Free Republic

Who Will Defend Industry from Eco-Terrorism? Tuesday, February 14, 2006 By: Onkar Ghate Man's method of survival--transforming nature to meet his needs--must be defended against environmentalism's attack. The good news: a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon, has indicted 11 people on charges that they committed acts of domestic terrorism on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Moreover, now one of the FBI's "highest domestic terrorism priorities," according to director Robert S. Mueller III, is to prosecute people who commit crimes "in the name of animal rights or the environment." Nevertheless, it remains worrisome that...

Defense attorneys expressed outrage Tuesday when federal prosecutors compared 10 Earth Liberation Front arsonists who are awaiting sentencing to Ku Klux Klan arsonists. The six men and four women, branded eco-terrorists, have pleaded guilty to charges related to 20 fires set in five Western states from 1996 to 2001 that caused $40 million of damage. Targets included the Vail ski resort, wild horse corrals, National Forest ranger stations, meat packing plants, research laboratories, lumber company offices and a tree farm. The 10 are to be sentenced starting next week. Federal prosecutors asked Judge Ann Aiken that a so-called terrorism enhancement...

Residents of some normally peaceful neighborhoods expressed concern about the defensive mood that has descended over their towns. One elderly lady complained, "I used to take my begonia outside for a little fresh air and sunshine every day, but now I'm worried for her safety! I just keep her safe, indoors now".

The Oregon Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned the 22-year sentence given to environmental activist Jeffrey Michael Luers for burning three SUVs at the former Romania truck lot and for trying to set fire to the Tyree Oil Co. in Eugene. The court upheld all 10 of Luers' felony convictions from his 2001 trial, but ruled that he was improperly sentenced to back-to-back prison terms in each of the crimes. Luers, 28, is considered a "political prisoner" among some activists who contend his 22-year, eight-month sentence is disproportionately harsh, considering that no one was injured in either crime and damage...

A man who police say used wires, broken bottles and nails to wage an eco-terrorism campaign against Lubbock cyclists could spend time in prison. David G. Knape, 62, of Lubbock staged at least a year-long campaign against unsuspecting cyclists, according to police reports. He stretched wires between trees at "neck level" and put nails and glass in the pathway of cyclists. "This could kill someone," said Dewayne Wallace, an avid cyclist whose friend was flung from his bicycle and cut across the neck by one of the wires. Wallace spent months looking for Knape, who now faces two felony charges...

Why is it that, "Whenever Nature displeases us, it must be our fault for doing something that displeased Nature"? This was a question raised by John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, speaking at the Heritage Foundation on January 23, 2007 in support of his new book "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health!" If the winter's too hot, summer's too cold, hurricane Katrina too extreme, environmentalists always conclude that it's because we did something wrong, like atmospheric pollution, habitat destruction and/or the paving of America. Not only does this knee-jerk reaction indicate a colossal sense of self-importance, that importance...

Excerpted from article by John Berlau of Competitive Enterprise Institute, author of Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous To Your Health Violence by environmental radicals has become depressingly common in the U.S. Radical eco-terrorists commit arson and corporate sabotage, and some groups have a decentralized structure that seems modeled after jihadists’ diffuse networks of terrorist cells. Regrettably, mainline environmentalist groups have not taken a lead in denouncing direct-action radicals who care little about human life... ...They may no longer believe that humans will starve themselves by exhausting all resources, but that’s not really important to them. They think humans roam on too...

Who says there's never any good news? After more than 30 years and tens of millions dead -- mostly children -- the World Health Organization (WHO) has ended its ban on DDT. DDT is the most effective anti-mosquito, anti-malaria pesticide known. But thanks to the worldwide environmental movement and politically correct bureaucrats in the United States and at the United Nations, the use of this benign chemical has been discouraged in Africa and elsewhere, permitting killer mosquitoes to spread death.

1998 Fires At Vail Ski Resort Cost $12 Million In Damage. Two people accused of setting the 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort will be sentenced in December on eight counts of arson stemming from the blaze that caused some $12 million in damage. Chelsea Gerlach and Stanislas Meyerhoff, both 29, were arraigned Wednesday in federal court in Eugene. They are to enter pleas and be sentenced on Dec. 14, when they are also to be sentenced for other arson-related crimes to which they pleaded guilty in July. Under plea deals, both agreed to have the Colorado charges transferred...

Animal Rights Group Claims Credit for Botched Arson Attempt- (07/31) The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) web site is claiming responsibility for a failed arson attempt in Los Angeles. On June 30, an incendiary device, intended for the home of a UCLA psychiatry professor, was placed at the wrong address. Fortunately, for the elderly homeowner the device did not detonate and no one was injured. ALF claims that the intended target of the explosive device was keeping monkeys to study "psychological, psychiatric and social problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, substance abuse, criminality and violence." Arson investigators stated that had...

