt, how can the government prosecute these kinds of acts as terrorism? Simple. First reward rapacious corporate interests with an incredibly broad federal law that equates any action that hurts the bottom line of a corporation with "terrorism." Then issue generic indictments calling picketers terrorists, without explaining what they actually did. That is what happened to the AETA 4.

This governmental tactic can drive those few activists who actually commit serious illegal acts far underground, while terrifying the mainstream movements into silence.

The AETA 4 ruling is a rare victory for animal rights and environmental activists, whose communities are under a Cointelpro-style attack in what has come to be known as the "green scare."

Recent victims of this kind of governmental prosecution include the "SHAC7," activists who ran a website documenting both lawful and unlawful protest activities undertaken in the campaign against animal testing by Huntington Life Sciences.

The SHAC 7 were convicted of "terrorism" under the precursor to the AETA, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, (AEPA) despite the fact that none of them was accused, much less convicted, of doing anything other than commenting on others' legal and illegal actions.

Also threatened with jail time under the AEPA is Scott Demuth, a young activist who defied an Iowa grand jury subpoena and was promptly charged with animal enterprise terrorism. His indictment is so vague and far-reaching that it seems designed to hold him accountable for every act of property destruction attributed to animal rights activists over two years and across several states.

While animal rights and environmental activists are the main targets of these new laws equating protest with terrorism, the law could potentially be applied to anyone who protests anything, and does it effectively.

The AETA defines an "animal enterprise" to include any business that deals in animal research or uses or sells animal products. You can be accused of violating the law by traveling across state lines (or using the internet) to purposefully cause economic damage (like lost profits) to an animal enterprise. That is why CCR and other activist organizations are challenging these laws.

Environmental and animal rights groups are organizing against this law and against the green scare in general. Activists from other movements need to join them.

Attacks by government on our human and civil rights are always first directed at people on the margins who do not have widespread popular support. Animal and environmental activists are the ones under attack today. Unless we stand up and vigorously protect their rights to dissent, others, including us, will be certainly be next.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is involved in several of these battles, and updates are always available on our web site, at www.ccrjustice.org; or learn about the latest prosecutions by visiting the Civil Liberties Defense Center's web site, at www.cldc.org.

US Political Prisoners "Stay Strong".

News on our other political prisoners this week is not as good at that which we just received on Marilyn Buck...

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Ashanti Alston shared the following note from former Black Panther Sundiata Acoli, who was recently in front of the parole board:

July 14, 2010

Greetings All,

Received a letter today from the Board advising that the 3-Member Panel gave me a 10 year "hit." The basis for the hit will be explained in the Notice of Decision which will be forwarded to me upon its completion. I'll forward copies of the Decision to the Attys and SAFC when I receive it. Stay strong, I will too.

L, S, Su

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A contract has reportedly been put out on Leonard Peltier's life. He's presently at Lewisburg federal prison. Don't bother with the warden there - contact the White House to demand extra protection for him (202-456-1111). Tell them its long past time to set that man free, while you're at it.

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Long time liberation movement lawyer Lynne Stewart was handed a ten year sentence this week because the government had appealed her original sentence of 28 months, arguing it was too short (they wanted her to die in prison). This one may turn out to be a death penalty, as at the age of 70 she's fighting cancer behind bars, where the odds aren't so good, so send healing thoughts her way. Lynne's supporters' website, above, should have updated info on where/how to send her words of encouragement and solidarity. Keep her engaged in the movement without getting her into trouble*, if you can.


* I probably shouldn't have to say this, but all political prisoners' incoming and outgoing mail is read, logged, and censored as the government sees fit for these folks, so keep in mind that if you write to any of them you'll end up on a list of people who correspond with "terrorists"- and if you send anything too inflammatory they might have to pay for it, not you, so be cool. *


I recently made up a bunch of protest postcards, by the way, which can be good to send to prisoners if they're allowed to get the DIY kind. You can make them out of your own protest photos, like this one from a First Amendment rights event we chalked outside of (color computer-enhanced):

or something about current events like this:

Make sure to keep the activities you photograph legal, please. For the one on the left I didn't litter or commit criminal damage, I'm just holding my banner there, and was able to bring it home and re-use it elsewhere. I actually made a lot of postcards for local politicians and national media out of that one to show that the Resistance here is alive and well.





If you have the computer and printer but not a camera, then you might download or scan cool images like this one, which honors all political prisoners (quote by Elizabeth Gurley-Flynn):

The art is by Ricardo Levins Morales from the now-disbanded Northland Poster Collective. Morales has great stuff and would probably be honored if something like this was mailed to political prisoners -just give credit where it's due and don't mass-produce. Buy his posters and notecards there if you can - he's got some amazing work - it's all social justice stuff. Check it out.

So, those are just a few ideas. You can fit four postcards on a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 card stock or cheap photo paper, and even design the other side like a regular postcard, with captions and stuff. Prisoners of all stripes tend to get a kick out of them - especially if you've done some creative direct actions. I've also made signs to hold up and shoot for specific prisoners and done more stuff like that chalking up there (that's not the best, but she liked it. At least it gives you the idea). Once you get the technicalities worked out of setting up the postcard page, it's pretty easy to keep making them for people - assuming you've got the computer and printer handy.

All three names up there are linked to their websites, which almost always have prisoner contact info. I have a whole bunch of political prisoner links on the Prison Abolitionist, too, near the end of the left column. If you're think of writing to an activist slammed hard in the Green Scare (Jeffrey Leurs is free, now, by the way), or perhaps to a lesser-known prisoner, there are far too many to choose from.

Whether or not the prisoner you correspond with has a website put up by supporters (if they don't that's a clue that they might not be getting a whole lot of mail, so you might want to reach out to them), once you figure out what prison system they're in (most but not all are in federal prisons), check out the appropriate website to make sure you know the mail policies (here's the BOP's). That'll save a little hassle and time.

Another good resource for political prisoner contact info is the zine produced by Jaan Lamaan and friends, 4struggle mag. In fact, if you hunt around you'll find a few publications with letters from prisoners of all kinds in them who are interested in corresponding.

Finally, if you're doing more than just a one-time salute, make sure it's something you can stick with and that your priority is to support the prisoner, not to get your own ego needs met. Just because you can't see or speak to them face-to-face doesn't mean that you don't end up developing a relationship that your pen-pal may find a welcome relief from the misery of incarceration. As in any friendship, honor them by remaining engaged and responsive, or don't set them up only to fall silent to begin with. Try to be consistent. Try not to be too intrusive, and don't talk about their politics - let them do that if they want to. They know better than us what's safe ground to cover and what's taboo.

I say that all from experience, unfortunately - I've learned too much at others' expense at times, I'm afraid. Hopefully you won't repeat the same mistakes I've made.

Good luck.