The FBI on Friday announced the arrests in Oakland of two animal rights activists, Joseph Buddenberg and Nicole Kissane, and accused the pair of engaging in “domestic terrorism.” This comes less than a month after the FBI director said he does not consider Charleston Church murderer Dylann Roof a “terrorist.” The activists’ alleged crimes: “They released thousands of minks from farms around the country and vandalized various properties.” That’s it. Now they’re being prosecuted and explicitly vilified as “terrorists,” facing 10-year prison terms.
Buddenberg and Kissane are scheduled to appear this morning in a federal court in San Francisco for a hearing on bail conditions, while arraignment is set for early September. The indictment comes just days before the scheduled start of the Animal Rights National Conference, the largest and most important annual gathering of activists. The DOJ did exactly the same thing in July of last year: Shortly before the start of the 2014 conference, they arrested two activists on federal “terrorism” charges for freeing minks and foxes from a fur farm. The multiple activists and lawyers who spoke to The Intercept since Friday’s arrests are adamant that these well-timed indictments are designed to intimidate activists at the conference and more broadly to chill campaigns to defend animal rights.
This latest federal prosecution, and the public branding of these two activists as “domestic terrorists,” highlights the strikingly severe targeting over many years by the U.S. government of nonviolent animal and environmental rights activists. The more one delves into what is being done here — the extreme abuse of the criminal law to stifle nonviolent political protest or even just pure political speech, undertaken with tragically little attention — the more appalling it becomes. There are numerous cases of animal rights activists, several of whom spoke to The Intercept, who weren’t even accused of harming people or property, but who were nonetheless sent to federal prison for years.
One obvious and significant reason for the U.S. government’s fixation is that the industries most threatened by this activism are uncontrollably powerful in Washington, virtually owning the Congress without opposition, stacking the relevant agencies with their revolving-door cronies. Another is that this movement is driven by hard-core believers impressively willing to sacrifice their own liberty in defense of their political values — namely, trying to stop the mass torture and gratuitous slaughter of animals — and that frightens both industry and its government servants; that animal rights as a cause is gaining traction worldwide makes the threat even more alarming.
Yet another reason is that the specific forms of activism this movement has cultivated are shrewd and compelling: As is true for so many types of violence, the savagery, torture and sadism that makes these industries so profitable will be collectively tolerated only if we are not forced to confront their reality. That, for instance, is why the Obama DOJ is so desperately fighting the release of torture and Guantanamo photos, and why it has so severely punished whistleblowers: because few things are more menacing to status quo interests than truth revealed in its most visceral form.
While some E.U. countries have severely regulated or even banned many of the animal abuses targeted by activists, the U.S. factory farms that produce furs are among the cruelest and most sadistic anywhere, imposing extreme amounts of suffering and torture on the animals they slaughter — both in terms of how they confine them and then kill them. The very graphic photo here shows the carcasses of minks after they have been skinned; this deeply disturbing undercover video from PETA details their treatment at American fur factories:
Independent of the moral questions raised by this savage treatment of animals, these industrial practices spawn serious environmental degradation, exploit small farmers, and produce health risks for workers: practices that can remain undisturbed only as long as we remain blissfully unaware of the harms they cause.
But there’s something deeper driving this persecution. American elites are typically willing to tolerate political protest as long as it remains constrained, controlled, and fundamentally respectful of the rules imposed by institutions of authority — i.e., as long as it remains neutered and impotent. When protest movements adhere to those constraints, they are not only often ineffective, but more so, they can unwittingly serve as a false testament to the freedom of the political process and the generosity of its rulers (they let us speak out: see, we’re free!). That kind of marginal, modest “protest” often ends up strengthening the process it believes it is subverting.
When, by contrast, a movement transgresses those limitations and starts to become effective in impeding the injustices it targets — particularly when preserving those injustices is valuable to the most powerful — that’s when it has to be stopped at all costs, including criminalizing it with the harshest possible legal weapons. This is the dynamic that explains the emerging campaign in the West to literally criminalize the previously marginalized BDS movement designed to stop Israeli occupation: It’s gaining too much ground, becoming too effective, and thus must be banned, its proponents and leaders threatened with prosecution. The fear that the animal rights movement is growing stronger and will succeed in exposing the horrifying realities of these industries’ practices is driving the persecution to the point of declaring it to be — and formally punishing it as — terrorism.
Even beyond that, the animal rights movement strikes at the heart of what is most cherished by American elites: the pillars of unrestrained capitalistic entitlement. That so much industrial profit depends upon extreme, constant torture and slaughter of animals is something regarded as, in essence, a sacred right.
Lauren Gazolla, who was imprisoned for 40 months in 2004 for her nonviolent animal rights activism and now works at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that this movement “strikes at something fundamental. It challenges a way of life: So much of how much we live our lives is based on massive violence against animals, and the more brutal these industries are, the more profit they make.”
Anything that targets or threatens this entitlement is regarded as the highest and most severe threat. That’s why the government, at the behest of the industry interests it serves, is calling it “terrorism”: to them, few things are genuinely more menacing or threatening than an effective political movement aimed at these practices.
The activists arrested on Friday are being charged under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), a draconian 2006 federal law heavily lobbied for by the agriculture, pharmaceutical and farming industries. Its drafting and enactment was led by the notorious and powerful American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), with the lobbying industries also hiding behind groups such as the Animal Enterprise Protection Coalition (AEPC) and the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).
As is typical for lobbyist and industry-supported bills, the AETA passed with overwhelming bipartisan support (its two prime Senate sponsors were James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.) and then was signed into law by George W. Bush. This “terrorism” law is violated if one “intentionally damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property (including animals or records) used by an animal enterprise . . . for the purpose of damaging or interfering with” its operations. If you do that — and note that only “damage to property” but not to humans is required — then you are guilty of “domestic terrorism” under the law.
Prior to the 2006 enactment of the AETA, animal rights activism that damaged property was already illegal under a 1992 federal law, as well as various state laws, and subject to severe punishments. The primary purpose of the new 2006 law was to expand the scope of criminal offenses to include plainly protected forms of political protest, and to heighten the legal punishments and intensify social condemnation by literally labeling animal-rights activists as “domestic terrorists.”
At the same time as this draconian statute was signed into law, numerous states enacted so-called “ag-gag” laws that — amazingly — “prohibit workers from taking undercover videos at the facilities and impose fines or jail time for those who do.” Moreover, “roughly half a dozen states have passed laws in recent years to prevent workers from taking images or videos of agricultural facilities.” They’re so desperate to conceal their savage conduct from the public that they’re literally criminalizing reporting and whistleblowing, so that those who enable vital (and horrific and hard-to-watch) videos like this one — showing incomprehensible cruelty to highly intelligent and emotionally advanced pigs — are subject to prosecution:
For a barbaric industry, nothing is more threatening than the truth. As the Wall Street Journal explained in May: “In 2008, a California meat company recalled 143 million pounds of beef — the largest beef recall in U.S. history — after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video showing workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts to get them on their feet. The condition of the cows suggested their meat could have posed a risk to consumers.”
That case was the result of an undercover investigation at the Hallmark Meat Packing Co. in Chino, which, in the words of the Humane Society, showed “slaughter plant workers displaying complete disregard for the pain and misery they inflicted as they repeatedly attempted to force ‘downed’ animals onto their feet and into the human food chain.” Because the cows were too sick to walk, they were dragged or pushed with hot prods into the slaughterhouse. Some of that food made its way into the National Lunch Program served to public school students.
In other words, cows that were too sick even to walk, because of their savage mistreatment, were being put into the human food chain. This was discovered only because an undercover video revealed it:
Is it any wonder that these industries are demanding that such reporting and exposure be outlawed? And is it hard to see why the brave activists bringing these truths to light and trying to stop them are regarded as criminals and even “terrorists” for doing so?
This latest case shows how extreme and oppressive this law is by design. No human beings were physically injured by the alleged activism of Buddenberg and Kissane, nor did they attempt to harm any. Whatever one thinks of their tactics, it was — even by the FBI’s telling — confined to property damage: essentially vandalism. In its Press Releases announcing indictments, the FBI tries to depict the alleged acts in the worst, most inflammatory light possible; for this case, this is all it could muster: They “used paint, paint stripper, a super glue-type substance, butyric acid, muriatic acid and glass etchant to vandalize Furs by Graf, a retail furrier located in San Diego.” There is absolutely no commonly understood meaning of “terrorism” (to the extent such a thing exists) that can include anything they did.
Ben Rosenfeld, a lawyer who has extensively represented animal and environmental activists, told The Intercept that “calling this terrorism is utterly irresponsible and offensive to victims of real terror.” Referring to both the DOJ and Congress, he said, “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
He added that in the post-9/11 era, “Calling this terrorism makes it almost impossible to get a fair trial for these activists. It’s very manipulative. Though the public is more jaded about the manipulative use of this term, it makes a huge impression on judges, most of whom have previously been prosecutors.” Because it’s in the title of the law, the term “terrorism” even appears on verdict forms, “so jurors see it very clearly.”
To label this nonviolent political protest “terrorism” yet again illustrates the utterly malleable and propagandistic nature of that term. This is particularly true given that the same DOJ that is charging the activists as “terrorists” just announced that Dylann Roof — who murdered nine people in a Charleston church to advance clear ideological and political objectives — will not be.
Even more abusive prosecutions — based exclusively on pure political speech and protest rights — have been common. Will Potter is likely the most knowledgeable journalist in the country on these issues; he’s author of a 2011 book entitled Green is the New Red, and editor of a great website by the same name that exhaustively covers these issues.
Potter has a new story, published yesterday, on the arrest of four animal-rights activists in Oregon for . . . “allegedly writing political slogans on the public street using sidewalk chalk.” Potter reports that “the chalking was done as part of the growing ‘No New Animal Lab’ campaign, which aims to stop the construction of a new underground animal experimentation facility at the University of Washington.”
In 2004, Gazolla was prosecuted — and imprisoned in a federal penitentiary — for 40 months (three-and-a-half years) on charges that she and other activists maintained a website that endorsed illegal protests, and that her chants at a protest outside an executive’s house included advocacy of violence.
Her co-defendant was Andy Stepanian of Fitzgibbon Media, the communications firm that represents The Intercept and, on a pro bono basis, Chelsea Manning. Stepanian was imprisoned for three years, and during his incarceration, was even placed in a highly oppressive “Communications Management Unit,” called “GITMO North,” typically reserved for Muslims accused of terrorism. The FOIA-obtained prison document ordering his transfer tells the story (redactions in original):
As Gazolla detailed in a 2014 Salon article, the only conceivable purpose of calling activists like her “terrorists” under the new 2006 law is to stifle legitimate speech:
The AETA was pushed through Congress by the immensely powerful animal agriculture, animal testing and fur industries. The law is not limited to punishing illegal activity; numerous existing laws already punish vandalism, threats and other illegal forms of protest. Rather, the AETA provides special protection to a specific class of businesses by targeting and stigmatizing a particular group of protesters, hanging the specter of prosecution as “animal enterprise terrorists” over their heads, and ultimately scaring them into silence.
Indeed, the very first case prosecuted under the AETA was in 2009, and it included the same Joseph Buddenberg who was arrested on Friday, along with three other defendants. Industry officials and their lobbyists were furious that no prosecutions had been brought in the two years since its enactment, and were aggressively pressuring the DOJ to find a case.
As Potter reported at the time, the DOJ’s entire case, calling these activists “terrorists,” rested on their pure First Amendment activity such as chalking sidewalks, marching and chanting outside researchers’ homes, and distributing fliers. The following year, the indictments were dismissed by a federal judge on the ground that the DOJ failed even to allege with any specificity what they did that constituted a crime.
But the history since that dismissal makes clear that pure political speech and protest are the real targets of these “terrorism” prosecutions. Gazzola told The Intercept that the AETA succeeded for a time in its goal of weakening and chilling activism: “My prosecution scared people,” she said.
But both Gazzola and Potter echoed what numerous activists and lawyers said: that despite the government’s efforts, animal rights activism is stronger, and the cause more widely accepted, than ever before. Others noted that there’s also a growing right-wing faction to the movement and that it’s starting to cut across ideological lines in interesting ways. Gazzola said that “more and more people are speaking up more strongly now, and there is more support from the broader left and social justice attorneys. All of that has really helped the movement come back.”
For years, animal rights activists worked without much support, even from the left, which generally regarded them as fringe and their cause as marginal (this post does a good job of laying that out). But all of the movement supporters interviewed by The Intercept are optimistic that, for a variety of revealing reasons, they have far more support than ever before.
