PETA/ELF: Animal & Environmental Extremists and Homeland Security

[Steve Blair]

It's also important not to lose sight of them based on either their level of celebrity support or sympathy to their cause.

PETA makes a great funding conduit to ELF and other more radical groups. In many ways I think these groups were the model for the 'leaderless' insurgencies and similar movements. Here's a link to one item of interest: Animal Rights Militia.

And a quote from one of the ELF leader-types:

Rosebraugh's credibility was slightly undermined after he opened a natural food restaurant in Portland in January 2004 and fired workers who threatened to go on strike. Nevertheless, his influence in the movement remains high and ELF likely will continue to bundle other social concerns with its environmentalist mission. In a March 2004 television interview, Pickering underscored this ideological expansion: "Violence is a necessary element of an oppressive struggle…to overthrow an oppressive government…[ELF is] only part of a larger building revolutionary movement that won't stop until it has a successful overthrow of this country."

Quote is from here.

[120mm]

And I continue to learn. I still feel that Homeland security funds are better spent shoring up the most likely and damaging threats (i.e. a focus on N.Y., L.A. and major ports as opposed to millions spent in the high threat state of Montana), but I think we have effectivly concluded that domestic terrorism is real and valid. Thanks for the feedback and open discussion.
Reed

I must have overlooked this post.

There is a reason, besides pork-barrel spending, that homeland defense dollars are distributed to states such as Montana, which at first blush appear to be rather non-critical to acts of terror.

The first reason being, is that the nation's heartland has a particular weakness that can be targeted by terrorists. I don't particularly want to discuss it on an unsecure forum, but if you do a bit of research, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

The second reason being that in the case of a massive and crippling terror attack, the outlying non-population intensive or untargeted states will be responsible for reacting to the event, as their infrastructure and polity will still be intact.

It only seems dumb if you don't think it through. In reality, spending homeland security funds in out of the way places is quite a good idea. The latest near miss hurricane on New Orleans is illustrative in how relatively unaffected states were able to rapidly respond to support the affected area.

[reed11b]

IIt only seems dumb if you don't think it through. In reality, spending homeland security funds in out of the way places is quite a good idea. The latest near miss hurricane on New Orleans is illustrative in how relatively unaffected states were able to rapidly respond to support the affected area.

I will respectfully disagree. Better intelligence trumps an ineffective target hardening across multiple localities. reducing fail points requires focusing on key points and increasing intelligence and very little real work in this regards appears to have been made from my amaturish view of the situation.
Reed

[Ken White]

Problem is getting it.

That's the bad news. The good news is most of it is improving almost daily and quite logically and correctly, that is not publicized in the Media.

[jmm99]

Hard too believe it was almost 8 years ago when this incident happened in our little piece of the Midwest. Now, the perp will plead this coming Monday.

Tech bomber set for sentencing
By ED WHITE, Associated Press Writer POSTED: March 20, 2009

DETROIT - Ian Wallace is a graduate student in anthropology in New York who has studied fossils in Kenya, combed excavations in Syria and France and written about his research in scholarly journals.

But Monday afternoon, he will be sentenced to federal prison for trying to blow up two buildings at Michigan Technological University in 2001 when he was a radical eco-saboteur.

It is another case of federal agents catching up to people who formerly were passionate members of the Earth Liberation Front, known as ELF.
.....
Wallace, a graduate student at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y., qualifies for 10 years in prison when he appears Monday in U.S. District Court in Marquette.

But Frank is recommending a significant drop in the sentencing guidelines to as low as 70 months, or just under six years, because of Wallace's help in solving a case in Rhinelander, Wis., where 500 research trees were destroyed or badly damaged in ELF's name in 2000.
....
Frank's filing reveals details of how authorities snagged Wallace years later.

The FBI contacted him in January 2007 after a tip in an ELF-related case in Oregon. Three months later, Wallace spilled his past to the government, admitting the Michigan Tech crimes and providing critical information about the attack on trees in Wisconsin, which caused $1 million in damage.

Three people subsequently were indicted and pleaded guilty in federal court in Wisconsin, Frank said.

[bourbon]

Wikileaks has posted a DHS Threat Assessment on militant Environmental and
Animal-Rights groups. Wikileaks is currently down but the location is:
http://wikileaks.org/leak/dhs-ecoter...in-us-2008.pdf

Ecoterrorism: Environmental and Animal-Rights Militants in the United States, 07 May 2008

The document can be viewed here in html cache until Wikileaks is back up.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/04/...ism/index.html

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) issued a statement saying opponents of the towers argue that "AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines."

"When all legal channels of opposition have been exhausted, concerned citizens have to take action into their own hands to protect life and the planet," Jason Crawford, a spokesman for the group, said in a news release.

In its news release, the ELF describes itself as "an international underground organization that uses direct action in the form of economic sabotage to stop the systematic exploitation and destruction of the planet.

This isn't an insurgency, and I'm not sure it is terrorism yet, but rather it is a loosely networked criminal organization that is politically motivated. What is the best strategy for dealing with it?

[slapout9]

Bill, I say arrest and prosecute as Domestic Terrorist,according to the article they clearly broke the Domestic Terrorist Law.



Looks like they caught one of the suspects. The Environmental Guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8tfu...eature=related

[BR0387]

My personal experience w/ state and local law enforcement relating to GWOT can be summed up by the response I saw at a terrorism class in Portland for LEOs. The officers had very little to say or add as we talked about international terror organizations, but when the topic of "animal rights" groups came up, the officers had a great deal of comments and questions. Afterwards in the group planning piece, the officers could only think about how they were going to use this new information to catch these eco-terrorists. I walked away very disheartened to learn that a lot of "homeland defense" money was going to be wasted tracking down what were essentially petty vandals. Oversight and training is needed.
Reed

If I were a bad guy form a group that the United States has put on their watch list what could I do to attack US. I could make contact with one of these ECO terrorists groups and have them do my dirty work for me.

[davidbfpo]

BR0387,

You asked:

If I were a bad guy form a group that the United States has put on their watch list what could I do to attack US. I could make contact with one of these ECO terrorists groups and have them do my dirty work for me.

There are ample references to extremist groups forming alliances with other extremists groups, notably via the Palestinian cause in the 1970-1980's, such as the Japanese Red Army:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Red_Army

Plus extremist groups trying to use criminal gangs, primarily for non-violent support, notably forged documents, travel and acquiring weapons. Such as the group in Spain responsible for the Atocha bombings, who traded drugs for explosives.

There are two key points: is there trust and does this stretch as far as undertaking 'dirty work'. IMHO extremists if identified as such are rarely trusted by criminal gangs and extremists fear exposure - as that is what criminals do "snitch".

I doubt that any "eco" group would want such a link, let alone do "dirty" work. Infiltration by the extremist into "eco" groups to gain members that is a possibility, remember "clean skins" may be rare if LE know the groups.