ENVIRONMENT

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO 'ECO-TERRORISM'?

The FBI once called radical environmental activists the number one
domestic terror threat, but crimes of eco-terrorism are practically non-
existent now.
LAUREN KIRCHNER JAN 26, 2015

An infamous case of eco-terrorism came to a very abrupt and unexpected end this month. Eric
Taylor McDavid, a radical environmental activist who in 2007 was sentenced
sentenced
sentenced to almost 20 years in
prison, has just won an early
early
early release
release
release and gone home. McDavid had been accused of being part of a
group conspiring to bomb the Nimbus Dam and several cell phone towers in the Sacramento,
California, area.

The prosecution had won a conviction against McDavid despite the fact that its case depended
entirely on the testimony
testimony
testimony of a young, mysterious FBI informant; Anna had gradually infiltrated
McDavids group, and provided both encouragement and funding for the plot. At the time, McDavids
lawyers argued entrapment. Years later, they argued that the FBI had withheld thousands of pages of
documents about this informant that may have helped with McDavids defense. A California judge
agreed with them, and set McDavid free in the beginning of January.

At the time of his conviction, McDavids case was a centerpiece of the federal governments very
vocal campaign against a particular branch of politically motivated crime. Around the late 1990s and
sentenced
the early 2000s, environmental activism groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal
Liberation Front began making headlines with audacious acts of protest. Inspired by grander gestures
early release
from their European counterparts, some protesters escalated from graffiti and other types of
vandalism to actual destruction (if not violence). A small sub-group of the Earth Liberation Front
was accused of a series
series
series of
of
of fires
fires
fires between 1996 and 2001 that destroyed property worth millions.

"MY GUESS IS THAT THERE WAS JUST A CORE, REALLY JUST A FEW MEMBERS,
testimony
WHO WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE MORE SERIOUS ARSONS, AND ONCE THEY
WENT TO JAIL, THAT WAS IT."
Donald Liddick, a criminal justice professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of the book
Eco-Terrorism:
Eco-Terrorism:
Eco-Terrorism:Radical
Radical
RadicalEnvironmental
Environmental
Environmentaland
and
andAnimal
Animal
AnimalLiberation
Liberation
LiberationMovements
Movements,
Movements says that one high-profile crime
in particularthe 1998 arson
arson
arson of
of
of aaa ski
ski
ski lodge
lodge
lodge in Vail, Coloradomay have been the tipping point for
law enforcements attitude toward these crimes. The FBI soon launched Operation
Operation
Operation Backfire
Backfire
Backfire to try
to catch the perpetrators, and Congress would hold a series of hearings on the eco-terrorism threat
over the following yearsin 1998, 2002, and 2005.

After that, Liddick says, there were some really heavy-duty prosecutions, and it seemed like that
pretty much broke the back of Earth Liberation Front in the United States, although it continued in
Europe. Several members of that ELF cell are still in jail, and one was just
just
just caught
caught
caught two years ago
after living over a decade as a fugitive
fugitive.
fugitive

A working
working
working paper
paper
paper published by The Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security, and
Society last year tallied and graphed the number of eco-terrorist attacks in the U.S. and other
countries over Radical
Eco-Terrorism: the past several decades.
Environmental It showed
and Animal that the
Liberation number of attacks rose sharply in 1999,
Movements
reaching a peak of 163 incidents a year by 2001. After 2003, the frequency declined, and, by 2012,
arson of a ski lodge
there were next to none. The decline in attacks coincided with the adoption of the PATRIOT Act and a
number of other widespread post-9/11 law enforcement policies. Operation Backfire

To those who have studied radical movements, the unprecedented prosecution of environmental
activists represents the end of an era, Vanessa Grigoriadis wrote in Rolling
Rolling
RollingStone
Stone
Stone in 2006. Four
states have already passed legislationdrafted by a right-wing lobbying group that represents 300
major corporationsthat classifies any act of property destruction motivated by environmental
beliefs as ecological terrorism. just caught
fugitive
When Grigoriadis wrote that, FBI had recently called radical environmental activists the number one
domestic
workingterrorism
paper threat, despite the fact that damage was suffered by property, and human
casualties were rare. (That description has since been downgraded
downgraded
downgraded to one of the most serious
domestic terrorism threats in the U.S. today.)

Liddick thinks it is possible that the FBIs concerted law enforcement efforts and the Department of
Justices harsher sentencing guidelines in the mid-2000s may have succeeded in discouraging
activists from future acts of vandalism or arson. Or, more likely, he says, there were fewer incidents
after that time period because, for the most part, the really hard-core people who had been the
organizers of those incidents all got caught. Rolling Stone

My guess is that there was just a core, really just a few members, who were responsible for these
more serious arsons, Liddick says, and once they went to jail, that was it. There really werent a
large number of people that committed, in the U.S. at least, to begin with.

In that case, was the governments harsh stanceand its use of the term terrorism in general
over-broad? The two authors of an article published in the journal Studies
Studies
Studiesin
in
inConflict
Conflict
Conflict&&
&Terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism last
downgraded
year think so: they argued that the term eco-terrorism should only apply to a very small portion of
the environmental and animal rights activism world, and that counterterrorism tactics and
mentalities should only come into play in rare instances.
As Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler and Cas Mudde wrote about their research in a recent story in the
Washington
Washington
WashingtonPost
Post,
Post despite ongoing radicalization within the movement, the vast majority of ...
activists and groups are not involved in terrorist acts. Only a small minority of the activism
community ever commits crimes, they argued, and only a small portion of those crimes (they
estimated less than 10 percent) could be categorized as terrorist acts. The headline of their Post
piece asks a question, Ecoterrorism: Threat or Political Ploy? that their piece did notbut
ultimately did not have toanswer.

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ENVIRONMENT NEWS NEWS NEWS ENVIRONMENT
ENVIRONMENTAL ON THE TERRORISM DON'T BELIEVE THE BELGIUM'S DEADLY ON SNAKE
JUSTICE FOR WATCH LIST FOR FBI'S MOST RECENT CIRCLES OF TERROR SMUGGLING, L
PRISONERS YEARS HATE CRIME KILLING, AND F
STATISTICS CRIMES