Potter explained that the left’s aversion to animal rights activism was in part fueled by caricatures created by federal authorities. “They told the left, ‘don’t worry: we’re just going after these hard-core extremists, the ones who think you shouldn’t be able to go to circuses or wear leather shoes.'” That demonization made the left wary of being associated with a movement that had been successfully marginalized.
But activists point to a number of positive developments as evidence that animal rights is now becoming far more mainstream. There have been a few successful ballot initiatives to limit the worst abuses in agriculture. A single documentary on animal abuses at Sea World all but destroyed that company. Mainstream, influential figures advocate vegetarianism. The widespread availability of cheaper technology and access to the internet makes it far easier than ever to produce undercover videos and ensure widespread dissemination. Legal changes are, for the first time, recognizing pets and other animals as having emotional worth, beyond their value as “chattel.”
In sum, said Potter, we are collectively “expanding our circles of compassion, or at least consideration, in terms of the law and our moral framework.” For the first time in the U.S., it is now being recognized that “animals are worthy of moral consideration.”
But these changes, while positive, are limited, and far from what is needed to shield animal rights activism from vindictive prosecution and additional industry-fueled retribution. Potter used the term “greenwashing” to explain that “the Federal Government loves to tell you that it’s great for you to love the environment, but only if you do it in benign ways that don’t threaten industry.” You can and should recycle, but don’t impede lumber companies from cutting down trees or get in the way of whaling ships. Only “eco-terrorists” do that.
The same dynamic is at play in animal rights activism. We’re told that it’s great to love your pets. It’s fine to get outraged when some revolting, piggish Minnesota dentist — or the hideous spawn of Donald Trump — slaughter majestic animals in Africa for their own twisted pleasure or to compensate for their glaring sense of inadequacy. “But whatever you do,” said Potter, “don’t turn your gaze to the everyday behavior of America’s largest food companies and farming industries in order to shine a light on their wholesale torture and slaughter of animals.” No matter how much people have learned to love animals and regard them as possessing moral worth, that type of activism — effective and subversive of industry — is still radioactive.
That’s what most needs to change. The countless hours of interviews and reading I’ve now done has made me, for the first time, fully cognizant of the shocking amount of legal abuses being undertaken here. At the very least, the activists who are sacrificing their own liberty in order to protect animals from being tortured and slaughtered — activists who are often poor and thus vulnerable to most abusive prosecutions — deserve a vibrant legal defense.
A legal defense fund has now been created to ensure that both Buddenberg and Kissane have the funds needed to defend themselves. You can, and I hope will, donate to that here. Beyond that, both CCR and the Civil Liberties Defense Center have done stalwart work in fighting the pernicious efforts to equate this activism with “terrorism.”
The propagandistic exploitation of the term “terrorism” has produced a wide range of harms all over the globe. Few harms are as severe as its ongoing use not only to stifle, but outright criminalize, political speech and noble activism.
Thank you for shining sunshine on these dark, perverted practices. The icing on the cake of this institutionalized evil is slapping activists with terrorism charges. These animal activists have nothing to gain and everything to lose when they put themselves out there. I call that courageous. This is the best article I have read about the subject although Will Potter has done an excellent job on his website as well. Please continue to educate us about more of our government’s and the animal industry’s dark sides.
On a side note, do agree with others that releasing the minds into the wild is not a good decision. I’m not sure what other means would be less of an ecological impact on the area and more humane to the minks. It’s really a catch-22 situation.
These aren’t activists but domestic terrorists dirtbags.Hopefully they get the full ten years in prison and Buddenberg meets his new “girlfriend” there.
Been writing about CAFOs for several years along with the corporate whorehouse called ALEC where pimps set up lawmaking sluts with paying clients from industry.
The ecoterrorism feature came straight from Charles and David Koch, since their treatment of animals was called into question.
What’s more interesting is China is the largest pork producer in the world after buying Smithfield. They employ illegal immigrants as well which is another reason they don’t want you taking videos.
They also don’t want people to know what they do with the tons of manure and urine collected on these farms.
Want to know why you can’t swim or eat fish from lakes or streams anymore?
We’re feeding Asia’s taste for bacon.
The only terrorists are the industry farm owners and the whores they buy – mainly republicans.
No the true terrorists here are the radical animal rights dirtbags.Hopefully Buddenberg and Kissane are beaten to death in prison or at least Buddneberg gets made someone’s “girlfiend” No one can stand these urban wackjobs.These are not activists but lowlife domestic terrorists.
On topic, I have zero sympathy for animal rights activists. I’m an atheist and those people have the stench of cultism about them. Religion is cancer.
If they weren’t attacking everything and everyone from meat eaters to scientists, or attempting to cast doubt on the necessity of scientific research, perhaps I’d care more.
I’m not surprised Greenwald is sympathetic though.
Great work by you and the Intercept!
https://www.change.org/p/sign-petition-to-deny-bail-to-man-who-adopted-dogs-so-he-could-torture-and-dismember-them?recruiter=353421192&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
You are right on, Glenn. Thanks for this well done editorial. The killer of inocent people in a church is a terrorist. Poeple defended helpless animals are not.
Thank you, Glenn.
Sorry, Glenn. These folks aren’t just “freeing minks.” They are part of a coalition that terrorizes scientists by throwing firebombs into their houses while they sleep, stalking their kids at school, mailing horrific images of eviscerated animals to their neighbors. They’ve now extended their attacks to people in ancillary businesses like the Chicago insurance executive whose company provides insurance to animal research firms.
Terrorists, every one of them.
Skid:
You might consider reading the article, in which you will discover that the people that the writer is speaking have not, did not, and will not “firebomb” peoples homes, or stalk kids. But rather, they drew pictures on public sidewalks and reported vicious behavior by people in the care of living creatures.
NOPE, the people to witch you have a beef (sorry), are criminals and outliers who are too stupid to use the system they live under to change the behaviors of those they disagree with. But Skid, it’s okay, grab another and get back to Monday Night Football!
Yes terrorist dirtbags everyone.Like Al-Qeada,Neo Nazi’s,Animal LIberation Front,PETA,ISIS,HSUS.Self rightous human filth that will use intimidation,coercion and all to often violence to force others to agree with their warped and delusional view of the world.The only good radical animal rights freak is a dead one.
Wow, you managed to equivalate PETA, Neo-Nazis, the Humane Society (I *think* that’s the HSUS you were referring to) and Al Qaeda (FTFW). You seem like an extraordinarily angry person walking a razor-thin edge and veering towards violence. Have you considered anger management therapy?
Although I completely agree with the absolute overreach in using terrorism law to prosecute domestic “animal rights” activists. However, we should not at the same time condone the actions of these idiots who break into, I admit, odious factories but then release mink and foxes into the wild, thus assuring the destruction of the local ecosystem by these aggressive invasive species. These “animal rights” activists are assholes, and no one should be condoning what they do.
Yes to all below who compliment you on a terrific article. Yes it is.
I didn’t watch the videos. I read enough of the graphic details in 1982 to last a lifetime. In fact, when I realized that a daily reading (I could only take so much) was turning the entire universe around me black, I had to stop. I used to do a regular section on a radio broadcast about vivisection to a point at which fans would phone up and, after proclaiming their enjoyment of my program, beg me to desist because they were all getting sick and couldn’t eat their dinners.
Since then, more and more horrific abuses have been outed all the time, but it’s not new, just more horrible. I have to believe that we will pay someday, but unfortunately, payment is normally extracted from the innocent as much as the guilty.
Furthermore, it’s more and more understood that what St Francis said –
If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men – is backed up by discoveries in psychology. We cannot separate the murderousness of our cops from the murderousness of out industry leaders. It is as inevitable as sunrise. It is the progression of serial killers not uncommonly and in one way shape or form, it will be the same for our institutions.
What compounds it all immensely is that science has finally rejected, in part, the centuries old assumptions about animals not feeling, not having personality, not having intelligence. Cows make friends with specific other cows and are happier spending their time in the company of those friends. One could cite hundreds of such examples. And if you’ve ever seen cows – COWS for god’s sake – gamboling through the pasture like puppies, you have to wonder.
In regard to so-called terrorism, well, you’ve been right all along, though perhaps the science fiction extent of your predictions is so extreme that none of us could actually foresee such things. Basically you’ve been arguing all along that ‘terrorism’ has no real meaning and is used for political purposes. Well, now we see more and more how true that is. And it will get worse, much much worse. I would fully expect children who don’t take the pledge of allegiance or fail to doff their hats during the national anthem to be labelled terrorists in time to come.
Could we have seen that the passage of the Patriot Act would lead to the arrest, conviction, and child removal for Tamara Jo Freeman, charged with terrorism for slapping her unruly kids on the ass and, presumably (I don’t know if it was ever quoted in stories) , telling a busybody stewardess to ‘fuck off’? More importantly, should we have seen it?
Well, we simply cannot foresee insanity in detail, but we can know that hard cases make bad laws, for instance, and that bad laws will lead to very bad abuses. (The problem with progressives is that they think “good” force is ok, but never consider how things will evolve from there. Of course the problem with right wingers is that they’re nuts, period.)
I challenged a vet (for whom I have great respect, but as a vet, not as a political thinker) for writing a piece for a newspaper in support of enforced micro chipping of all dogs, by using two instances of pretty horrible events caused by dangerous dogs. Without a strong prediction in any direction, I objected solely on the principle that hard cases make bad laws and that abuse will probably follow. The response was to ask if I was a conspiracy theorist. What can one say? People simply don’t see the risk if they can’t calculate a specific trajectory.
As for our mink stealing vandals, they should at most be charged with theft and vandalism. Now, since I can remember a case of a woman convicted of embezzling 30K being sentenced to 6 months, suspended. Sounds ok to me.
Of course, we should probably remember that the same judge, on the same day, sentenced a black youth to two years in jail for breaking into a garage and stealing a case of beer.
So maybe on second hand, we ought not look to that judge’s sentences.
I’m glad you’re beginning to focus, even some of the time, on animal experimentation. To my mind, it’s an inevitable extension.
Though I’m not sure how to treat animals like Dick Cheney. I admit, that stumps me.
Is number one.
Your article is exactly what we needed. My friends & I were hoping some incredible writer, with important informative & reason & compassion would expose this ridiculous & really criminal attack on animal activists. I am proud to be one, for many years, as my parents taught me to fight injustices & prejudices & it is thrilling to see it grow as well as the general public’s concern for animals. THANK YOU!
Thank you, Glenn. Your writing continues to bright light to many injustices we face while still inspiring hope!
Another great article from one of *the* great journalists of our time, perhaps the next Chomsky. But I gotta make one quibble “from the cheap seats”:
> the industries most threatened by this activism are uncontrollably powerful in Washington, virtually owning the Congress without opposition, stacking the relevant agencies with their revolving-door cronies.
These industries (et al) *are not* “uncontrollably” powerful! Our society is not yet fully plutocratic! We *can* stop these forces; that we have not yet is our (and their) disgrace, not some kind of social physics.
Agitation or noble activism must go on for freedom sake in the US…
Some smart guy from 1857 reportedly said or wrote:
“Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. – See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress#sthash.h48Lf9wm.dpuf“
Is this immoral?
“Scientists wirelessly control mice with brain implant ”
http://www.rt.com/usa/311017-scientists-wirelessly-control-mice-brains/
Just yesterday I saw RT also ran a documentary on brain implants that were inserted into humans to deliver electric shock in attempt to modify behavior. Dozens of other immoral experiments were carried out, all done by the CIA. Of course, knowing about the lesser known purposes of the CIA causes revulsion in any half-way ethical person. See link below.
To your question, it can be immoral but such experimentation may come to benefit humans suffering from addiction etc. So its a conflict of values and we must weigh those values.
https://www.rt.com/shows/documentary/311036-cia-experiments-on-people/
Weighing CIA values…
If those shocks could also stop grand mal siezures or end chronic neuropathic pain would you still oppose them?
Could those same shocks or some other readily accessible technology or medical procedure induce grand mal seizures and neuropathic pain?
Mona,
You are a gem. I hope you’re out on the deck today and the weather is perfect.
Animal testing doesn’t require informed consent. Do the potential health benefits of remotely altering the brain chemistry of humans (or mice) suffering from chronic pain or addiction outweigh the potential risks to humans (or mice) presented by all the less than noble uses (however remote) for which such technologies might be exploited?
