JOE DIBEE\u2019S 12 YEARS<\/u>\u00a0on the lam came to an end last August, when Cuban authorities detained the 50-year-old environmental activist during a layover in Havana and turned him over to the United\u00a0States.<\/p>\n
More than a decade earlier, police and FBI agents had arrested a dozen of Dibee\u2019s associates in the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front within the span of a few months. They were charged with conspiring to burn down factories that slaughtered animals for meat, timber mills that disrupted sensitive ecosystems, government facilities that penned wild horses, and a ski resort perched on a pristine mountaintop. Dibee, a former Microsoft software tester known for his ingenuity, had slipped away in the midst of it all.<\/p>\n
While the arsons, which never hurt or killed anyone, largely took place in the late 1990s, the wave of arrests known as the \u201cGreen Scare\u201d came in the post-9\/11 era, when terrorism was the FBI\u2019s prevailing obsession. The fur and biomedical industries had spent years lobbying the Justice Department and lawmakers to go after eco-activists, who had damaged their property, held audacious demonstrations decrying their business activities, and cost them millions of dollars. When the planes hit the twin towers, industry groups seized on the opportunity to push legislation, and federal law enforcement ramped up pursuit of radical activists in the name of counterterrorism.<\/p>\n
So-called eco-terrorism became the Justice Department\u2019s No. 1 domestic terror concern \u2014 \u201cover the likes of white supremacists, militias, and anti-abortion groups,\u201d as one senator\u00a0pointed out<\/a>\u00a0at the time. Operation Backfire, which sent Dibee running, was the climax of the crackdown. \u201cThere was money, there was administrative support, there was management support,\u201d said Jane Quimby, a retired FBI agent who worked on Backfire. The results were \u201can affirmation that given the resources that you need, and the support that you need, you can really make these things work.\u201d<\/div>\n In 2009, when a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report raised alarms about the rising threat of right-wing extremist violence, it provoked a very different response. After outcry from conservative groups, DHS backtracked on the report and later disbanded the domestic terrorism unit that produced it.<\/p>\n Daryl Johnson, a former domestic terrorism analyst at DHS, says there\u2019s a reason law enforcement took a less aggressive approach to right-wing white supremacists and anti-government attackers. In the case of the eco-extremists, the government had a powerful ally: industry. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a bunch of companies coming forward saying I wish you\u2019d do something about these right-wing extremists,\u201d said Johnson, who left his position in 2010, after his warnings about right-wing violence were dismissed. \u201cIf enough people lobbied congresspeople about white nationalists and how it\u2019s affecting their business activity, then I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll get legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, in the wake of the 2017 \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the murder of counterprotester Heather Heyer by white supremacist James Alex Fields,\u00a0past<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0current<\/a>\u00a0Justice Department officials have argued that a new domestic terrorism statute is necessary to better respond to far-right violence.<\/p>\n But law enforcement and federal prosecutors already have powerful counterterrorism authorities at their disposal, and their history of using them to go after radical activists who committed property crimes suggests that any new crackdown is likely to sweep up far more than domestic extremists who pose a lethal threat.<\/p>\n No new law was required to treat eco-saboteurs as terrorists in the wake of 9\/11. Of 70 federal prosecutions of radical environmentalists and animal rights activists\u00a0identified by The Intercept<\/a>, 52 did not result in charges under anti-terrorism laws. Yet the defendants were repeatedly called terrorists by the Justice Department in public statements and internal communications. The designation opened up additional resources and gave the government powerful leverage in the form of terrorism sentencing enhancements, which prosecutors sought in more than 20 cases.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the remaining 18 cases, prosecutors applied an anti-terrorism law written with the help of industry that was designed exclusively to target animal rights activists. Six cases involved activists releasing mink and vandalizing fur facilities, and six involved individuals accused of encouraging radical acts like sabotage but not participating in any themselves. Four of the cases involved activists protesting outside researchers\u2019 homes and were dismissed because the allegations were too vague.<\/p>\n The story of how years of corporate lobbying ended with Dibee in cuffs contains lessons for those considering how to handle the surge in right-wing violence, as well as for a new generation of environmental activists again facing accusations of eco-terrorism.<\/p>\n Joe Dibee grew up camping in the spectacular forests, mountains, and coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest. His parents, members of Syria\u2019s Catholic minority, had immigrated to the U.S. before he was born, settling into Seattle\u2019s middle class. His mother worked at the public library and his father was a finance professor at Seattle University, where Dibee would eventually study civil engineering and general science. Dibee came of age just as law enforcement in the U.S. was beginning to take notice of the budding animal rights movement.<\/p>\n In 1977, when he was 9 years old, a group called the Undersea Railroad released two dolphins from a University of Hawaii marine laboratory \u2014 the first known animal liberation in U.S. history. A countermovement was rapidly launched, led by organizations like the National Association for Biomedical Research, which lobbies for the use of live animals in scientific research.<\/p>\n NABR and other industry groups were way ahead of law enforcement in gathering intelligence on the animal rights movement, and federal agents were happy to make use of the information. In March 1987, for example, FBI agents met with NABR about four chimpanzees that had been abducted from a research laboratory. The group \u201cmaintains a large intelligence file on the activities of most of the significant animal rights groups in the world,\u201d an agent noted after the meeting, and \u201cfurnished the FBI with many documents which deal with these groups as well as outline their significant activities dating back to 1976.