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AUDIO FILES: Terrorism Creep, The 'Terrorization' of Criminal And Free Speech Acts. This is audio from the first of three forums being held at the First Unitarian Church, sponsored by the Portland Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center. It is a forum on the impact of the "War on Terror" on dissent in the United States.
This first forum was organized in response to the recent indictments and arrests of individuals accused of engaging in "domestic terrorism" - specifically arson and conspiracy to commit arson. The program for the evening was introduced by Karstan Lovorn, of the Portland National Lawyers Guild. After a few remarks he introduced the speakers for the evening.
STEVE WAX, from the Oregon Federal Public Defender's Office. Steve begins by giving the third edition of the American Heritage College Dictionary definition of Terror: an intense overpowering fear, followed by its definition of terrorism, "the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence to intimidate or coerce a society or government, often for ideological or political.
Steve remarks that, by his view, "by definition, terror is a type of crime. Crime, by definition, being an act in violation of the law, that has a penal consequence. "Steve speaks about the range of crimes, with the varying degrees of punishment. He says that the government tends to view as the most serious crimes of all, those that "attack the social order, crimes that undermine the ability of the government to function. Terrorist acts, by definition of the government, are seen as the most serious of crimes because they undermine the rule of law...the rule of law being that which keeps us all free."
Why does the government take a kind of crime and put it "in that subset basket of terrorism? Steve states that it is inherent in the concept of government that they have the right to protect themselves when they feel threatened, and hence, crimes that they feel attacks their ability to function are easily redefined as terrorism.
Steve continues, discussing how acts of terror and terrorism have been used historically, and lays the groundwork for much of what is to follow from the other two panelists.
ASHLEE ALBIES, an attorney working with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York spoke mainly to the issue of the NSA wiretapping, going into the background of the how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) statute relates to Separation of Powers. "The FISA statute allows wiretapping according to regulation passed by Congress............the Executive branch gets to determine who is to be wiretapped according to these procedures, and they present this evidence to a judge, and the judge approves it and the wiretapping begins. Currently the Bush Administration is bypassing FISA completely. They say who they are going to wiretap, how they are going to wiretap and they say why they are going to wiretap, and there is no procedure from any other branch and there is no check from any other branch. "This represents a tremendous expansion in Executive power."
The Administration, through the Department of Justice, has offered up a 42 page legal justification for its actions, called the "White Paper," saying that the "President has inherent authority as Commander In Chief to warrantlessly wiretap people in this country....that the Authorization for Military Force passed right after 911, authorized the president to use all necessary and appropriate force to find the people who carried out the 911 attack." There are many Constitutional lawyers and members of Congress who disagree with this interpretation.
Ashelee continues, speaking about this ever expanding encroachment into our political lives.
STU SUGARMAN, co chair of the NLG Litigation Committee, begins by locating the first historical use of the word terrorism in the English language in France, during the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. From here he discusses the derivation of the term "eco terrorist," as coming on the scene in the early 1970's. He believes that it began in England, "in response to acts done by early root groups that later became the Earth Liberation Front, that started in the United Kingdom. Between 1970 and 1975 that term started to be used.
Stu, as did all the speakers, stresses the importance of language. "Who is really threatened by vandalism, by eco sabotage, a word I might use to describe the same thing. I would encourage people to use as well, because language is a weapon, and it is focused on us, persistently and constantly. The government uses the word "terrorism" whenever it can; that is the very premise of this series. It criminalizes conduct that was not criminalized before."
A couple examples are then given, the first being the change in the government response to arson. "Arson was arson; however, when applied to people accused of burning a log truck near Estacada in 2001, the government was constantly using the term terrorism, these people are terrorists......Terrorists did this, not activists, not arsonists even, but terrorists. Federal judge here in Portland actually told the U.S. Attorneys office here in Portland, to stop using the word terrorism, because it did not apply to the case, whatever. He issued a partial gag order."