Those value judgements (for mice anyway) are being made in large part by whoever technologically administers (or hacks) modifications to brain chemistry
of individual mice. Keep in mind that the reverse is also true. The same technologies could be used to create addiction, depression or chronic pain in otherwise healthy mice. Consequently whats good for some mice may not be good for others.
Eventually human trials would be required by the FDA AMA etc. well before approval for such remote medical therapies could be obtained. Participation in those human trials would (and should) require the informed consent of volunteer subjects I would hope. Pretty much of what happened opposite with the Facebook (US Military) did in that PNAS sanctioned study “Experimental Evidence of Massive-scale Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks.”
In that case after the study was published Facebook retroactively pointed to their terms and conditions to assert those selected for the study had provided “advance informed consent” to be the subjects of such experiments as such “product testing” might improve the overall user experience for all Facebook users.
Is the word you wanted ‘unethical’ or was it really ‘immoral’?
What does World wildlife foundation say about this? – an organization formed by big game hunters to preserve habitats for trophy hunting; an org. formerly headed by “sustainable” Maurice Storng?
Terrific article.
The only thing I’d strike out is “Is it any wonder that these industries are demanding that such reporting and exposure be outlawed? And is it hard to see why the brave activists bringing these truths to light and trying to stop them are regarded as criminals and even “terrorists” for doing so?”
We don’t have to (even in wording) pander to these insane corporations who refuse to notice the cruelty of the practices they are engaging in but fight tooth and nail to protect their “rights” to business profits (gotten off the back of extreme cruelty to animals) — to the extent of getting government to do their bidding wholesale. (It’s not Our government when it starts branding, labeling, and prosecuting any of us for such inanities as chalk on a sidewalk or handing out fliers on the basis of an industry-protective and absolutely bogus law like the AETA, which should never have been passed–it’s clearly a government/a judicial system/and a DOJ of and for the corporations.)
And it’s not that these activists are being “regarded” as criminals and “terrorists,” they are being Branded as criminals and terrorists–the term “domestic terrorist” in itself is clearly a strategic –and strategized –appellate designed to permit citizens and residents to be Otherized/Criminalized on the grand scale of Terrorism; applying the term to animal rights activists is obvious wrongful labeling, and a measure of the desperation and greed of these corporations seeking to “protect their profits” at all costs, knowing that a larger video/audio or verbal exposure of their inhumane practices would affect their Image adversely, not to mention expose them to possible new humane regulation, and seeking/rushing to criminalize where they know they could be incriminated.
Clearly, they pushed for and passed the AETA, thinking they could stamp out animal rights activism.
Truth is a wave though, and it’s sweeping over all of us more and more, it’s so good to learn that compassion for animals is growing worldwide and that this may be a uniting issue, across the left and the right–I have hope for our world.
Didn’t think my esteem for you could go any higher, Glenn, but it just did.
Jesse Ventura says it’s time for Chelsea Manning to be freed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr0kEvIXXmg
This article just further demonstrates that 9/11 was the greatest gift the fascists and stiflers of free speech ever received. More war, more surveillance, more feeding of the military-industrial complex, and, to top it all off, they finally got a new term (terrorist) to replace “communist” in branding anybody and anything they didn’t like. The tragedy is, just like with “communist”, people still dive right into it. I wonder if/when we’ll get our “have you no sense of decency, sir” moment with “terrorist”.
Agreed. ‘Cure is worse than the disease (and perpetuates/exacerbates it)’ type thing. The thing that always has had me on edge was how Patriot wasn’t passed, then 9/11, then was (nice timing) and then some. We’re seeing a similar situation brew with cyber, and some other arenas.
Perhaps there’s a whiff of mysticism to suggest such but it always seems like these ‘fail, kaboom, succeed+1′ things seem to happen in the US a lot — or did. I think we’ve firmly entered the land of ‘pretend-a-kaboom’ and passed through the land of ‘make-a-kaboom’ now (tho both are still used imo). Formulas that work are pursued in hopes of repetition, I guess.
The Cold War scripts we’re seeing the US attempt to reestablish now is an example of an attempt to recreate a formula that got a ‘winning result’ without acknowledging the other actor’s changed. I still see people calling Russian people ‘communist’ and ‘red’ as an insult, too. The program stuck so good in the public conscious that it still works in the US (and still pisses people off).
I suspect the same will be true for ‘terrorist’, being applied to people who are now being called ‘traitors’ for agreeing with, say, the whistleblowing of the past handful or so of years. Thoughtterror (this needs a better word) is probably going to be the thing more than just ‘thoughtcrime’.
Indeed, I think the effectiveness of these alarmist, BS labels is directly proportional to the fear/anger that the population feels towards the real thing. Worse, at least communism was an identifiable ideology which people either embraced or rejected. When it comes to “terrorism” it’s not always clear what/who the ‘real thing’ is, making it all the more pervasive. Add to that the fact that we’ve seemingly done everything in our power to exacerbate the thing we primarily associate with terrorism (Islamic extremism) and it doesn’t seem like the climate will improve any time soon.
There were also always places ‘commies’ and ‘reds’ could go. I don’t think the same could be said for ‘terrorists’ (or ‘Muslims’ (or insert label here)) — especially now; too much extraterritoriality (heh I’d typed extraterrortoriality :()). It’s not just that they don’t want people who disagree with *there* (eg the US or wherever) — it’s that they don’t want whatever value of ‘them’ to exist, period. There’s no ‘go there’ where people can be while some talking head talks about ‘them [whatevers]’.
Great article Glenn! Thanks for shining light on this terrible dark room.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for using your amazing writing and journalistic skills to shed light on a painful and hidden injustice. These activists and the victims they try to defend need voices like yours.
More folks who will soon be labeled “terrorists”:
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/7/29/climate_activists_in_oregon_rappel_from
This is the same thing I’ve talked about before, in Albuquerque the cops murdered a homeless man for illegal camping and brandishing knives. All the cops had to do was all 25 of them to go home and have one guy wait at the bottom of the mountain until he came down. No, they called out the whole force and aggressively went up the mountain surrounded him with 5 or 6 cops and dogs and arrest him. He was mentally ill also, so when he wouldn’t comply they used their dogs and still had to shoot him in the BACK. We need to see what’s going on and try to work responsibly for civic change.
Wow, they’ve blurred out the head, but “graphic” is an appropriate description. The “University cop” (is that a step up from Mall cop?) Ray Tensing shoots Samuel Dubose point blank as sits in the driver’s seat.
– “University cop indicted for murder in shooting of motorist Samuel DuBose”
– “Samuel Dubose Shooting Digital-Slow Motion Video: Body Cam”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azy3OBLXX-g
Just a constructive suggestion, in police school, replace course 409 – “falsifying reports” with 415 – “proper escalation of force”.
– “If we didn’t have a video, I do not believe we would have had an indictment,” he said.
In a press conference Dubose’s sister, Terina Allen, gave the most emotionally powerful argument about the importance of having the recording from Tensing’s body camera.
“If it were not for that video camera, Sam would be no different than all of the other [unindicted police shootings of black men], because the second officer was ready to corroborate every lie that the first officer said in the report,” Allen said.
Allen raised the important point that Tensing’s story that he was dragged by the car before shooting—which Deters roundly rejected and cannot be seen anywhere in the video—was backed up by his fellow officers.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/07/29/the_sam_dubose_police_report_is_full_of_falsehoods_from_ray_tensing_s_colleagues.html
Thank you, Glenn Greenwald. thank you.
Substitute the words “pro-life” or “southern heritage” for “animal rights throughout this article and you will laughing out loud at the outrage this is — because it is so inconceivable to think these other rackets would ever be treated the same way. Going to prison for maintaining an advocacy web site and chalking a sidewalk? Incredible.
I was writing a post and my power failed! Anyway I was talking how the US govt uses it’s power to squash all sorts of “militant protests” by using any and all means including bullets, Kent State 1970, that effectively stopped the ‘ Nam war protests. Also no one was prosecuted for this hit on Peaceful protesters and Nixon stopped what he thought was a threat to national security. Civil rights don’t really exist here, just maybe a good idea for our good citizens to believe in. Witness all the violence recently on how the cops have been militarized and the meanness displayed, especially toward the minorities. I do hope the animal rights activists persist because the fur industry is still going strong. However, it’s hard to protest when peaceful acts turn into terror plots and face lot’s of hard time or bullets. I still find it hard to believe corporations are allowed to do all the inhumane acts and support from Congress because of “jobs” . Really, this all is heading toward a bleak future for the younger people in this country . At least I have no heirs to face this troubling future.
Don’t worry, it’s been heading that way for decades. We’re never going to arrive.
Don’t be discouraged.
Those FEMA camps make it clear our government is thinking proactively about our citizens’ future.
any people that act as part of a movement or organizations that threatens capitalism are charged as “terrorists” in these situations yet murderers aren’t. Goes to show how the judicial systems are set up to prevent any type of dissent.
https://twitter.com/RiverBlufDental/status/626109326512422913
That’s a fake account.
BTW, hands down the best article I’ve read on this subject. In fact, one of the best articles I’ve read on any subject in quite some time. Am looking forward to more from you.
What do you think happens to all those animals that the activist let out? They all of a sudden know how to behave in the wild? They know how to hunt, or what a predator is? They all die even more horrible deaths at the hands of nature.
Are you serious? In any event, better to die in the wild and have a half chance of living than to be skinned alive and certain death at the mink farm.
Skinned alive? Are you really that stupid or do you work at it?
How do you know this?
And if true, why do you suppose animal lovers release them then?
There is no more horrible life or death in nature than there is at the hands of people. It’s not even close.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Lab animal care and use is highly regulated, and scientists are not monsters. Besides, experimentation on stressed animals yields crap results.
Lab animals in Pharma live incredibly good lives compared to what they’d see in the wild. Regular servings of high quality food, daily veterinary care, and euthenasia for pain or distress. They’re treated better than 98% of humans.
What do you think happens to those animals that are left behind? They die slow, agonizing deaths by anal electrocution, neck breaking, and being beaten against the ground. I know which fate I would choose. But your information is false anyways. There has been much evidence of fur bearing animals thriving long term in the surroundings of fur farms after escape and releases.
Great article, for most of these reasons I am vegan, opting out of the animal trade as much as possible.
Thank you for writing this Mr Greenwald. And thank you for Snowden. Keep exposing the evil underbelly and hypocrisy of the American culture. You do it better than anyone else. How people can allow any animal to be abused is beyond my understanding. If EVERYONE came to the rescue of defenseless innocent animals like these heroes have, there wouldn’t be enough room in the prisons to house us so the law would have to be changed. A terrorist invokes terror. The animal abusers on these farms are the real terrorists. The so-called terrorists are the heroes come to rescue them. Shame on anyone who supports animal cruelty. We all know that they are the ones who belong in prison.
Here is a review from Walter Palmer’s Yelp page, from Adolph H:
“This is one of the finest dental care facilities I have ever encountered. I came in to Dr. Palmer’s office with a tooth in aching pain after I slipped in mein office on a puddle of juice. Dirty, filthy juice. I found I had chipped mein tooth. Mein struggle, am I Reich? Anyway, I came in, Dr. Palmer gave me gas (which I was a bit nervous about at first), and fixed mein tooth right then and there! All in all I love his spirit and everything that he stands for. 5 stars.”
I wonder where this guy will be in 3 weeks and what his life will look like.
– “I wonder where this guy will be in 3 weeks and what his life will look like.”
The guy was presenting himself as a big game hunter, had already been convicted of poaching, he settled a suit where he was accused sexually harassing a receptionist, and then he shot the real life lion equivalent of the Lion King’s Simba, posted Simba’s lifeless corpse next to his smiling face on the internet.
Should potential patients of his, be informed of this? Is a doctor’s criminal endeavours not something clients should know about? Should Yelp keep all that out of the reviews?
I wonder, what if the doctor started coming to work wearing a pith helmet, regaling his patients with stories of how he had travelled deep into the dark continent…pointing out the mounted stuff animal heads along the examination room wall..African drum music playing on the stereo….What would Yelp do with the reviews?
– “But Yelp is actively working to scrub the page of the negative reviews, which currently top 2,300. That number has fluctuated down to as low as 1,600 but has consistently rebounded to 2,000+.”
http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/28/yelp-is-scrubbing-thousands-of-angry-comments-on-the-page-of-a-lion-murdering-dentist/
JLocke, I don’t approve of, or condone big game trophy hunting. But the mechanism of collective Internet opprobrium is an interesting phenomenon. I hope the shaming of Walter Palmer has some net positive result. Maybe some wealthy American big game hunters will rethink and then cancel their upcoming African safaris. Maybe a couple of lions will live longer, natural lives. That would be a good thing.
