Earth Liberation Front

Tribal leaders plan meeting on global warming

Corinne Purtill
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 4, 2006 12:00 AM

As a child reared in New Mexico's Tesuque Pueblo, Louie Hena played in waist-deep snow in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Less than 50 years later, the snow reaches only to his ankles.

Wahleah Johns, 31, grew up without running water or electricity on the Navajo Reservation. After years of worsening drought, her family now must drive even farther to find water for their personal use and livestock. advertisement

Native American communities are witnessing firsthand the effects of a warming planet. Representatives of more than 50 tribes from Alaska to the Mexican border will gather on the Cocopah Reservation near Yuma on Tuesday and Wednesday for what organizers are billing as the first tribal conference on climate change.

They'll share information on the signs of global warming observed on reservations across the continent. Tribal leaders will discuss alternative energy and traditional, sustainable ways of life on their reservations. They also will talk about the effects of U.S. climate-change policy on their land and people.

"Native people have a close relationship to the land, culturally, spiritually, economically," said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network and a conference speaker.

Climate change, he said, "is becoming a human rights issue."

A living threat
For many American Indian tribes, the effects of climate change, the rise in global temperature caused by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, are not an abstract possibility. They are happening.

"I've seen whole banks of trees (along the Rio Grande) eroded away from a single flooding in the spring," Hena said. "I've seen birds going south when they should be going north."

Extended drought is shrinking water supplies and hammering wildlife on reservations in the Southwest and Midwest. Traditional ceremonies based on seasonal changes have been disrupted by prolonged summers and delayed rainy seasons.

Melting ice in the Arctic Circle is destroying the foundation of Inuits' homes and threatening entire villages with relocation.

A national climate-change assessment published in 2000 said climate change posed health, environmental and economic risks to the more than 565 recognized tribes and Alaska Native communities in the United States.

Adjusting to the environmental changes wrought by global warming takes money and technology, commodities scarce on many reservations, the government report said.

Finding solutions
In addition to comparing problems, conference participants also will discuss renewable-energy and sustainable-living solutions under way on many reservations.

An increasing number of tribes are taking advantage of their reservations' unique geography to invest in solar and wind energy. Tribes can sell the power generated to local utilities and can sell carbon credits to companies or individuals looking to offset their own carbon emissions.

Tribes are also looking to old ways of life for answers to new environmental problems.

In the mid-1990s, Hena started teaching a two-week course on traditional uses of the environment for everything from erosion control to medicine. Native people from across the U.S., Canada and South America have since attended the course.

With climate change threatening native lands, traditional survival methods are all the more relevant, Hena said.

A global issue
Forming a Native American response to the Bush administration's climate-change policies is one of the conference's goals. North American tribes have started to fight U.S. climate-change policies that they perceive as harmful.

In 2005, an Inuit group filed suit against the U.S. government, claiming that the government's failure to curb greenhouse gases was destroying the Inuits' culture and environment.

Last month's U.N. climate-change conference in Nairobi concluded that the planet's poorest people produce the fewest greenhouse gas-causing emissions but are bearing the brunt of global warming's harms. Indigenous rights groups complained that the conference largely overlooked their concerns.

For a member of the Navajo Nation living without running water or electricity, "their carbon footprint is a lot smaller than someone maybe who lives in Phoenix," said Johns, an environmental activist and conference speaker. "How do you communicate that?"

 

Vail arsonists to be sentenced

Two individuals that have been accused of setting the 1998 fire at the Vail, Colorado ski resort will be sentenced in court in December on 8 counts of arson that occured from the fire that caused over $12 million in damage.
Chelsea Gerlach and Stanislas Meyerhoff, both 29 years old, were arraigned recently in US federal court in Eugene, Oregon. The two women are to enter pleas and be sentenced on Decemeber 14th, when they are also to be sentenced for other arson-related crimes to which they pleaded guilty in July, 2006.

Under the plea deals, both individuals have agreed to have their Colorado charges transferred to Oregon to be settled along with their other federal arson cases.

In the 1998 attack on Vail Ski Resort, the investigators found empty plastic jugs that had contained gasoline near the fires at the Vail ski resort that destroyed three new buildings including the lodge at the top of the mountain and the Two Elk restaurant, a favorite hot-spot for snow skiers returning from the Siberia and China bowls, along with damaging four ski lifts.

Federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigators found numerous points around the structures where the fires were set.
In an e-mail communique attributed to the Earth Liberation Front known as ELF, a radical environmental group that said the fire was retaliation for Vail's planned expansion on to 4,100 acres of national forest land.

The site was listed as among the last Canada lynx habitat in Colorado.

Since then, more than 100 lynx have been released in Colorado and for the past three years, those lynx have produced young and the ski resort has completed the expansion.

The Vail crimes focused national attention on radical environmentalists who credited their attacks to the secretive ELF and Animal Liberation Front. The Vail fires are one of 18 separate attacks charged to a group of 13 people between 1996 and 2001.

Meyerhoff, who renounced ELF, earlier pleaded guilty to 54 charges related to seven separate attacks in a plea deal for a recommendation from federal prosecutors that he be sentenced to 15 years and eight months, according to court records.

As part of his deal, authorities in Michigan, Arizona, Washington, Wyoming and California will not prosecute potential cases against him, court records showed.

Gerlach pleaded guilty to 18 charges in five separate attacks.

She has apologized for the harm and fear created by her actions, which she said were motivated by "a deep sense of despair and anger at the deteriorating state of the global environment."

Prosecutors have recommended Gerlach get a 10-year sentence.

Authorities in Wyoming, Washington and California agreed not to pursue potential cases against Gerlach, according to court records.

Of the 13 defendants, six have pleaded guilty, four face trial and three are fugitives.

 

Bush administration's hotly controversial warrantless surveillance programs

 

A federal judge in Eugene wants to know whether the government used warrantless wiretaps to investigate a group of radical environmentalists charged with committing more than a dozen acts of sabotage in Oregon and the West between 1996 and 2001. Since indictments were issued last year, six defendants have brokered plea agreements in exchange for testimony, leaving four non-cooperating witnesses headed for trial, three fugitives and one defendant who committed suicide in jail.
The mainstream media paid no attention to U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken's ruling last week telling federal prosecutors to respond to questions about surveillance. But it's significant for two reasons. First, it makes way for a new challenge to the Bush administration's hotly controversial warrantless surveillance programs. The administration insists that it has the constitutional authority to spy on terrorists without judges' approval; this case would most likely provide the first challenge to that stance involving a domestic "terror" case. Second, the issue could ultimately unravel the high-profile charges against a group of activists associated with the Earth Liberation Front, which the government has portrayed as one of the most serious "terrorist" threats to domestic tranquility. "It's going to be embarrassing...for the government if they find out they've used warrantless surveillance," says Lewis & Clark Law School professor John Parry, who specializes in criminal and constitutional law. "They're going to have some explaining to do." Facing Aiken's Sept. 12 deadline, the government may simply refuse to respond, most likely citing something called the state secret privilege-a tactic Aiken may or may not buy. If the government does testify that it used warrantless surveillance, the judge will have a chance to rule on the big question: whether the wiretaps, approved with nothing more than the president's OK, violate Fourth Amendment guarantees to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. If the judge rules that investigators' methods broke the law, then the resulting evidence could be excluded. Depending on how much evidence was gathered-directly or indirectly-through the use of warrantless wiretaps or other electronic surveillance, prosecutors may have a hard time continuing their case. "The entire case could be thrown out," says Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Eugene, which has assisted in the defense. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said he could not comment on the case.

The Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program came to light in a New York Times report in December 2005. The paper reported that shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush gave the go-ahead for federal investigators to eavesdrop, without a warrant from a judge, on Americans' electronic communications with people overseas. The administration is adamant that it has the constitutional authority to snoop on international terrorists-and though the Eugene eco-sabotage case appears to be an entirely domestic matter, investigators have made a point of alleging that ELF has international connections. Since news of the warrantless wiretaps broke, dozens of civil lawsuits have been filed against the Adminstration, including one by an Oregon-based Islamic charity, decrying the program as a slap at civil liberties. Two weeks ago, a federal district court judge in Detroit issued the first opinion in a civil case declaring the program unconstitutional. The criminal case in Eugene presents an advantage to the defense not offered in the civil matters: If warrantless surveillance was indeed used, the government, not the defendants, bears the burden of proof. The prosecutors must show that illegal means weren't used to gather evidence. In motions before Aiken, defense attorneys have asserted that the government's repeated references to terrorism are a strong sign that warrantless surveillance played a role in the investigation. Last May, a deputy assistant director of the FBI testified before Congress that the ELF and the related Animal Liberation Front represent "one of today's most serious domestic terrorism threats." The "terror" label made investigators' jobs easier in the Oregon case, giving them access to terrorism task forces and interstate warrants. Of course, the defendants haven't actually been charged with terrorism. Instead, the indictment lists arson, conspiracy, use of a destructive device and destruction of an energy facility. But court documents repeatedly refer to the crimes as acts of terrorism, and federal prosecutors have sought sentence "enhancements" earmarked for offenses involving terrorism. So why include eco-saboteurs under the banner of terrorism? For one, it may be easier to bag an "eco-terrorist" than a member of an al Qaeda cell. And as the definition of "terror" grows, the zeal to guard against it may spread to other crimes. "If you can do [warrantless surveillance] for these guys, who can't you do it for?" Parry says. "If this is part of the war on terror, then I think this is a much broader war than anyone ever imagined."