Another example is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which was originally passed in 1992 as the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, treating infractions as misdemeanors. The later law, passed in 2002, after the 911 attacks, says that" if somebody moves across state lines, either physically, over the phone or the internet, in order to physically disrupt an organization which uses animals in some way, that includes agriculture, the making of clothing, cosmetics.........they are guilty under this law of anything from a petty crime, under $10,000 dollars, to life imprisonment if someone dies as a result of that activity."
"That is another way that terrorism is being used against us and being aimed AT us." Stu continues for about another 5 minutes, before they wrap up for a Question and Answer period. Stu speaks from years of experience defending protestors, including Tre Arrow and Craig Rosebraugh.
The file is about 38 minutes in length.
Terrorism Creep, REAL PLAYER
Terrorism Creep, MP3
AUDIO FILES: But Is This Really Terrorism?" Environmental Crimes and the War on Terror.
The second of these three forums was held at the First Unitarian Church on April 5, 2006, being a response to the current government and media "Greenscare" campaign. It featured a panel discussion about the federal government's policy of ignoring and failing to prosecute violations of federal environmental laws by corporate polluters and extractive industries, while it aggressively prosecutes politically-motivated acts of property destruction by environmentalists under the "War on Terror" moniker
The program for the evening was moderated by Brenna Bell, a member of the National Lawyers Guild. After a few introductory remarks, Brenna introduced the guest speakers for the evening:
Kim Marks, Organizer with ForestEthics
Ben Rosenfeld, attorney in Judy Bari's successful suit against the FBI.
Dan Serres, Program Director for Friends of Living Waters.
Barbara Dudley, former Executive Director of Greenpeace USA and former President of the National Lawyers Guild.
To hear an audio file of the entire panel presentation at one time:
Greenscare, RealPlayer
Greenscare, MP3
Since this file is about and hour and five minutes in length, I've also broken the program up into a separate file for each speaker.
KIM MARKS gave an overview of the Corporate pillaging of the Earth for profit. She spoke both generally and particularly about the pollution of the air, water, and earth, perhaps dwelling most often on the damage done to forests and our eco systems which depend upon the forests. Her talk, including the introduction by Brenna Bell, is about 15 minutes in length.
Introduction and Kim Marks, RealPlayer
Introduction and Kim Marks, MP3
BEN ROSENFELD begins by speaking directly to the issue of the Greenscare, quoting FBI assessment of Green Anarchists, people who have a vision of sustainability and respect for all living beings as posing the greatest domestic security threat to our country right now. He believes that this might be a time for some folks "to lower their profile, lower their signature, to not stand out, and to not be repeater stations for information and gossip and innuendo about who did what. But it's also a time to form solidarity, to hold public meetings, town halls-like this, to get each others back, and to drag this cockroach of a process out into the light because it thrives on darkness and secrecy."
Ben states that the reason the FBI can attend and spy on meetings such as the one then taking place, "was because John Ashcroft liberalized what is known as the Attorney General Guidelines. Essentially what he (Ashcroft) said was that the FBI will now have the right to go everywhere the public goes. And that doesn't just mean onto the internet, but that means churches like this, into peoples homes, into group meetings and so forth.
"Now, they can claim they have that authority with a whiff of legitimacy... ....it's built on a very faulty premise, I think legally, but they're claiming that legitimacy based on this change in the Guidelines, and so some of my talk is dedicated to explaining some of the specifics about how this arises."
The present situation is the Red scare of the past coming back around. Ben states that he wants to go into the mechanics and provisions of the Guidelines, "because none of this arose in a vacuum."
This presentation lasts for about 20 minutes total.
Ben Rosenfeld, RealPlayer
Ben Rosenfeld, MP3
DAVID SERRES goes directly to the gross difference between government treatment of crimes for the environment versus crimes against the environment, speaking primarily about the corporate pollution of water, but also mentions soil and air pollution as well.