But after this blows over and the Internet moves on, poaching will continue. There is so much poaching in Africa, and not just by rich white American guys. There is a big market for elephant ivory in China, and rhino horn in Asia generally, purported to have aphrodisiac properties, if memory serves. Many African poachers make big $ killing and selling the horns.
The problem is much bigger than Walter Palmer. I don’t have a solution to propose, though I know new laws prohibit the importation of ivory into the US, and even the sale of antique ivory has now become restricted in this country.
We will see more and more species become extinct in our lifetimes, and not just charismatic mega-fauna, and not just from poaching.
I have not read Elizabeth Kolbert’s book The Sixth Extinction, but it has been well received. The gist of it is that global warming will in a relatively short amount of time cause the extinction of millions of different species of plants and animals. There have been other global die-offs in the past, but what’s coming is man made and it will be faster than the previous five. The Amazon link is here, if you are interested:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History/dp/1250062187
I’ve read the book,(The 6th Extinction), and it’s one of the best on the subject, and if anyone doesn’t think we have a major problem is sadly deluded. I’ve read many books on the subject of climate disruption, a much better term than global warming, as the term has lost much of its punch. I think the public does need to know about all the bad things, not just the flavor of the day on the network news, but the real problems of govt people operating above the law and no one in big business being prosecuted for all the coverups of faulty products, IE, cars, cribs, furniture, etc., protesters being called terrorists… We all need to take a hard look at what’s going on and do something before it’s too late. I’m open to suggestions so please post as I’m disabled and can’t get around any more.
Appreciate your term “climate disruption” and agree it’s better even than “climate change”. Every now and then a revision in words can make us think again about a concern. Thanks!
He probably will not face any criminal charges, but He’ll be looking over his should for a long time.
Agree with the article’s points, but I doubt the author considered the not unsubstantial “terror” unleashed upon the environment when thousands of feral, genetically engineered (and thus invasive exotic) predators were released into the environment. This is why I don’t consider animal rights activists to be environmentalists b/c they really don’t care about the environment in the broader sense. Most of these people would oppose the control of feral animals (cats, rats) that are wreaking havoc on natural ecosystems, in some cases driving native species to extinction. They are well-meaning but quite misguided.
“driving native species to extinction”. Could you cite your source please? Thank you.
Wow–really?! You can start by reading David Quammen’s excellent “Song of the Dodo” (or the abridged “Planet of Weeds”) and then move on to the THOUSANDS of other articles (Google, may I suggest?) in the lay press (not to mention the scientific literature) on how invasive, exotic species are one of the top threats to biodiversity all over the planet. Examples? Have you read what Burmese pythons are doing to native mammals in the Everglades? In Hawaii, more than half of the native, endemic bird species were driven extinct by introduced mosquitoes (and avian malaria), introduced feral pigs, along with rats, mongooses, invasive plant species, etc. And most endemic Hawaiian Honeycreepers that survive are endangered by those same threats. In New Zealand, half of the native birds are now extinct thanks to introduced rats and other mammals; here’s a blog on the latter:
http://10000birds.com/when-conservation-and-animal-rights-collide.htm
It’s the same story the world over, but especially critical on islands and peninsulas.
As for Liz, below, I doubt you are an “ecologist,” at least not with an advanced degree. You seem to be completely unfamiliar with the argument illustrated in the above link, that ecology (and conservation) must be concerned with the welfare of the species and the population (especially of rare and endangered species), whenever the latter are may be in conflict with the welfare of the individual. Animal rights activists seem to be unable to comprehend that, as do you. And, no, Glenn in no way addressed the issue of negative ecological consequences of invasive exotic organisms. You must have imagined that.
I read somewhere in just the past week that “animal rights” types were protesting the killing of rats on islands, which is absolutely necessary if we are to save endangered species (will post link if I can find it). That’s why these people are tragically misguided–they will sacrifice an entire species so that they don’t have to fret about humans killing some Rattus rattus (one of the few mammals that actually outnumbers humans)!
Ahh, Quammen’s great — more willing to be technical and explanatory than the typical science writer (and more able to) yet manages to be accessible to non-scientists. “Spillover” was also a good read.
@David: One reason many/most countries have such strict controls about produce and the like at their borders is due to a knowledge of what terrible things can happen, not because they want you to buy only their fruit or whatever. Look up ‘introduced species’ and ‘invasive species’ on wikipedia (the entries aren’t very long but they seem on quick glance to be sound) and start with those. Insects and fungi tend to be some of the most overlooked ones and can cause a lot of damage — but so can any introduced animal or even a massive explosion in a species (resulting in a paradoxical die-off). Here’s a good (Canadian) link with a lot more information: http://www.invadingspecies.com/invaders/
From what I read, the author has considered it quite well, notably in pointing out the broadening of awareness surrounding animals rights throughout society. As an ecologist I have very strong feelings about the environment and recognition of animal’s rights because I understand them to be deeply connected. I’m finding more and more people, including animal rights activists, those who identify as environmentalists, and those who don’t identify either way, becoming increasingly sophisticated in their understanding of these connections as well. It’s not surprising given the internet and the rise of social networking.
BTW, Mr Greenwood, I too have noticed a shift occurring in the far right and won’t be surprised if this very issue isn’t what brings us more together in the coming years. I certainly hope so.
What are your feelings about deforestation, building out of suburbia, and the mowing down and/or burning down of rainforests (all of which remove habitats) as they relate to animals’ rights? Or peoples’ (some displaced species are carriers for emerging diseases that humans have no immunological familiarity to)?
Note I agree that the fundamental desires of the perpetrators were noble (and it being ‘terrorism’ is ridiculous) — I just think they needed to have a better plan than ‘set them free’. What skills do bred mink have to live in the wild? Maybe both parties were to some degree cruel and irresponsible, just in different ways — the breeders for not caring enough (one assumes), and the activists for not understanding (one assumes) — lack of empathy vs lack of information.
I like this article, and agree with it, for the most part. Our food industry needs some serious oversight. Both animals and the farmers of them are treated like utter garbage by corporations. Now, I’m afraid I am not of the group that reads “meat is murder.” Meat is needed, I’m afraid. BUT that does not mean we can treat animals with disrespect for their sacrifice. Nor should we allow small farmers, who need the income from their animals and who often genuinely care for them, to be crushed beneath a boot-heel of a corporation. Things need to change.
I don’t really disagree with this too much. It is awfully long. Maybe a series of three shorter articles would have been better.
If I was an animal heading into one of these places, it would probably take extreme measures to prod me along too. But, in the final analysis, people eat dead animals.
Meat is murder…tasty, tasty murder :)
– “Meat is murder”
Is eating meat ethical? It seems that whether you eat meat, or not, you still are faced with ethical food questions:
– “For so long, I had assumed I was maintaining a diet that caused less suffering, but my vegetarianism had blinded me to the myriad other ethical dilemmas that were a part of my eating choices. I started wondering whether not eating animals was the only, or even the best, way to make such a compassionate choice.
Antonia Malchik, a writer and former vegetarian, remembers similar realizations: “How, I thought, could I pretend that not eating pork from a locally-raised pig, while at the same time eating soy products whose cultivation has destroyed massive rainforest habitat for all kinds of animals could actually be considered an ethical choice?”
The question of whether or not to eat meat is not simply an animal-rights issue. It’s an environmental issue, a labor rights issue, a fair trade issue, an issue of our global community’s economic, environmental, and human progress. If our ethical goal is to live in harmony with our world, eating a hamburger doesn’t have to run counter to those ideals. It can be a way to invest in them, to practice them with every bite we take. “
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/04/breaking-vegetarian-the-ethical-implications-of-ea.html
Nice. Insightful.
Excellent. Thank you.
My husband and I raise rabbits on our urban home. We garden and raise a significant amount of our own vegetables for freezing/canning/drying so the rabbits serve two purposes:
1. Source – along with composting – of excellent fertilizer for our raised veggie beds so that we can avoid the need for chemical fertilizers.
2. Source of some of our protein needs.
Only one of our rabbits is a pet. The rest are raised humanely, well-fed from the garden and, when the time comes, they help to feed us as a source of protein that we know the provenance of and whose (also humane) deaths we are responsible for and do not take lightly.
Thank you for this. Many states have made it a crime to photograph animal cruelty and yet they do not punish the animal cruelty. This society has its head on backwards. What is done to animals in our name is horrific. Animals need advocates and activists. I will work for their welfare until the day I die. I really appreciate your efforts too. Hopefully we can heal this sick society.
Is HP getting rid of comments sections or have they censored me for not toeing the liberal line?
FB won’t let me post anymore. HP is going to hell.
They are running it through Facebook where it gets censored anonymously. As in, we don’t know who or why.
I keep agitating for an RSS feed for censored comments. Just dump the offending comment and the reason why it was censored. But, people want to pretend that they don’t censor anyone, a polite fiction. Only evil people like Putin or the Chinese engage in censorship, not us, were the good guys.
You left out North Korea, etc.
Reminds me of when I watched “Earthlings”. We’re truly disgusting creatures , humans.
So tiresome, really…
As horrifying as the animal abuse and the “terrorism” label applied to activists, it seems that those who are allowed or encouraged to torture animals in factory farms are victims as well. Think of what kind of reshaping of the human inclination to have pets, care for animals and even raise for food has been contaminated by the factory farm culture. We are creating monsters, many of whom may have no other way to earn money–perhaps like the Iraq army fired and left to fend for themselves resulting in terrible choices that we now label “terrorism”. What an empty word that has become.
How does that go, if slaughterhouses were made of glass we’d all be vegetarian. …
…forced to eat GMOs?
Perhaps many issues are embedded in our language. Slaughterhouses, for one. We have personally raised chickens for meat, from chick to the table. It was an interesting experience and I can say that appreciation for our well-loved and cared for fowl was an education. We learned ways to kill the chickens in a humane manner – no struggle (hence stress feather set). Taste was nothing that can be found in a supermarket. We rarely eat meat–never from the factory farm largely due to the issues raised in Glenn’s great article. Maybe slaughterhouses and the feed lots and the whole animal to table practice should be made of glass. But then the glass makers might be labeled accessories to terrorism by exposing and hurting profits.
This line was obviously not written by a hunter. Just because you’ve seen the organs of a deer doesn’t make the meat any less tasty! If people realized this … even in the meat industry … maybe they’d give up these weird legal excesses.
Terrorism is what some of our police forces practice.
Terrorism is harming CIVILIANS to accomplish an objective. The animal-rights activists may be breaking the law, but they’re not terrorists.
We’re seeing the result of letting the 1%’s corrupt corporate power structure define the terms we use. For example calling extremists “conservative”, or calling right-wing Democrats “neoliberal”. They’re neither “neo” (new) nor “liberal”: They’re all right-wing.
“Terrorism is harming CIVILIANS to accomplish an objective.”
No it is not, Terrorism has a specific legal definition
the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended— (choose one)
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
Notice that no where in that definition are the words “HARMING CIVILIANS”
Not really a significant point to harp on. A necessary condition of terrorism is a criminal act that is “dangerous to human life.” I suppose some humans might not be classified as civilians, but eh, not an important distinction.
Did you read what you just posted??
“… acts dangerous to human life … to intimidate or coerce a civilian population”
The animal-rights activists are not threatening CIVILIANS with deadly actions. Your “point” is a distinction without a difference.
Really? Let’s ask PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco: “Arson, property destruction, burglary, and threat are ‘acceptable crimes’ when used for the animal cause” (ActivistCashcom, 2008).
Firebombs hit home of UC Santa Cruz professor, car of researcher
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10080239
http://www.psmag.com/politics-and-law/when-extreme-animal-rights-activists-attack-40430
http://www.bettereconomy.org/#!Green-terrorists-strike-US-again-in-latest-firebomb-attack/c1nmi/55562b120cf2adc1ad35dc1d
You clump all animal right’s activists into one pot. The 2 activists that Glenn has written about were not involved in any of the crimes that you mentioned above. Just b/c Alex Pacheco said those words (supposedly and out of context) does not mean all animal rights activist who break the law with minor infractions are guilty of property damage, destruction or burglary and even if they followed Pacheco’s words they would still not be terrorists.
You seem to be overlooking Glenn’s point about terrorism which is the main point of his article.