Craig Subpoenaed to Federal Grand Jury in Eugene; ELF Investigation Continues..

NEWS ADVISORY February 15, 2006

Craig Rosebraugh Subpoenaed to Federal Grand Jury in Eugene, Oregon; ELF Investigation Continues

PORTLAND, OR - On Tuesday, February 14, 2006, Craig Rosebraugh received a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury currently convened in Eugene, Oregon investigating a series of actions committed by the Earth Liberation Front.

Federal agents approached Rosebraugh as he sat in his vehicle and demanded he roll down his window, presumably to accept the subpoena. He refused, rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and cranked the stereo. After yelling at him, the agents left the subpoena on his windshield.

The grand jury subpoena - the eighth Rosebraugh has received in the last nine years - commands him to appear in Eugene to testify at 9:00am on March 16, 2006.

Investigating ELF actions that occurred between 1996 and 2001, the grand jury convened in Eugene is responsible for indicting eleven people in January 2006 in connection with ELF activity throughout the Pacific Northwest and Colorado.

Rosebraugh served as an unofficial spokesperson for the ELF from 1997 through 2001. Receiving anonymous communiqués from the underground activists, he released the information to the news media and conducted interviews internationally in support of the group. In 2000, Rosebraugh co-formed the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO), a media resource organization based in Portland, Oregon. In February 2002, Rosebraugh was subpoenaed and appeared in front of the US Congress in a subcommittee hearing on "ecoterrorism." He pled the Fifth Amendment at the proceeding to 54 out of 56 questions, effectively stonewalling the hearing.

Witnesses subpoenaed to testify before federal grand juries are not allowed to be accompanied by their attorney inside the proceedings, nor are they allowed to rely upon their Fifth Amendment privilege and remain silent. Witness that do plead the 5th and remain silent are commonly forced to take immunity at which time they must answer all questions that fall under the scope of the immunity. Witnesses refusing to answer any question under the scope of immunity usually are jailed for contempt and held for up to eighteen months or the remaining length of the grand jury.

For the last nine years, Rosebraugh has consistently resisted the grand jury inquisitions, refusing to cooperate and provide any information to investigators.

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FBI Arrests 3 Suspected ELF Members In Placer Co.In Fire's Wake, Logging Study Inflames Debate University Study Challenges Cutting Of Burnt Timber

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post
February 27, 2006

MEDFORD, Ore. -- If fire ravages a national forest, as happened here in southwest Oregon when the Biscuit fire torched a half-million acres four years ago, the Bush administration believes loggers should move in quickly, cut marketable trees that remain and replant a healthy forest.

"We must quickly restore the areas that have been damaged by fire," President Bush said in Oregon four years ago after touring damage from the Biscuit fire. He called it "common sense."

