Indeed, the people who seem to have the most to gain from the ELF existing are Sen.
![animal liberation front website animal liberation front website](https://www.defendanimals.com/img/thumb/hoodie-alf-animal-liberation-front-D012747226P0111.png)
Its alleged website is little more than a hook for a bunch of advertising its alleged spokesmen are self-promoting cranks the criminals allegedly connected to it deny any such connections. Lewis goes on to question whether the ELF (Earth Liberation Front) actually exists as an organization at all. Only recently have the anti-environmentalists hit upon their most promising idea yet: Linking environmentalism to terrorism. LA Weekly's Judith Lewis has written a short but incisive piece on a subject dear to my heart: When the American Civil Liberties Union this week released a new batch of documents obtained from the FBI verifying that the federal agency has been monitoring domestic environmental- and animal-rights groups, it was only the latest evidence of government working on behalf of the anti-environmentalist industry and property-rights advocates to, as one of those advocates put it in 1992, "destroy the environmental movement." It's an effort that's been under way since the 1980s, using various tactics from intimidation to slander. What’s the real reason the feds are spying on enviros? That is, after all, his one true mandate from his bosses.
![animal liberation front website animal liberation front website](https://www.animalactivistwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/shutterstock_769860115.jpg)
So when Gonzalez starts pushing for special "wartime" powers on behalf of the FBI and ATF, he will in effect be working to permanently expand the powers of the executive branch. It's not coincidence that this administration has declared war on an opponent which can by definition never be defeated, can never surrender, because it is an abstraction. Now that the federal government has made it famous, I'm sure it will begin attracting a broader array of malcontents, one of whom eventually will be willing to injure another human being, and then we're off to the races. Any angry malcontent who wants to can claim to act on its behalf. These fruitcake hippies said they acted in the name of ELF, but how is throwing them in jail a "blow" to ELF? It's not like ELF is an organization with upper management you can remove. So, I think it's fair to say it was a substantial blow.Ī blow to who, though? To what? Membership in the Earth Liberation Front seems to require one thing: Saying so. In terms of identifying and arresting those who were principly responsible for something like 17 - over 15, as the Attorney General pointed out, acts over the last few years in this arena. MUELLER: If you read the indictment and you see the listing of the actions that have taken place at the hands of this group over a period of time, you get some understanding of the impact of this investigation and this indictment. QUESTION: On the environment and eco-groups, how big a blow is wrapping up these people that you've got indictments against - how deep do you think the support goes for these kinds of acts? When Gonzalez and Mueller took questions, only the final two were about the Milk Jug Brigade. If the executive branch was trying to distract attention from Osama Bin Laden's latest taped message and the NSA spying scandal with this "eco-terrorism" business, they failed pretty miserably. Though my emergence from the dark grey raincloud known as Seattle had me sporting the classic President-Bush-squinting-into-the-sun look all weekend, I somehow managed to spot a flyer for the conference and showed up just in time to see excellent keynote addresses by two figures that Grist readers are familiar with:Īn enemy that’s just an idea can never surrender The even more exciting part of last weekend's adventure, though, was the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference going on at the University of Oregon campus in Eugene. Sadly, the band's bass player had strep, but I did discover that Corvallis' Sunnyside Up bakery makes a tasty and cleverly-named treat called the "you're doin' a heckuva job brownie (with raspberries)." Hopefully a portion of its hefty $2.25 price tag goes towards ameliorating the heckuva disaster response that continues in New Orleans today. Specifically, I went to help celebrate a friend's birthday down in Eugene, Oregon, and go to a Clumsy Lovers show in Corvallis. Last weekend I abandoned my cot in the supply closet at the Grist office to get out of Seattle for a spell and see the world. In which I stumble upon one of the most happenin’ environmental conferences in the country