Just amazing how the US, simultaneously, suddenly had two ambassadors in Africa — Obladi Oblada Obama, the president, preaching against all the kinda things that distinguish the USA as being so exceptional a nation, like extreme corruption and inequality, and on behalf of things so quintessentially american as respect for LGBT rights and an awesome justice system ; and Walter J. Palmer, the MN dentist, who simply by dint of his despicable and cowardly behavior championed and personified the kinda heroism that inspires and drives all NRA advocates. — Oh well, I guess America was won by the gun and, the way things are going, is ever more fated to perish the same way.
WB, Yiddy.
Like most victories by the gun, pyrrhic, do you think?
Thanks for the welcome back, UI. And I guess I can assume you are not unhappy with my new-style moniker — moreover, that it is acceptable also to The Intercept’s editor. In the last days, under this revised version (thanks to your impetus), I posted two comments in reverse script — i.e., as in the Semitic style of writing, from right to left — and both got wiped off the face of the earth just some ten or fifteen minutes later. For the record they read:- (1) re: the NSA’s projected destruction of 14 years of US Metadata: “Methinks it’d be a crime against posterity to destroy archived data concerning all communications to & from Hillary Clinton”. And re: the White House’s wretched response to the Snowden petition: “This just goes to show that the White House is even more useless than I am”. Of course, I’m left wondering: What was the problem here @ Comments with my inverted script — was it that plain old anti-Semitism once more as in over & over again?
Honestly, I’m not thrilled, but I realise that these words are just borrowed by me, too, and I don’t want to be the type of person that making an issue out of it would make me from a ‘freedom of use’ perspective, nor do I want to allow a username to have power over me so maybe it’s for the best.
Now as to your comments that didn’t post ;)… I disagree on Clinton. One standard, like it or not — same general principle as with anything people might want to ‘assume guilt’ for: better to let a guilty man go free than an innocent man go to prison — and better to let privacy be private, even if that means you might not find out something (honestly if I were in her position I’d want my email away from where she’d have had it too, look at how gov spies on itself and uses it). Note my belief on the latter is a *personal* data issue, and I honestly am not always comfortable with it myself, and my stance is far far far more complicated than how I’m presenting it. Why do you believe it should be that way for Clinton? Do you believe it should be different for her vs other people? Why do you believe she has less rights than you, or your family, or friends? Might there not be a parallel between, say, requiring a backdoor into peoples’ crypt/data and mandated retention that can be used by parties without knowledge to sway things?
TBH I could legitimately argue both for and against it, because I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think things almost always vary from case to case according to a certain set of a dozen or so heuristics, but I’m more interested in your take and thoughts on the matter, and I’m tired of people bashing Hillary Clinton. Yes, she’s fallible and not perfect, and no I’m not ‘for’ her, but I’m not really against her either, nor do I find her distinguishably worse than most other politicians — and I think she still would have been better than Obama in ’08 (and probably ’12), regardless of any of that; I think a lot would’ve still gone quite wrong, but maybe a few things might have gone better. Feel free to argue that.
As to your (2) [unnumbered ;P], I disagree about the White House being useless. It’s quite useful. Just against us, not for us, generally, and on principle.
I wouldn’t look too deeply into the inverted script thing. Site’s had problems with extended and alternate character sets before, and still does.
(BTW I don’t think the editor has much to do with anything in the commenting arena; ‘acceptability’ or its inverse isn’t usually about anything like usernames afaik — if you had problems it was probably just the glitch I mentioned just above.)
*Shrug*
Mitt kopp in ert.
Thanks, UI. (1) re: Hillary, I maintain that a public figure who trades on the trust awarded him/her by the plebs, this on the basis of his/her electoral claims & promises, forfeits any claim to privacy in terms of his/her professional dealings and has to suffer to be transparent to all of the body politic. So HC’s metadata I see as being something de facto owned by the public domain. (2) I maintain that the White House’s sheer & utter incompetence — virtually across the board — is manifest for all to see in terms of its proactive war-mongering, the whole surveillance fiasco, the projected trade pacts, the immigration crisis, a completely dysfunctional justice system, ditto re: law-enforcement, its supervision of a financially illiterate FED, its kowtowing to the likes of Saudi Arabia and Israel, et cetera. Here not to mention Obama’s failure to award a presidential medal to the hero postman who, seeking to draw attention to the financial corruption endemic to the Belt Way, landed his gyrocopter — and mailbag — on the lawn of the Capitol.
Let’s say I put myself in your head/viewpoint for a second and attempt to see things from your standpoint:
How do you know who will have power later? Or who they might have shady dealings with? Everybody starts somewhere, everyone starts somehow.
Whether you know it or not you’re feeding into the ‘Collect it all’ mentality.
In re: the still unsubstantiated claim, below, that hunters provide “90%” of the money for conservation,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/20/the-idea-that-hunting-saves-african-wildlife-doesnt-withstand-scrutiny
– “the money for conservation”
How is the poorest continent going to pay to preserve endangered species in their habitat? And why would Africans want to? Here’s the pitch:
The West – “Hey Africa, you can urbanize, industrialize, kill off the remaining dangerous predators, share the prosperity we take for granted, or…
…you can, continue to let deadly animals roam around, continue to be poor, die from diseases which we can afford to prevent, but you can’t, and once in a while, one of us will visit with some money in exchange for shooting one of your lions, what do you say???”
– “Cost of saving endangered species £50bn a year, say experts
Annual spending to protect species and habitats is less than half the amount spent on bankers’ bonuses last year “
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/11/cost-save-threatened-species
Yes, as the article I linked made clear, those are literally the only two options available. Africans must suffer and die OR they must allow assholes to pay the big bucks for canned hunts. That’s it. There is no other lucrative possibilities that combine rich paying tourists and conservation mentioned at all, even once, anywhere in the text.
“– “Cost of saving endangered species £50bn a year, say experts”
Saving endangered species is a fools errand. Habitat, habitat HABITAT!…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cjRGee5ipM
““There is little evidence that hunting does much to conserve wildlife in Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique or much of West Africa,” said Professor Craig Packer, a lion expert at the University of Minnesota. Only in Zimbabwe and Namibia did he say hunting revenues appeared to be actively protecting species.”
This is an opinion in an opinion piece. Any facts presented outline the corruption in the local governments, and it does support the fact that tourism supports the local economy, but not clear how much goes to conservation towards habitats.
Hmmm, It seems that the Turkish Kurds are turning out in droves to vote, have won too many seats in parliament, so now Turkey’s war on terror is mostly about them.
– “The PKK had had a truce with the Turkish government since 2013, but a PKK spokesman said Saturday that the truce, and any peace process are at an end given the bombing campaign Ankara launched against them.
The US and Turkey consider the PKK a terrorist organization, and in the past it has been extremely violent. In the 1980s and after some 30,000 persons died in southeastern Turkey in a dirty war between the PKK guerrillas and the Turkish army. Some 20% of Turkey’s 75 million people are ethnic Kurds, who mainly live in the hardscrabble southeast of the country. Very few Kurdish Turks are separatists, but Ankara is obsessed with the danger that they might turn in a secessionist direction, encouraged by moves toward autonomy of Kurds in Syria (Rojava) and in northern Iraq (the Kurdistan Regional Government).
The PKK seemed a spent force 15 years ago, but the Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq destroyed that country’s security and some 5000 PKK commandos fled Turkey to camps on the Iraqi side of the border.”
http://www.juancole.com/2015/07/turkeys-mainly-targeting.html
You would think sustainability, maintaining a healthy environment, and that includes what you eat, would be a conservative issue. So why are the so-called “conservatives” against that?
– “Sustainable development in any sector is achieved when successive generations inherit natural resources virtually equal to the amount inherited by preceding generations. To be truly sustainable we have to be able to feed ourselves while staying within our own ecological boundaries. We’re not honouring those boundaries.”
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/doreen-nicoll/2015/07/good-food-never-cheap-and-cheap-food-never-good
Oh here’s someone wondering the same thing:
-”Why Do Conservatives Hate Environmentalism?
“Conservatives can be persuaded to accept the environmental argument if is pitched in a way that is consistent with their morality, which tends to emphasize the sacredness of nature and a focus on local, community-building issues.”
But a 2012 study finds that climate campaigns overwhelming continue to frame the issue as harm and care, fairness and oppression of marginalized groups. These liberal values don’t resonate with conservatives. Environmentalists might take a page from E.F. Schumacher’s book, Small is Beautiful:
Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side. Until quite recently, the battle seemed to go well enough to give him the illusion of unlimited powers, but not so well as to bring the possibility of total victory into view. This has now come into view, and many people, albeit only a minority, are beginning to realize what this means for the continued existence of humanity.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/why-do-conservatives-hate-environmentalism/
Wasn’t it George Orwell’s book “1984” where titles meant the opposite? The “Ministry of Peace” was the war-making department. Did FBI copy Orwell?
George Orwell also said they were constantly at war and they changed sides every so often so Mr. Smith had to constantly rewrite history to conform to the current war. Sound familiar? The nightly news always has a story to get “us” outraged and the one to make “us” feel better about ourselves. All we need now is some Soma from Huxley’s Brave New World and we’ll all go happily into oblivion. Remember the ” hate week” ? We’re all going to see that this society cannot sustain itself indefinitely, growth cannot go on forever IE the economy, so how do we solve this before it’s too late?
“Anonymous” has gotten hold of, and released Canadian CSIS spy documents.
Ipolitics – “Members of the hacker group Anonymous released a confidential cabinet document today revealing secrets about the overseas activities of Canada’s spy agencies. The breach revealed both the scope of Canada’s surveillance network and the volume of communications its old and outdated system manages.”
CBC – “The video harshly criticizes the Harper government, police, security agencies and corporations, saying they have branded “anyone opposing their fossil-fuel agenda to be a terrorist.”
Anonymous also denounces “covert, warrantless surveillance” and the government’s recently passed omnibus security bill, known as C-51.
“Anonymous has been collecting bits of evidence and making plans for many months,” the video says.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/anonymous-csis-document-leak-probed-by-rcmp-cse-1.3171099
Yet, our government allows one of the largest terrorist groups in the USA, to parade down the streets of the USA, with their uniforms of disgrace on, even stand on the Capitol steps with their flag of disgrace. Put a stop to the KKK, Skinheads and white supremacy groups in America, before you call this group a “terrorist group.” Pitiful, just plain pititul!
Tom C: The neverending load, even if you don’t page down past the current, also does ‘interesting’ things when third party sites are involved — which is to say they get pinged for visiting sites that you are allowing scripts on even when the reader isn’t reading that article. For instance if you inspect one of the ‘anonymous’ gravatar avatar elements in firefox, and you scroll down through all the other elements, you’ll see third-party loads of other elements for other stories, not just the story you’re on (along with all the other third party stuff/urls including these unfortunate gravatars — this is really such an easy thing to fix, just change all the non-cookied gravatars/’anonymous’ ones to a static image).
For readers who want to hear Steve Best, one of the foremost international animal liberation activists, writers, and philosophers, who is banned in the UK for his subversive activities:
http://ia601403.us.archive.org/6/items/ARZonePodcast84SteveBestThePoliticsOfTotalLiberation/ArzonePodcast84-SteveBest-ThePoliticsOfTotalLiberation.mp3
Speech at 2014 US National Animal Rights Confrence:
https://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/speech-at-the-us-national-animal-rights-conference-2014/
@ about 47 minutes: violence in the name of animal rights is “just trying to open up the field of struggle.”
Then he has the gall to cite Ghandi, King, and the Occupy movement.
Simple rationalizations of a terrorist.
In other news:
EXCLUSIVE: Sources have confirmed that Walter James Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, who is believed to have paid £35,000 to shoot and kill a much-loved lion with a bow and arrow in Hwange National Park has been identified as the same man recently seen attempting to shoot Corky the 49 year old female orca at Sea World San Diego.
According to witnesses at the aquatic theme park the man was heard to say “This is like shooting fish in a barrel!” before he was startled by a small child carrying an inflatable toy whale who said “You are a bad man!”. The dentist was last seen exiting the park and asking directions to the nearest petting zoo.
Hey, if he went hunting there for “Tilikum” he would be a bloody hero. I’d like to know how many wage slaves we’re supposed to watch being fed to that damned fish before we let in the Inuit to show park visitors how an authentic native whale hunt is done.
* “Fish” in the Moby Dick sense. Maybe it’s archaic, but there are times when a non-technical word seems more lyrical.
Well, this is nice (and predicted/predictable), now the ‘new look’ comment section is closed, as are all of Micah’s articles’ comment sections, so I guess THAT conversation just got ‘finished off’.