Common sense, though, may not always be sound science. An Oregon State University study has raised an extraordinary ruckus in the Pacific Northwest this winter by saying that logging burned forests does not make much sense.Logging after the Biscuit fire, the study found, has harmed forest recovery and increased fire risk. What the short study did not say -- but what many critics of the Bush administration are reading into it -- is that the White House has ignored science to please the timber industry. The study is consistent with research findings from around the world that have documented how salvage logging can strip burned forests of the biological diversity that fire and natural recovery help protect.The study also questions the scientific rationale behind a bill pending in Congress that would ease procedures for post-fire logging in federal forests. This, in turn, has annoyed the bill's lead sponsor, Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who has received far more campaign money from the forest products industry than from any other source, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.Logging after fires is becoming more and more important to the bottom line of timber companies. It generates about 40 percent of timber volume on the nation's public lands, according to Forest Service data compiled by the World Wildlife Fund, and accounts for nearly half the logging on public land in Oregon.But there is much more to the dispute than money. The Oregon State study was published in Science, the prestigious peer-reviewed journal. It appeared after a group of professors from the university's College of Forestry, which gets 10 percent of its funding from the timber industry, tried to halt its publication.Professors behind the failed attempt to keep the article out of Science had earlier written their own non-peer-reviewed study of the Biscuit fire -- a study embraced by the Bush administration and the timber industry. It said post-fire logging and replanting were exactly what was needed to speed growth of big trees and suppress fire.A couple of weeks after the Science article appeared and infuriated the forest industry, the federal Bureau of Land Management, which footed the bill for the study of the Biscuit fire, cut off the final year of the three-year, $300,000 grant. BLM officials said the authors violated their funding contract by attempting to influence legislation pending in Congress.After the cutoff, Democrats in the Northwest congressional delegation complained about government censorship, academic freedom and the politicization of science in the Bush administration. Within a week, the BLM backed down and restored the grant.

Oregon State University has officially scolded the forestry professors for inappropriate behavior and praised the authors of the Science article.

Still, the issue is far from over.

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On Friday here in Medford, there was a field hearing of the House subcommittee on forests and forest health, which is chaired by Walden, chief sponsor of the forest recovery bill that was cast in a dim light by the Science article.

In this corner of Oregon, where environmentalists and logging interests have been jousting for decades, jawboning about forest policy is a spectator sport. The hearing, held in Medford City Hall, was so packed with spectators that the fire marshal insisted it could begin only after he delivered a stern lecture on emergency exits.

The hearing's star witness -- and principal punching bag -- was Daniel Donato, lead author of the Science article and a graduate student at Oregon State's forestry school. By at least a decade, he was the youngest participant in the hearing. Rail thin and wearing neatly pressed khakis, he looked even younger.

Walden accused Donato, 29, of having failed to tell his federal research supervisor about the findings of his study, as is required by the terms of his research contract with the federal government. Donato conceded that he had not known about the requirement for consultation and that he knows more about it now.

Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), another member of the subcommittee and a co-sponsor of the forest recovery bill, was even more disgruntled. He charged Donato with a long list of professional failings and character flaws, including "deliberate bias," lack of humility and ignorance of statistical theory.

Donato smiled nervously through these attacks and politely -- but firmly -- told the hearing that his article was solid on its facts and fair in its conclusions. He also said the forest study should not be viewed as, nor was it intended to be, the final word on post-fire logging.

After Donato was excused, one of the nation's best-known forest ecologists attempted to summarize the world's collective scientific knowledge on logging after fires. Jerry Franklin, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources, warned the hearing that Congress should be careful not to prescribe salvage logging as a cure-all for every forest fire.

Salvage logging and replanting can often succeed, Franklin said, if the intent is to turn a scorched landscape into a stand of trees for commercial harvest.

If, however, Congress wants to promote the ecologically sound recovery of burned federal forests, Franklin said, the overwhelming weight of scientific research suggests that "salvage logging is not going to be appropriate."

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Alleged Plot To Blow Up Cell Towers And Power Plants

(JAN 13 2006 CBS 13) SACRAMENTO The F.B.I. has foiled an alleged plot to blow up cell towers, power plants and U.S. Forest Service sites by arresting three suspected ELF members in Placer County.

The FBI made the arrests this morning after a long investigation. 20-year-old Zachary Jenson of Monroe, Washington, 20-year-old Lauren Weiner of Philadelphia and 28-year-old Eric Taylor McDavid of Foresthill, California were taken into custody in a shopping center parking lot in Auburn. The FBI says the three were acting on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front.

The FBI says the arrests were based on evidence that the three were plotting to use explosives to blow up several sites. Their alleged targets included facilities owned by the United State Forest Service, cell towers and power plants. Although, the FBI says they do not believe there was any immediate danger to the public.

The federal government calls the Earth Liberation Front an environmental terrorist group with no known leader. They have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks that have caused an estimated $40 million in damage.