By way of example, Serres talks about the Blue Heron Paper Company, formerly Smurfit, situated on the Willamette River in Oregon City. They have a permit from Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to discharge turbid water into the river, at 40 NTU's, that pretty cloudy water. "They were given over 4 years to comply with this, during this time they were allowed to discharge water at 5 times that level. And that was 4.75 years ago, and instead of bringing them into compliance with the compliance schedule, they wre given another 4 1/2 years to discharge at the higher level. It's just an example of how the rules are bent to favor the polluters."
According to Serres, the DEQ is proposing to formalize this type of flexibility for permit holders, by changing our water clarity laws. "They want to take areas of our public rivers where they'll let them discharge any water at any clarity, and those will be open sewers to allow this mixing area for industrial effluent to come to compliance without rules. This seems counter intuitive to me, that any public resource would be used in that manner.....these changes in the rules are funded by the Pulp and Paper Industry."
This talk is about 11 1/2 minutes in length.
David Serres, RealPlayer
David Serres, MP3
(EDITORS NOTE)In November of 2005 a Press Conference was held in front of the Oregon DEQ, to draw media and public attention to this change of rules.
Speakers at this Conference, in order of their appearance, were:
Mark Riskedahl, Executive Director of Northwest Environmental Defense Center
Rhett Lawrence, Conservation Advocate with Oregon State Public Interest Research Group
Erica Maharg of Oregon Sierra Club and
Brent Foster of Columbia Riverkeeper
Water Quality Press Conference,RealPlayer
Water Quality Press Conference, MP3
BARBARA DUDLEY spoke eloquently from her experience with Greenpeace USA and the National Lawyers Guild. She demonstrates with specific examples how prosecution of civil disobedience direct action tactics have frequently moved from misdemeanors to felonies since the election of George W. Bush.
"One of the things that we try to do within the environmental movement is enforce whatever pathetic environmental laws we do have in this country, because the government is not enforcing them................so many environmental organizations take it upon themselves, one way or another to enforce the laws that exist. And we can do that in a number of way; you can do it through litigation..........you can do it through bearing witness, you can do it by calling media and other public attention to the fact that these laws are not being enforced, or you can put your body in the way of those who are trying to destroy the planet. All of those are valid tactics." "Between 1971 when Greenpeace was formed and 2001....... Greenpeace regularly took inflatable boats and blocked nuclear submarines, got in the way of nuclear missile tests, got in the way of whaling ships, got in the way of chemical shipments, shipments of hazardous waste and so on. We never during those years faced felony charges anywhere in the world." Barbara continues, saying that after George Bush became president, In August of 2001, before the 911 attacks, Greenpeace, temporarily blocked an illegal test of the star wars missile that were being shot off somewhere near Vandenberg Air Force Base. "They were charged with felonies, they were facing 11 years each, and $500,000 in fines."
Consequently, as a result of the changed climate in this country after the 911 attacks, Greenpeace was forced to accept a Civil Injunction, agreeing not to go near any missile tests in any U.S. naval or Air Force facilities.
Barbara continues, detailing other similar examples concerning Greenpeace in the current greenscare climate, and also brings up parallels from the days of the government Red Scare against the American Communist Party. This talk is about 20 minutes in length.
Barbara Dudley, RealPlayer
Barbara Dudley, MP3
"But Is This Really Terrorism?": The Chilling Effect. The series is intended to educate the public about the U.S. Government's increased spying and surveillance of environmental, animal rights, and anti-war groups and its negative effects on civil society and democracy in America. The upcoming panel discussion, the third and last of the series, will focus on the chilling effect on political participation of labeling as "terrorism" acts of civil disobedience and constitutionally protected activities.
Featured speakers include:
Alan Graf, attorney;
David Fidanque, Executive Director, ACLU Oregon Hope Martson, organizer;
Karen Coulter, Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project.
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