Can someone please pass this to Tom C so he can learn how javascript in comments can be used against people (not just people who use Tor) — and can you PLEASE reopen the comment section on that page; the site’s new Not-Just-Look is still being actively and constantly updated; closing that comment section off prevents discourse. That shouldn’t have to (nor should it at all) take place only via email.
Thanks.
The link: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/how-the-way-you-type-can-shatter-anonymity-even-on-tor/
Excellent article, even better than Glenn’s usual.
Very easy to understand once you recognize our government as a corporate/fascist state where profits are much more important than prayers. The only church you are really protected in is the Church of the Greenback.
The real terrorists here are the government prosecutors who seek to use government power for political means.
“A legal defense fund has now been created to ensure that both Buddenberg and Kissane have the funds needed to defend themselves. You can, and I hope will, donate to that here. Beyond that, both CCR and the Civil Liberties Defense Center have done stalwart work in fighting the pernicious efforts to equate this activism with “terrorism.””
How long will it be before supporting funds like this will be considered material support to terrorists, and they finally put us all in the clink?
This will take awhile. They will first monitor all those who donated. Intercept all communications. Insert malware on computers. When the time is right, there will be an FBI sting. Bank accounts will be frozen. Media outlets will be notified. Everyone will be rounded up and put in detention centers.
it takes a while to plant child pornography and cover the tracks.
Mink hate us for our freedoms. But perhaps to some degree this is understandable.
We violate our own self proclaimed principles by placing Mink in indefinite detention, locked in cages and held without charges. Then we force them to watch as their family members are turned into fur coats. So the blowback is not really surprising.
President Obama has promised to close down the Mink farms, warning they are the “ideal recruitment tool for terrorists”. However he has failed to act, claiming he is helpless because Congress refuses to fund it. A real president would simply declare it a matter of national security, and do it. Once this is done, the mink could be moved into federal prisons where they would have the same rights to meet with their legal counsel as other prisoners. Those which can’t be charged should be freed.
If that doesn’t happen, mink have the potential to become the Greatest Threat Ever. Pound for pound, they are tougher fighters than Navy Seals. The number of these natural born killers is growing and more can slip across the border from Canada undetected. I fear that Americans lack the will to fight them and will simply submit.
A spokesperson for Donald ‘the donald’ Trump recently announced, if elected, President Trump will give all [legal] citizens a Mink stole (sp?) w/ a flag pin.
*Pound for pound, the Donald is crazier than a Mink ever thought about.
Bellisimo! Molto Bello!
It seems to me as if the FBI is insinuating that they view black lives as below minks. Rascism is alive and kicking in the highest government echelons.
The responsibility lies first with the congress; it passed the law assigning outrageous penalties for minor infractions, and associating concerned citizens with terrorists. Second, it lies with the DOJ and above; extremely high priority is assigned to enforcing this law at the expense of other more serious crimes.
It is remarkable how blatantly the US government supports the food industry against the interests of the people.
(ignoring that mink aren’t a food source, we don’t eat carnivores in U.S.)
Is it really remarkable? Since Voodoo Economics took over the country and mandated a shift to the “Service Economy”, we have only one industry left. Agriculture. And since the only real way to reliably make money is to support real industry, we therefore have as small and undiversified an economic base as the Democratic Republic of Congo, now, so why don’t you expect the government to increasingly brutally support it like every other one tune band on the planet?
Not directly. But little goes to waste. What do the animals we eat eat?
I do expect the support. What surprises me is how open the support is.
Pigs/pork? Tho that’s more of an omnivore thing.
Ondelette said ‘we’ so maybe not as applicable but some cultures eat dogs/cats, and some people eat snakes, grubs, etc (even in the US).
Yeah. Ok.
If you get caught making “fragrant meat” (xiang rou) in the U.S. I’m pretty sure they don’t let it go as culture. In China, you do see signs for it during the winter, but people raise dogs to eat for that purpose. They don’t raise dogs to eat here. There is some snake, and alligator eating. So I guess that’s applicable. It’s still true we don’t eat carnivorous mammals, in particular members of the mink/weasel/sable/wolverine family.
Even in China, xiang rou isn’t eaten as a regular part of the diet, but rather to keep warm in the winter (mostly given to children), since eating carnivore flesh tends to raise the body temperature slightly.
Sorry if that seemed like I was attacking you. More me being contrarian; knee-jerk. I agree people generally don’t go out and buy that sort of stuff at a grocery store, but people do still occasionally eat carnivores (occasionally hunters eat wolves) — it’s just not considered socially acceptable (and I think we agree there) or common. It’s kind of interesting it isn’t, actually?
Sorry I’ve been a bit of a dick.
This is terribly off-topic and I apologise (to the writer and the other commenters) but there are no technical comment sections open right now and I was wondering if you’d had a chance to read http://www.mathpubs.com/detail/1507.06955v1/Rowhammerjs-A-Remote-Software-Induced-Fault-Attack-in-JavaScript yet?
No I hadn’t seen it, downloaded it and am taking a look.
The problem lies with the term “Terrorist” and “Terrorism”. The solution, therefore, is to make everyone a terrorist – take power out of the term.
Kim Kardashian is a terrorist.
Keith Richards is a terrorist.
JCPenny is a terrorist organization.
Create a fund to collection donations to make T-Shirts:
My Mum Is A Terrorist
Your Sister Is A Terrorist
My Bitch Ex-Wife Is A Terrorist
We need Brad Pitt and the 12 Monkeys.
Seriously though, back in the mid-70’s I worked on a Foster Farms chicken ranch outside of Modesto, CA. I was young and needed the money.
WARNING! For those of you who are squeamish, DO NOT READ THIS.
The chicken ranch (and Foster Farms had and still has many) was designed to transform a few hundred thousand baby chicks into 3 pound fryers within weeks. They do this using various methods of forced feeding along with special “growth” feed and other techniques. For what I am about to tell you, it is important to point out that chickens are the most stupid, helpless creatures on the planet. Here is what Foster Farms does (or at least did 40 years ago):
Each chicken house (a ranch has many) accommodates about 50 thousand birds. There are rows of water trays with their height adjusted each day such that the chickens can barely reach them to get a drink of water. The reasoning here was to force the chickens to stretch their necks so that they would grow faster. Next comes the mechanized feed tray – a long elliptical tray that snaked throughout the chicken house. The tray delivered the feed (more on the feed later) and is automatically turned on, via a timer, many times throughout the day. Young chickens become conditioned very quickly to run to the tray when it turns on. The timer is adjusted every day to increase the feed runs. Chickens go to sleep if the lights are turned out and will stay awake if the lights are left on. The light were ALWAYS on, day and night. The feed was constantly being delivered. The height of water trays was always being raised. They grew fast.
My job was to pick up dead chicken every morning and to “cull” the ones who were near dead or deformed. When I mean deformed, there were chickens with three legs. Some had twisted beaks – I kid you not. After the chickens got older, they would eat their own – the weaker ones. Cannibalistic chickens. I was told to cull the weak birds because Foster Farms was concerned about disease if too much cannibalism was going around.
On one very hot summer day, tens of thousands of chickens died from the heat. They had heart attacks. Yes, heart attacks. Due to the forced feeding and rapid growth their hearts were weak. Foster Farm crews came in with heavy earth digging equipment that dug an enormous grave. A chicken grave.
I promised to talk to you about the feed. WARNING! If you have managed to get this far, you may not want to read the rest.
Foster Farms manufactures their own chicken feed. You can see very tall silos in areas close to their chicken ranches which houses the feed. A few times a year the feed in the silos was drawn down such that there were tons of feed stuck on the walls inside the silos. They would send us in: Using ropes, we were dropped-in from the top, armed with face masks, goggles and shovels. Our job was to shovel the feed stuck on the walls. Some of the silos had corn feed. Some had a brownish substance which I was told was soy and some other stuff (I forgot). Other silos had DRIED CHICKEN BLOOD. Yes, you heard me right. This stuff was beyond nasty. It was fine like baby powder, We had to wear special gear because it got into every crevice. So, part of what chickens were fed was their own blood. No wonder they were cannibals.
After the chickens were all grown-up, Foster Farms would instruct us to turn out the lights in the chicken houses. This would be the first time in their miserable short lives that they would sleep. The trucks rolled in. Their were large cages on the trucks. Migrant workers entered the chicken houses and scooped up the sleeping birds with bare hands by wedging chicken feet between their fingers – holding three birds with each hand! The birds were then thrown into the cages on the trucks. They would empty the entire ranch (a few hundred thousand birds) within two the three hours. A few days would go by and trucks would deliver a new batch of baby chicks and the whole process would start all over again. I survived one brood. I was disgusted and hitchhiked back to LA. I didn’t eat chicken for over 20 years.
Every Thanks Giving since 1976, I try to tell my family this story around the table. They always shut me up. This is the first time I have told the complete story. For those who have read this far, thanks for listening.
Thanks for sharing, that is disgusting although I imagine pretty typical for the industry.
Reminds me of this video of a Perdue chicken farmer (sorry for the mobile link, on my phone)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M8uR79bM2bs
Well, if you were talking about slaughtering chickens at a turkey dinner, then that’s sort of inappropriate. Should’ve stuck to a story about turkeys. ;)
Actually, turkeys are more stupid than chickens. Feed formulas are a bit different.
This I did not know (feed formulas). That’s interesting. I assumed certain additive aspects of it would be different to encourage certain, erm, growth patterns, but I would have guessed things were largely similar.
What does a turkey eat and how are they handled differently from chickens, if you have a minute? Always useful to learn new things. :)
The US is pretty messed up when it comes to feed practices. AFAIK it is illegal in the UK and EU to feed chicken to chickens. I don’t know what the current law is in regard to this in the US but I know that the beef industry got its ass handed to it when BSE was making itself known. Even still, most of the feeding practices, antibiotic practices, and factory farming practices (etc etc etc) are beyond horrifyingly inhumane.
Really? In the UK? That must be recent, the bulk of the Crutzfeld-Jenkins (a.k.a. Mad Cow Disease) epidemic in Europe came from feed sold by the UK to other European countries that was made including large percentages of the animals to which it was to be fed.
I believe you meant Creutzfeldt-Jakob? Between the both of us we can get it right anyway (I never spell the first part right). My statement was re chickens (actually it’s surprisingly easy to find the law on UK chicken feed as opposed to US laws on chicken feed — that’s why I said I don’t know… I looked and trying to find anything was very difficult. Near as I can tell it’s a state-by-state thing and I don’t think I saw anything too specific.
I know the beef laws are recent, and resulted from the Mad Cow issue (though I’m pretty sure it’s only “some” parts (eg brain matter, as it’s a prion disease (misfolded proteins)). Not that cows ever had any business eating anything other than greens, but hey, they’re abused with corn anyway.
We are a strange, messed-up species. But soon we’ll probably wind up creating AI that’ll likely knock us off the existential log anyway.
(That funny moment when you want to be double-sure you didn’t just somehow inadvertently pass the Turing Test (intelligence doesn’t have to be smart ;)).
(And the FDA is a joke, even when some of its diminishing crew doesn’t want it to be, so REAL enforcement is difficult to do anything about — and those with money don’t want that enforcement because, money).
While I agree that this case has little or nothing to do with terrorism as presented, I would like somebody to square this statement in the article:
with this local San Diego article, which was written before the FBI had been involved — only notified. It doesn’t seem like the FBI embellished much for propaganda purposes at all, really.
You are correct. The FBI Press Release only used the words terrorizing and terrorism six times. This is quite restrained, considering the defendants, in addition to releasing some mink, also released a bobcat. But while the FBI may take this in stride, the damage to the psyche of the American public, traumatized by these acts of terrorism, will take longer to heal. The mink better be prepared to finish what they have started.
My point was that the story Glenn quoted was already as it was in the release when it was reported locally. The FBI appears to have determined what the various acids used were, but not embellished the story. BTW, muriatic acid is hydrocloric acid, and glass etchant is either hydrofluoric acid or a mixture which contains it. Not very innocent chemicals, and they were used on the homes of the fur company’s owner’s parents. What does that have to do with letting the mink go?
I understand and sympathize with the sentiment that letting animals go doesn’t quite fit with a term like “terrorism”. But what I don’t understand is why pretend that throwing acid at somebody’s house is a totally non-violent and peaceful act. It certainly isn’t considered non-violent when anti-abortion activists do it to Planned Parenthood clinics.
But that’s probably vandalism and destruction of property, not terrorism (note I didn’t say “only” and I don’t believe it’s victimless nor that it shouldn’t be punished, just appropriately).