Three would-be eco-terrorists were arrested in Auburn last January for plotting acts of sabotage for the Earth Liberation Front. But would there have been a conspiracy without the prodding of FBI infiltrator Anna? By Cosmo Garvin The arrest of three alleged eco-terrorists on January 13 was thanks to the work of a mysterious FBI informant who went by the name of Anna. On the morning of January 13, the FBI was keeping a close eye on a cabin in Dutch Flat, about a half-hour north of Auburn. The government had the cabin and its four occupants--two men and two women--under...

The number of attacks by extremists on researchers using animals has decreased, according to figures released by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) yesterday. In the first six months of this year, 15 incidents were recorded at people's private homes, compared with 32 in the same period last year. The figures also show a drop in almost every area of activity by anti-vivisectionists, with demonstrations down from 670 to 424. "Good progress has been made ... in combating animal rights extremists," said Philip Wright, the ABPI's director of science and technology.

Federal Bills Crack Down on Animal Rights Terrorism- (07/24) Two bills in the U.S. Congress tighten penalties for anyone convicted of committing an act of terrorism against a legally operating animal-use business. Congress is currently considering S. 1926, sponsored by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, and H.R. 4239, sponsored by Rep. Tom Petri, R-Wisconsin. The bills, introduced late last year and currently being heard in their respective judiciary committees, close loopholes in the existing anti-terrorism law and stiffen penalties for convicted terrorists. Provisions in the bills will ensure that domestic animal rights terrorists are brought to justice for their crimes. The...

3 more plead guilty in Oregon to ecoterrorism Trio were part of group that planted bombs around western U.S. July 21, 2006 EUGENE, Ore. - Three more people pleaded guilty Friday to being part of an ecoterrorist cell that planted fire bombs around the West. The trio are accused of trying to stop logging, wild horse roundups, genetic engineering of plants, sport utility vehicles sales and expansion of a ski resort into endangered lynx habitat. In pleading guilty, the three admitted they were part of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, loose-knit groups of environmental activists that claimed...

Health insurance in this country dates to the 1850s, but it wasn't until the 1930s that "Blue Cross" health-care plans were introduced. During World War II when wages were frozen, many employers began providing their workers medical coverage in lieu of raises. "Major medical" was introduced in the early 1950s, and by the end of the decade, more than 80 million Americans -- nearly half of the population -- had employer-funded health insurance. Things were going along just fine until the politicians made health insurance an entitlement rather than a perk earned through achievement. First, it was Medicare, then Medicaid....

Pledging to continue cooperating with prosecutors, three defendants in a sweeping multistate federal investigation of arson by environmental radicals took plea deals in federal court in Eugene on Thursday. Their recommended sentences will range from three to 14 years, substantially less than they could have faced had they gone to trial. At their sentencing hearings, the government will argue their crimes violate the federal anti-terrorism law. All are scheduled for sentencing in December. Three more defendants are scheduled to appear for similar hearings Friday. Four others are awaiting trial and three are fugitives believed to have fled the country. Springfield...

Animal rights group targeted UCLA professor 10:04 a.m. July 13, 2006 LOS ANGELES – The Animal Liberation Front tried to attack the Bel-Air home of a UCLA primate researcher with a “Molotov cocktail,” but left it at the wrong house, an FBI official said. The ALF said in a statement it had left a bottle filled with a flammable liquid on the porch of Lynn Fairbanks' home in Bel-Air on June 30. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the bottle had actually been left at the home of a 70-year-old neighbor. “According to arson investigators, they believe that, had the device...

America’s universities are both the major targets as well as the incubators of a rapidly growing class of criminals—eco-terrorists. “The Department of Justice named them the number one domestic terrorist threat,” Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, told a college-age audience at the Eagle Forum’s annual summit on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. “Their direct actions include bombings, stalking of individuals and teaching members how to commit arson.” “They attacked and destroyed a ski lift, an SUV dealership, and an apartment complex.” Four hundred tenants were evacuated from that complex. Sen. Inhofe chairs the U. S. Senate Environment and Public...

Its happening. Anti-technology activists who describe themselves as environmentalists are on the Big Island chopping down papaya trees. Big Island farmers may be at risk of eco-terrorism as part of a Greenpeace anti-genetic modification (GM) campaign focused on events half a world away—in Thailand. In a May 25 publicity stunt dutifully picked up on the front page of the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, West Hawaii Today and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Greenpeace operatives backed by photographers donned white full-body “haz-mat suits” (actually painters' suits available at many hardware stores) and posed for the cameras. They wrapped a small section of a 9.1 acre...

A federal grand jury in Denver has indicted four people on eight counts of arson for a series of eco-terrorism fires set at the Vail ski area in 1998. Those indicted are: Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, 29, Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, 28, Josephine Sunshine Overaker, 31, and Rebecca Jeanette Rubin, 33. Gerlach and Meyerhoff are presently in federal custody in Oregon, facing separate arson charges. The whereabouts of Overaker and Rubin are unknown. The Two Elks Lodge and other structures on Vail Mountain were burned to the ground on Oct. 19, 1998. Damage was estimated at $12 million. A group called the...