This is not the first ELF arrest in Placer County. In February of last year, 21-year-old Ryan Lewis of Newcastle was arrested in connection with a series of explosive devices found at several Placer County sites. The FBI says he also was acting on behalf of the ELF.

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Canada to Extradite Eco-Terror Suspect

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A court on Thursday ordered the extradition of suspected eco-terrorist Tre Arrow (search), one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives, to face firebombing charges in the United States.

Arrow, born Michael Scarpitti is accused of participating in the 2001 firebombing of logging and cement trucks in Oregon. The FBI claims he is associated with the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a group that has claimed responsibility for dozens of acts of destruction over the past few years.

British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Kristi Gill ruled that there was enough evidence against Arrow to have him extradited to face federal charges. His lawyer said he would appeal, a process that could take months.

The former U.S. Green Party candidate for Congress in 2000 - who says the trees told him to change his name - last week told the court that he was innocent of the charges and a target of a government conspiracy.

"I am innocent of the charges the U.S. government is trying to pin on me," Arrow said. "Just as many other activists have experienced, I am being targeted by the U.S. government and the FBI, not because I am guilty but because I have chosen to challenge the status quo."

In extradition cases, Canadian prosecutors represent the extraditing state, in this case the United States. For an extradition to be ordered, the B.C. Supreme Court had to find there was sufficient evidence to convict Arrow on the same charges in Canada.

Prosecutor Rosellina Patillo said evidence from the United States Attorney in Oregon indicated Arrow was among four conspirators involved in the bombings of a gravel company and a logging company between April and June of 2001. The evidence comes from statements of Arrow's three coconspirators who have pleaded guilty to the bombings at a Mount Hood logging company.

The suspects intended to firebomb a U.S. Forest Service office, but abandoned the idea after they found the security system was too tight, Patillo said.She said the Ross Island Gravel Company was targeted "because it was guilty of stealing soil from the earth." In that attack, three trucks were blown up and the damage was $200,000. The second attack, on June 1, 2001, was against a Mount Hood logging company. They placed incendiary devices under seven vehicles, damaging three at a cost of $50,000.She said that in each case, the incendiary device was a plastic container filled with gas; the fuse was a stick of incense with matches attached to it.

Arrow's lawyer, Tim Russell, contends the evidence against him from his coconspirators is hearsay and inadmissible in a Canadian court.Arow is seeking refugee status in Canada, but that process has been suspended pending the outcome of the extradition hearings, his lawyer said.The 30-year-old Arrow contends he won't get a fair trial in the United States because of the FBI's assertion that his alleged crimes are acts of terrorism. He faces federal charges in Oregon of using fire to commit a felony, destroying vehicles used in interstate commerce and using incendiary devices in a crime of violence. The charges carry up to a combined 80 years in prison.

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FBI Settles With Environmentalist

Josh Connole was mistakenly jailed in connection with SUV arsons. He will receive $100,000.

By David Rosenzweig
Times Staff Writer November 15, 2005

The FBI has agreed to pay $100,000 and issue a letter of regret to an environmental activist who was mistakenly jailed as a suspect in a string of arsons and vandalism at four SUV dealerships in the San Gabriel Valley in 2003, his lawyers said Monday.Josh Connole, who spent four days behind bars before being freed, sued the FBI, contending his civil rights had been violated and his reputation destroyed.

The attacks, carried out in the name of the radical Earth Liberation Front, destroyed or damaged more than 125 SUVs. A Caltech graduate student, William Cottrell, was later convicted and sentenced to prison in the case.Had Connole's suit gone to trial, the FBI would have been up against testimony from a former federal prosecutor who said she warned an FBI supervisor that his agents had no probable cause to arrest Connole. The 27-year-old Connole, who now lives in Oregon, said Monday he was pleased with the settlement and hoped it would send a message to the law enforcement community that "you can't throw people's civil rights out the window in the name of fighting terrorism."Connole's attorneys, William Paparian and John Burton, said the $100,000 payment was arrived at following negotiations mediated by a U.S. magistrate judge in Los Angeles. They said the FBI agreed to issue a letter of regret but that the language was still being worked out.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Patrick, who represented the FBI in the talks, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

In a deposition in September, former Assistant U.S. Atty. Beverly Reid O'Connell, now a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, recalled receiving an urgent phone call during the early hours of Sept. 12, 2003, three weeks after the attacks, from FBI senior supervisor Edward Ochotorena, seeking a green light to arrest Connole.Connole, who was under 24-hour surveillance at the time, had just driven to the Pomona police headquarters to report that he was being followed by strange men in unmarked cars."We have a situation going on out here. We have officer safety issues. I'm going to arrest him," O'Connell quoted Ochotorena as telling her.