I’m pretty sure the embellishment involved was calling it terrorism (I can’t check your original link but I’ll take it on your word that the local reports were fundamentally the same save the terrorism ‘charge'; if not, then I take it back ;)).
Ah. Your problem lies in this: You are trying to understand something no one — including Glenn — has written.
Greewnald did write this:
You seem to equate affirming property damage with saying the activists were non-violent and peaceful. Odd, that.
So if a bomb falls in the city and nobody’s there, it’s a non-violent bomb?
Now who’s picking nits?
If the purpose is to destroy the city after it’s been evacuated, yes.
The activists intended to, and in fact did, destroy property. It is the furthest thing from “picking nits” to insist on the crucial difference between damage to property and harm to people, a distinction that has always been clear and important in Western common law.
Sorry, Mona, but that’s a bit silly. There can indeed be violent destruction of property, and bombs generally are never ‘non-violent’ even when nobody’s living somewhere. Violence is any action which causes destruction, pain, or suffering. Note that means it can imply destruction without pain or suffering (assuming nobody’s coming back to the city later to find their building blown up to hell — I’d argue that’d satisfy the other categories). Either way, you fell into a trap allowing a bomb to be called non-violent. Bombs are forceful as hell. That doesn’t mean there’s not a difference between harm to people and harm to property — it just means ‘violence’ isn’t the right distinction.
Greenwald did write this:
referring to Buddenberg and Kissane. They are the ones who threw acid on peoples homes. Essentially vandalism? Using caustic chemicals and butryic acid mixed with glue (which if strong enough will cause vomiting to those near to where it’s stuck)?
Is this why you don’t believe the Syrian government uses chemical weapons? Because unless they hit somebody with that chlorine producing barrel bomb, it’s just vandalism and destruction of property?
Nobody (at least not me) is saying these two did any terrorism. But I don’t think you can even remotely claim that hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid attacks are protected political speech, or, for that matter non-violent no matter who they didn’t hit. Like I said, they call those things violence when they happen at Planned Parenthood, and some people even refer to them as terror attacks.
I proposed a simple test before, which wasn’t even my test, just one completely enshrined in international law. Do these people meet the criterion of doing violent acts the primary purpose of which is to cause terror in the civilian population? If no, then not terrorism. Many here disputed the notion of a test that required knowing the mens rea.
But apparently that’s just a smoke screen for you because the real question for you people is when is an act violent, and the answer seems to be it varies depending on how much you agree with the politics of the offender.
“Do these people meet the criterion of doing violent acts the primary purpose of which is to cause terror in the civilian population? If no, then not terrorism. Many here disputed the notion of a test that required knowing the mens rea.”
Agreed – although I think a lot of people generally confuse intention with result, and punish for the latter, assuming the former (or assume the latter because it’s what they want it to be), even if the desire wasn’t to ‘create terror'; I’d say fairly often people feel aggrieved and commit violent acts as vengeance or retribution, and I don’t consider that ‘terrorism'; I’m not sure what I’d consider that so I’d just go with the base crime itself (though sometimes the intended victim also needs to be charged with other crimes).
Given the language being deployed in this case, it’s a wonder the men aren’t behind bars. From the wires:
“Buddenberg and Kissane face charges for conspiracy to violate the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which holds of a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
After Friday’s court date, Kissane has a $100,000 unsecured bond, electronic monitoring and is restricted to the northwestern part of the state.
Buddenberg also has a $100,000 bond and is under house arrest with electronic monitoring until Tuesday. His travel is restricted to the northwestern and southern parts of the state.”
It has been noted that people who become sadistic abusers of
other people often have a history of sadistic abuse of animals.
If the body politic allows and encourages abusiveness toward animals
it is only a matter of time before that abusiveness will be transferred
onto people.
Thus, we have had the Roman Coliseum, Hitler, and many other examples and
thus we have arrived in this predatory state where international slaughter
is trumpeted as gloriously righteous.
Do not support them.
Repudiate their agents.
Shun them.
Violent confrontation is their desire.
Do NOT give them what they want.
Thanks, Glenn. I am a big admirer of your work. This is an excellent piece on animal rights activism. It brings into sharp view just how ludicrous it is to call these activists terrorists. Keep up the good fight!
This is one of the best articles you’ve ever written, Mr. Greenwald–extremely moving. Along with climate change, the animal rights movement defines our time and just what humans are.
Too bad that for somewhere between 50 and 80 million displaced humans, and for the 2 billion humans without potable water, and for those losing their homes in the Char lands, and for those losing their grazing land to the encroaching desert, nobody gives a shit how they are treated. But suburbia is suburbia, even on the internet, and little balls of fur are so much cuter than skinny, dirty, hirsute Bangladeshi men staring out at you with starved eyes from the hold of a ship they got on because climate change claimed their farmland. I just wish that also was considered to “define our time and just what humans are.”
Beautifully written. Thank you for your consistent bravery in relation to animal rights, activism and whistle blowing. We need more journalists like you in this continuing fight.
It is just outrageous that freeing animals is a terrorist act. Just look back 70+ years and we were confronted with a kennel of Jews in Germany. What is the difference? All animals including humans have a right to live free!
This article was extremely well-written. Thank you. I find it fascinating but at the same time terrifying how much power corporations have over our government – especially corporations that are guilty of such horrors and are simultaneously ruining the environment. But we won’t let the AETA scare us away from fighting back. The animal agriculture industry needs to be continually exposed until it is no more.
Damn you, Greenwald. Another blood boiling inducing story about out of control sickening corporate power– labeling activists group as “domestic terrorists” has to the scummiest move ever! How can anyone involved with it sleep at night?
So what’s the solution? Most people like me are busy trying to earn a living for their families– don’t have time to do more than read your articles. We could become vegans I guess, but that doesn’t solve the fur industry issue.
Any chance that going forward, you can add an action plan to the end of your stories. Like the donations we made for Chelsea? If you put your stamp of approval on a crowdfunding project to take on this issue, I think many of us would contribute. Or is the core issue campaign finance reform so the lawmakers can’t be bought? What is the ANSWER?????
I really don’t think journalists should give answers. Their job is to inform, and The Intercept does a damn fine job at that. If they start to hand out solutions, they are no longer independent and will soon be called out as biased. At least that’s what my dad taught me; a retired oldschool journalist who learned his fundamentals in the 50s.
Draw your own conclussion, share the article and inform others.
I second the major applause to Glenn for a well thought out and well-researched piece. Much like another great journalist, Chris Hedges, if one really takes the time to look at the AETA and the animal rights movements issues, you cannot help but realize it’s immensely important on so many levels. Fye to Dianne Feinstein – enemy of free speech and the people. How dare anyone compare someone who liberates mink from farms or chalk’s sidewalks to the terrorists who flew planes into the Twin Towers! Everyone should be outraged at this disgusting comparison.
Major applause to Glenn for the strong reporting of this story despite all of our personal bias growing up around the normalization of using animals. This story turns the concept of American freedom of speech and political expression on its head.
How is the appearance of an animal corpse without its skin relevant?
Er, well, the piece is about animal rights activists, civil liberties, and animal cruelty.
Exactly. It has nothing to do with how the animal looks without its skin.
Why not? It’s what they are doing to the animals?
It’s about HOW it was skinned you fucking moron.
So you agree that PETA should not try to make its case based on the appearance of dead animals?
Right to Life groups have used the same tactics in court in congress in the media in protest actions and otherwise in the public domain. Cue fetal scream track.
For what its worth it seems most of the AG GAG legislation is targeted toward preventing us from threatening corporate profits by showing potential consumers the appalling living conditions suffered by non free range livestock PRIOR to their wholesale rendering by corporate farmers and their agricultural commodity brokers.
And I have no problem with that. False claims of screams & etc. are obnoxious but no reality should be denied, however much it discomfits people who want to ignore it. A grisly thing may be defensible, but the grisly reality should never be hidden from the public.
Absolutely not. People should be confronted with what a dead animal looks like when it is dead from slaughter.
Whether you really believe that or not, it is the horrors that the living are made to experience that matter. Adopting tactics analogous to the rabid pro-lifers is disgusting.
It’s irrelevant what you call people. If the pictures are authentic — undoctored — they should be seen. Reality matters quite regardless of the labels applied to those who display it.
The FBI foiled a terrorist plot today in which they provided a fake bomb for the suspect to explode on a beach in the Florida Keys.
Ripping babies limb from limb, crushing the skull, and selling off the parts (strange how a stopped beating heart, or a liver is “just a blob of tissue”) is what? Filming?
What? I can tell you’re making a point about abortion, but it’s incoherently stated.
Unbelievable! Just unbelievable!
Incredibly moving and powerful article
Cecil The Lion Memorial is building at the door of “some revolting piggish Minnesota dentist.”
Why Did the FBI Label Ryan Shapiro’s Dissertation on Animal Rights a Threat to National Security?
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/25/why_did_the_fbi_label_ryan
DEF CON 22 – Ryan Shapiro – Hacking the FBI – How & Why to Liberate Government Records
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2eTlyd7r54
FBI calls Ryan Shapiro’s MIT Ph.D. FOIA research a national security risk
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/13/fbi_calls_phd_foia_research_a_national_security_risk/
On another site someone mentioned how releasing all these mink at once would devastate the local environment by them eating all the local prey,and then they would die of starvation.(a much better death I guess).A bit hyperbolic maybe,but a point,although the mink could keep expanding.Are they native to the areas?
Glenn
Your closing..
…to this extraordinary article should be a clarion call to action for every enlightened citizen of the United States; suffice it to say that my donation is on it’s way!
“Work is love made visible.” KG
As Usual,
EA
I can’t watch those undercover videos. I saw the first few moments of one on Democracy Now! maybe a year ago, involving piglets, and instantly became a vegetarian, and I’ve remained one since. As Greenwald said, activism like this is being criminalized because it’s so effective. That’s probably the most important point (of many) in the article.
These are and were realities which anti hate crime legislation people pointed out,that you can be called a terrorist for hating hate and evil.Bad decision.
The deal with the industry is that this involves a lot of dough,depending on the amount lost.That should be their punishment,the financial loss to the company.Of course the industry is terrible, and except for the Inuit,who need the fur for warmth,it’s all just just bling,but business rules in America,and I can’t see them getting off wo paying.I’d consider help funding them though.
Our founders saw no need for such legislation.And to the next clown who says they weren’t perfect,lived long ago and far away,and were fallible,I’d reply,not compared to our modern dunces.
I agree with some of the posters below. This was a GREAT article.
Compassionate with regards to animals and enlightening with regards to how the government quiets dissent through sensationalized intimidation.
Thank you.
i’ve been snarky and overly cynical about your articles in the past but this one was outstanding.
as for your point about “safe” protesting, trey parker nailed it several years ago:
Benjamin Franklin: “I believe that if we are to form a new country, we cannot be a country that appears war-hungry and violent to the rest of the world. However, we also cannot be a country that appears weak and unwilling to fight, to the rest of the world. So, what if we form a country that appears to want both.”
Thomas Jefferson: “Yes, yes of course, we go to war and protest going to war at the same time…”
Benjamin Franklin: “And that means that as a nation, we could go to war with whomever we wished, but at the same time act like we didn’t want to. If we allow the people to protest what the government does, then the country will be forever blameless.”
John Adams: “It’s like having your cake and eating it too.”
Anonymous Founding Father: “Think of it: an entire nation founded on saying one thing and doing another.”
John Hancock: “And we will call that country the United States of America.”
concern as a fashion statement is useless if not actively harmful to a cause. it’s great that beyonce is trying to drive the veganism bandwagon (all the way to the bank) but would she or any other celebrity have the guts to call out these industries?
these “crimes” are civil disobedience in its purest form and the unsettling part is that while past movements and their leaders have targeted broad parts of the overall political system and suffered for it (MLK, Malcolm X), these people are being treated as “terrorists” for their tactics against private companies.
but hey…if americans don’t give a damn about dead black teenagers why would they want to think about “mere” animals and their suffering?
Another clown,bashing his betters.
http://www.birdwatchireland.ie/News/IrresponsibleminkreleaseinDonegal/tabid/1102/Default.aspx
We should look at more efficient ways to kill animals, like using drones, that we have already tested elsewhere.
I was wondering when Greenwald’s love of animals would bleed into his writing. Very good article. As usual for Greenwald, the subject of the ire, here is both heavily ensconced within the protection of the powerful, but also made to seem like such an easy target for ridicule…Terrorist charges for…?