"You don't have probable cause to arrest him. I'm not giving you our authority and you better document it," O'Connell said she told the agent.O'Connell said their conversation was heated. "I was yelling at him," she said.

Notwithstanding her warning, Ochotorena directed a team of FBI agents to arrest Connole immediately. Connole was taken to an FBI office in West Covina for questioning and booked into the West Covina Police Department jail on suspicion of arson.

West Covina police, who participated in Connole's arrest, have apologized, saying they regretted the notoriety he had received. The city gave Connole $20,000 to settle a damage claim.

During a deposition taken in July, Ochotorena said he felt no need to apologize and refused to concede that Connole was innocent, despite the fact that he is no longer a suspect in the case. "I don't have any evidence that places him at the scene, but by the same token, I don't have any evidence that says with 100% certainty, as you put it, that he was not involved in the crime," Ochotorena said.Ochotorena went on to suggest there was a "remote possibility" that Connole might have been involved in the "planning or execution or otherwise on the periphery of the crime."The FBI official noted that a law enforcement bloodhound had led his handler to Connole's doorstep after being exposed to a scent from a cigarette lighter that was recovered from the scene of one arson attack. Ochotorena said the dog's "hit" still troubles him.Burton and Paparian contended the dog-sniffing evidence was nothing more than a "Rin Tin Tin fantasy." In the lawsuit, they said there is no scientific basis for taking a weeks-old scent from an object like a cigarette lighter, have a dog distinguish it from other human scents and follow it to the owner.

"The literature is replete with instances of a dog appearing to follow a scent when it is, in fact, taking cues from its handler," they argued.Connole came to the FBI's attention after television stations broadcast footage of a roaring blaze at a Hummer dealership in West Covina the night of Aug. 22, 2003. The next day, a woman telephoned the FBI to report her suspicions about a small group of environmentalists who lived as a collective across from her home in Pomona. She said she had seen cars with out-of-state license plates parked on the street on the night of the arsons.

Connole, who grew up in Orange County, lived at the address as part of a cooperative called Regen V, which stood for regeneration of energy. He drove an electric-powered car, installed solar panels and was active in the antiwar movement.FBI Agent Stanley Snock, assigned to head the investigation, said during his deposition that he ordered a stakeout of three houses occupied by the co-op's members. He said their names were turned over to an FBI investigative analyst who keeps tabs on domestic terror groups.

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The analyst, a civilian FBI employee, provided information that "led me to believe Mr. Connole probably had beliefs that would be conducive to someone who might perpetrate an ELF [Earth Liberation Front] action," Snock said.Asked to explain, Snock said that besides belonging to a collective that was "very pro-environment," Connole was affiliated with Food Not Bombs, a movement that espouses diverting money from the military to feed the world's hungry.

The agent acknowledged, however, that he knew of no link between Food Not Bombs and domestic terrorism.

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Indictment lists arson at UW, attacks on cropland