– “In one instance described in the indictment, the defendants traveled from Oregon to San Diego in their 2012 Honda Fit on July 15, 2013 and used paint, paint stripper, a super glue-type substance, butyric acid, muriatic acid and glass etchant to vandalize Furs by Graf, a retail furrier located in San Diego, as well as the Spring Valley and La Mesa residences and personal property of the current and former owners of the business.”
If that is the standard for terrorism, vandalizing with paint and glass etchant, then I must confess I’ve seen literally thousands of terrorist crime scenes in my life, on brick walls, store front windows etc.
The North Carolina ag-gag law:
– “CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A new bill just passed by North Carolina lawmakers could impact everyone from vulnerable children to older citizens, Eyewitness News learned.
Many called the law the Ag-gag bill after animal rights activists said it would prevent them from exposing animal abuse at farms.
The Property Protection Act, or the Ag-gag bill, aims to punish any employee who documents, records or removes a company’s information.
Attorney William Goldfarb said that means any employee, including those who work at nursing homes or day care centers, would be punished for exposing abuse or wrongdoing.
“It’s taking their voice away, and that’s not right at all,” attorney William Goldfarb said.
State Rep. Rodney Moore from Mecklenburg County is one of the sponsors of this bill. He said the bill is about corporate espionage and not about punishing whistleblowers.
“It doesn’t penalize them for making it known to the proper authorities,” Moore said. “So it’s a misclassification of the intent of the bill.” “
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/ncs-ag-gag-bill-impacts-whistleblowers/nmwMX/
So, as long as you don’t tell the public, but instead report the wrongdoing to the proper authorities, such as the inspectors who have been allowing the ongoing wrongdoing to take place all along, you mercifully won’t be accused of “corporate espionage”. Only a corporate spy would consider bringing their video of abused animals, or of their abused grandparents to the media. That’s what corporate spies do!!!
Meanwhile videos produced and edited to elicit a specific political response (see Brietbart and ACORN or the current Planned Parenthood operation) receive plenty of air time on corporate media without a hint of DoJ interference.
The FBI has always been a conservative political organization; this is natural for all State police agencies everywhere. They’re designed to protect the ruling elite. The people they hire, the people they promote, and the influence they wield reflect an institutional standard.
Expecting honesty or objectivity from State police agencies is like expecting embezzlers to thrive in financial institutions. They may get away with it for a while, but their personal interests are directly opposed to institutional purpose.
The FBI will present “terrorism” charges for the same reason they used to hunt communists (or prior to that anarchists.) A properly regulated State cannot afford dissent — especially politically effective dissent.
The government has been an enforcement arm of corporate interests since its inception. It cannot afford dissent because it conflicts with the profit motives of its corporate influencers. But properly regulated? I’ll believe it when I see it. Regulations are for others.
Good point: “Meanwhile videos produced and edited to elicit a specific political response (see Brietbart and ACORN or the current Planned Parenthood operation) receive plenty of air time on corporate media without a hint of DoJ interference.”
Our propaganda system is always in high gear.
We have all learned that “terrorist” means whatever the elites want it to mean to serve whatever their purpose is at the moment.
With each prosecution, and with each attempt by the authoritarians to control the narrative surrounding what “terrorist” means, the knot around our necks tighten, if we let it.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has a graph showing which states as of March 2015 have passed AgGag bills, and where they have been defeated (20).
https://www.aspca.org/fight-cruelty/advocacy-center/ag-gag-whistleblower-suppression-legislation/ag-gag-bills-state-level
The Humane Society reports:
The Founders meant political speech to be protected above all else; AgGag laws directly abridge a fundamental liberty.
I agree with most of the essay, but a few points I would like to point out. I got a B.S. degree in Natural Resource Management, and one of the first things regarding wildlife management is habitat, and I could re-state habitat about ten times if it would help underscoring how important it is. Regarding that, when it comes to conservation of habitat for featured species, the most important element is money. Fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, 90% of conservation funding comes from sportsman/hunters. There are plenty of research projects done in both the U.S. and in Africa where effects of hunting bans, legal hunting, and over hunting/poaching have on habitat. Usually when hunting bans are in place(such as the African elephant) poaching, and habitat degradation takes place.
Personally, I don’t understand trophy hunting at all, and I am not much of a fan when I see it, but when hunting for the table responsibly with respect, I have no problem with it.
Second, I now make a living in the food industry, and used to at one time raise my own livestock. I used a local small slaughter house, that believed in the human treatment of animals, and had no incentive to get in a hurry to make billions in profits. The good story ends there. What the food/farming industry has become in the U.S. is right out of a horror novel. I live near one of the largest slaughter houses in the world(Greely Colorado), and they process over 4000 cattle a day. About fifteen years ago MotherJones did an article about the place, and it wasn’t pretty.
The Native Americans had a pretty good ‘animal contract’. They respected them, and that’s a good thing.
citation, please, for your claim that “90%” of conservation money comes from hunters.
60%? 75%? 50%? 85%?
Pfft What percentage would be enough or too little for you?
I doubt, given the sheer number of sources of funding, anyone really knows (Although maybe you do!) the precise percentage of the total that is contributed, at the state and federal levels, directly and indirectly, by hunters. But, if you wanted to claim that hunters’ contributions are insubstantial, you’d be decidedly in error.
Well, all Kathleen Lowrey did was ask for support of a claim. That doesn’t seem unreasonable or necessarily anti-hunter.
If we could see what the lives, and deaths, of the animals we eat looked like, we’d all be vegans.
How about just vegetarians.I do agree if we did watch these videos,”some” of us would become that.
Today most seem to live for food,and gluttony,I’m a food to live guy.
Yes, Dahoit.
Have a look at what happens to male chicks in the egg industry, and exactly how cows are used for milk. It certainly changed my perception.
You’re conflating ‘factory dairy’ with ‘dairy’ and they’re very much not the same thing.
(I won’t go into ‘male chicks’ because I have a feeling it’d wind up seeming too much like trying to have a conversation about abortion, and I don’t have the time or energy.)
In a natural dairy situation, just like in a natural HUMAN situation, as long as someone is milking the cow/human breast, the cow/human breast will produce milk. What’s being done to increase those milk loads in big factory dairy is disgusting, but not all dairy works like this, and certainly not in all countries. Hormones, antibiotics, and all of that other crap will probably continue to be legal, just like GMOs will continue to be pushed as hard as possible on the masses, because, profit.
Dahoit, now the thread’s stale, I will pass on this excellent vegan recipe for Mapo Dofu I made the other night. Yum! But you have to like the sichuan heat:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/02/the-best-vegan-mapo-tofu-recipe.html
You can order sichuan peppercorns online. Do not sub them out and be sure the hulls don’t contain seeds. Bon appetit!
Apropos a story about animal rights activists being persecuted as terrorists by the feds, a quote from a (Cheshire) cat:
“To the royal guards of this realm, we are all victims in waiting.”
I despise animal-rights causes, but that doesn’t mean I want nonviolent people prosecuted as “terrorists”. For one thing, just look at our track record — whenever the U.S. calls somebody a terrorist, odds are that in ten, twenty, thirty years the President will be shaking his hand and cutting some kind of deal with him. We know that ordinary law enforcement actions kept animal rights activities in check for decades – why should we scrap them in favor of counterinsurgency tactics that have never worked? These grand exposes illustrate that regulatory theory rarely matches what happens in practice – you can build and use the CO2 chamber they tell you to, but that doesn’t guarantee none of your patients won’t wake up. But what of it? I think people understand that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, but none it’s going to like … same is true for mink. But how would mink die in nature, under the tender ethics of their fellow animals? I think people can understand that they shouldn’t ban stuff based on a queasy glance. But who will believe that people who dare to risk being censored as terrorists would be speaking anything but the truth?
So then, how would would a mink usually die in nature? Or a pig? How would a mink or a pig usually live in nature?
I’m guessing WNT thinks it would die, after being held in a cage it’s entire life, by a predator who kills it for the fur. Thus there is no problem here, move along now.
And why “despise animal-rights causes”? What kind of heartless ass are you, WNT?
I think it is more painful to an animal to be caught and chewed to death by a coyote or a bear than to be asphyxiated, or probably even to have its neck snapped by a harried farmer.
While the notion of keeping animals in a cage is appalling to our sense of “dignity”, it’s not that clear to me what sort of dignity most animals have, or whether they appreciate the concept. The farmer can say that at least they are reliably fed, which is not always true in the wild.
My variety of heartlessness is the kind that sympathizes with the people who get plucked up and thrown in jail due to animal cruelty laws. I know that people have, and potentially can agree, on ethics, and so it is possible for us to come to a system of belief that does not require those people to suffer in that way. Never is this more applicable than with covert animal rights video. It isn’t the big corporations who created this environment that go to jail – it’s the people who eke out a living doing shitty, hazardous work for next to no pay who end up in court, unable to afford a lawyer except some shill who tells them to sign whatever is put in front of them.
Do you hate animal rights activists even more than you hate Muslims? Because you’ve spouted some over-the-top, stupid-as-shit, giant-gaping-assholish anti-Islam rants on this site.
I do not hate Muslims. I strongly believe that their civil rights should be respected, that they should be free to worship as they wish, and not subject to discrimination in civil life within the United States. (However, note that all U.S. foreign policy is inherently discriminatory, and should not shy away from recognizing when other cultures fail to share our values) We all believe one thing or another that is wrong, and our right to believe in things that are wrong must be respected. However — the right to believe what you want means that I have every right to believe that Islam is wrong, that Muhammad was a pirate, censor, and murderer. To criticize Islam in this way is not a concealed attempt to persecute Muslims, but rather is rooted in a desire to see them liberated.
Wow! It was a joke! Any long time reader of Glenn Greenwald (I’ve been one since Unclaimed Territory) would know that he has written many times, very convincingly, about the malleability, and more importantly the manipulation, of the term “terrorism” . When you look at the way it’s used in the media, in every day conversation, and everywhere in between, it’s very easy to see that most people in this country have reserved the term exclusively for Muslims. These are the people that were the target of my comment and I thought, of all people, readers of a Glenn Greenwald post would get it. My apologies for the misunderstanding.
@ Glenn
Is there another way to donate other than using PayPal? Is there a physical address I could send a check or money order to? I don’t really like contributing in any way to PayPal’s profits given some of their past practices.
Totally understand. A few supporters got that site up quickly. It needs work. I’ll keep reporting on this and trying to raise money for them, and I’m sure they’ll quickly come up with alternatives. I’ll try to find out.
Happy to send a little their way just not knowingly doing it through PayPal. I keep my eyes open for whatever you find out.
Dwolla is a cheap / free, if slower, payment system. I have not used it yet.
It’s still quite corporate.
Glenn, if you have an inside line to them, I’d suggest that you suggest they check out Flattr.
Glenn, can you add a function that blocks specified commenters from replying to a comment? That would be extremely helpful in keeping the obsessive stalkers at bay – Thanks!
Are you incapable of ignoring people? I do it all the time. But there are sripts you can install on some sites (don’t know whether it works here) that “disappear” commenters if you really wish to do that: http://wiki.greasespot.net/Metadata_Block
Hold on a sec Glenn. They could be terrorists. I mean, are they Muslims?
Bravo! on a very fine article Glenn. As you know, I’ve been a (guilty, meat-eating) sympathizer of the animal rights movement for decades, and the AgGag laws and cases outrage me on two critical levels: 1. animal cruelty and 2. a wholesale abridgment of pure political speech.
Also, good on you for ignoring the personal animus [email protected]rzie holds for you by linking to his piece in that above quote. His post is marred by gratuitous swiping at some of his usual targets but is nevertheless well worth reading.
“The indictment comes just days before the scheduled start of the Animal Rights National Conference, the largest and most important annual gathering of activists. The DOJ did exactly the same thing in July of last year: shortly before the start of the 2014 Conference, they arrested two activists on federal “terrorism” charges for freeing minks and foxes from a fur farm. ”
Glenn, does this then qualify as a ‘Government Conspiracy’?
“The propagandistic exploitation of the term “terrorism” has produced a wide range of harms all over the globe. Few harms are as severe as its ongoing use not only to stifle, but outright criminalize, political speech and noble activism.”
Same argument applies to the use of the phrases “conspiracy theorist”, “conspiracy theory”, “conspiracy mongers” etc, etc…
No.
No. It’s far too overt for that.
You don’t think strangers,in think tanks, business and economic meetings,the WH,The Kremlin,wherever and whomever are making decisions in secret which might affect you r life?Are you a hermit?Jesus.
No. It’s far too overt for that.