By Craig Welch- Seattle Times staff reporter

Before environmental saboteurs set fire to the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001, they ravaged canola crops in Eastern Washington and sliced open hybrid trees in Oregon, according to a new federal indictment released Thursday. The activists had decided a year before to focus on genetically engineered crops, and had debated targets during a secret meeting in Tucson, Ariz., the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle alleges. Then, sometime before dawn on May 21, 2001, five arsonists fire-bombed the UW horticulture center, destroying several endangered plants along with it, the indictment charges. Four people, Briana Waters, 30, Justin Solondz, 26, Josephine Overaker, 31, and Kevin Tubbs, 37, were indicted Wednesday in crimes associated with either the UW fire or another arson in Olympia. Before Wednesday, only Waters had been charged specifically in the UW fire. The new indictment adds Solondz as an alleged participant in the UW fire. That makes three named suspects in that fire. The third, William Rodgers, an Arizona bookstore owner, committed suicide in an Arizona jail cell in December.Prosecutors say there were five arsonists; the two others have not been publicly named. The newest indictment was filed 10 days before a statute of limitations was to run out on the most serious UW offense - use of a destructive device in a crime of violence, in this case jugs of gasoline hooked up to timers. Waters and Solondz both face that charge now. The U.S. Attorney has charged Overaker and Tubbs in connection with an Olympia arson, but they have not been specifically charged in the UW fire. But all the suspects have been previously charged in connection with a string of environmental crimes across the West between 1996 and 2001. An additional 11 people also have been charged in those crimes, ranging from a fire at an Olympia wildlife laboratory, to the toppling of an electrical transmission tower in Oregon to a $12 million arson at a ski resort in Vail, Colo.
The new indictment says Waters, Solondz, Overaker and Tubbs, along with Rodgers, set out in early 2000 to recruit more activists to their cause, holding a series of clandestine meetings in four states to discuss tactics. In one meeting in Santa Cruz, Calif., one conspirator demonstrated how to create a fire bomb, prosecutors allege. A few months later, they contend, Solondz and others visited a Monsanto canola farm in Dusty, Whitman County, and ruined five acres of the crop. The next spring, prosecutors allege, Solondz and others cut the bark of 800 hybrid poplar trees at three farms in Corvallis, Ore., run by Oregon State University. Authorities believe Solondz and Overaker are out of the country. Waters is free pending trial. Tubbs is in jail in Oregon awaiting trial.The horticulture center has since been rebuilt, at a cost of $7 million.

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Igniting a Revolution:
Voices in Defense of the Earth

Steven Best & Anthony J. Nocella, II

AK Press
674A 23rd Street, Oakland, CA 94612

Global warming, acid rain, deforestation, air and water pollution are but a few of the overwhelming indicators that the earth's heath is worsening. For decades, environmental groups have been resisting the destructive trends set by industry and government, but as the social and political climate has changed, popular protest movements have become less and less effective.As the Earth's situation worsens, those opposing its destruction have-out of necessity-become incre a s i n g ly militant. Corporate and federal properties have been vandalized, set ablaze-even bombed-and the government is meeting this new brand of e nv i ronmental militance with an incre a s i n g ly heavy hand. In their second book, Igniting a Revolution, Steven Best and Anthony J. Nocella, II bring together a range of voices to explore the highly charged topic of radical environmentalism. In this collection, writers, academics, activists, present and former militants speak of the current radical environmental movement-the goals, successes, failures, and relationship with other movements and communities. Contributors include Derrick Je n s e n , Jo h n Zerzan, Jeffrey "Free" Luers, Robert Jensen, Ann Hansen, Marti Kheel, Ashanti Alston, Bron Taylor, Marilyn Buck, and a lengthy introduction by the editors, putting the environmental movement (its history and debates) into context for the reader.

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SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2006 (AFP) - A mother that gives violin lessons will face trial in the northwestern US state of Washington on charges she was an environmental terrorist, prosecutors said on Friday.

Violinist mom charged with being US environmental terrorist

SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2006 (AFP) - A mother that gives violin lessons will face trial in the northwestern US state of Washington on charges she was an environmental terrorist, prosecutors said on Friday. Briana Waters, 30, of the famously liberal California city of Berkeley, has pleaded innocent in a Seattle federal court that she that fire bombed a horticulture center in 2001. A US district court judge allowed Waters to remain free pending the start of her trial in June, but ordered that she turn in her passport and have her whereabouts monitored electronically. Waters was the first person charged in connection with an attack that destroyed the Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington in May of 2001, according to Emily Langlie of the US Attorney's Office. The fire was one of a series of arson attacks in the Pacific west that police believe were committed by militant environmental activists linked to the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. "This is just one step as we attempt to bring to justice those responsible for the UW Urban Horticulture fire," said John McKay, United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. "As we move toward the five-year anniversary of that devastating blaze, I applaud the investigators who have worked so doggedly and diligently to put the pieces of the puzzle together." Federal prosecutors indicted 13 people last year in connection with arsons branded as "domestic terror." Two of those people were part of "an overarching conspiracy" to fire bomb the horticulture center, prosecutors said. A mother and a self-employed violin teacher, Waters' background included being a "tree-sitter" who perched in branches to save ancient trees from logging. Waters would face a mandatory minimum punishment of 35 years in prison if convicted as charged with arson and using a destructive device to commit a violent crime.