\u201d<\/p>\n The FBI\u2019s account of the meeting is included in documents obtained via public records requests by Ryan Shapiro, executive director of the transparency organization Property of the\u00a0People. The documents show that throughout the 1990s, the FBI and Justice Department collaborated with a range of industry groups including\u00a0Americans for Medical Progress<\/a>, the Fur Commission, the\u00a0National Board of Fur Farm Organizations<\/a>, the\u00a0Foundation for Biomedical Research<\/a>, and the American Feed Industry Association.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In 1987, the National Association for Biomedical Research supplied the FBI with documents about the activities of animal rights groups going back more than a decade, according to an FBI memo provided to The Intercept by Property of the People. The transparency organization redacted the names of activists who did not grant permission to be identified, to protect their privacy.<\/p>\n In 1987, an animal diagnostics laboratory under construction at the University of California, Davis was burned to the ground \u2014 the first U.S. arson claimed by ALF. It was meant \u201cto retaliate in the name of thousands of animals tortured each year in campus labs,\u201d a communique from the saboteurs said.<\/p>\n A month after the arson, a Justice Department public information officer sent a letter to the Fur Retailers Information Council, whose members had also been targeted by the Animal Liberation Front. \u201cI encourage you to send to me any evidence you have indicating criminal activity committed by animal rights activists,\u201d the official wrote. \u201cI am happy to be of assistance to the Fur Retailers Information Council.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, the industry group worked with the Justice Department to create \u201ca directory of some 200 animal rights and animal welfare organizations operating in North America which provides office addresses, names of officers and spokespersons, and a diary of incidents,\u201d according to an October 1988 letter from the council.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Fur Retailers Information Council worked with the Justice Department to create a directory of 200 animal rights and animal welfare organizations, according to a 1988 letter from the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would occasionally contact the [FBI] to ensure they were aware of a threat or action involving animal extremism. We also sent FBI officials occasional alerts about animal rights actions or threats that might be considered illegal,\u201d said Jim Newman, a spokesperson for Americans for Medical Progress, a nonprofit funded by the biomedical industry to foster support for animal research. \u201cThere was no concerted effort in place.\u201d The other groups did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.<\/p>\n In some cases, corporations went beyond intelligence sharing to actively ferreting out activists they viewed as threats. One of the strangest efforts involved Leon Hirsch, a manufacturer of surgical staples whose sales demonstrations involved cutting open live beagles and stapling them back together. His company, United States Surgical Corporation, paid a security firm called Perceptions International to infiltrate the animal rights movement.<\/p>\n Mary Lou Sapone, the firm\u2019s undercover agent, befriended a troubled activist named Fran Trutt, who was subsequently accused of planting a pipe bomb at the headquarters of the surgical corporation in an attempt to murder Hirsch. But Trutt was on the phone with Sapone throughout the day before the alleged murder attempt, and another undercover operative working for the company actually drove her to the crime scene and gave her money for the pipe bomb. Trutt pleaded no contest to attempted murder charges. Despite industry\u2019s role in manufacturing the incident, it would later be presented in a\u00a0key report<\/a>\u00a0to Congress as the only \u201cconfirmed case\u201d of an animal rights activist using an incendiary device \u201cwith intent of harming an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n Industry groups also lobbied for federal legislation that would heighten penalties for activist tactics. \u201cThe DOJ has advised that there is significant special interest pressure on Congress to pass legislation which would protect animal and health research property, facilities and personnel from attacks,\u201d according to a\u00a01990 FBI memo<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two years later, Congress enacted the\u00a0Animal Enterprise Protection Act<\/a>, which created a new crime of \u201canimal enterprise terrorism.\u201d The law was aimed at anyone who physically disrupted or conspired to disrupt an animal enterprise by intentionally damaging or causing the loss of its property. It created a legal pathway to imprison a broad range of saboteurs and their allies.<\/p>\n But the AEPA didn\u2019t lead to the kind of crackdown the biomedical and fur lobbyists sought. The law was used only once before the turn of the century, in the prosecution of two activists who released mink from Wisconsin fur farms. And although the FBI charged a few individuals for eco-arsons throughout the 1990s, it would be the next generation of saboteurs \u2014 Dibee\u2019s generation \u2014 that would bear the brunt of the government\u2019s crackdown on eco-radicals.<\/p>\n By the late 1990s, Dibee was known within activist circles, regularly participating in spectacular demonstrations designed to draw attention to moneymaking activity built on animal and ecological suffering.<\/p>\n At the Warner Creek occupation in 1995, activists blockaded a logging road to prevent a timber company from accessing Oregon\u2019s Willamette National Forest. The occupation lasted for nearly a year, thanks in part to 28-year-old Dibee, who designed a \u201cbipod\u201d structure, a precariously rigged platform between two tall poles where activists perched, complicating police efforts to remove them. The federal government, which managed the national forest land, put the company\u2019s timber harvest on hold, as well as 150 other timber sales.<\/p>\n Few of his comrades were aware, however, that Dibee was also involved in the controversial eco-radical underground. In July 1997, the Associated Press\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0an investigation revealing that 90 percent of the horses rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s Wild Horse and Burro Program ended up in slaughterhouses. Among the buyers named in the article was the Cavel West slaughterhouse. According to court filings, Dibee and four other animal rights activists came up with a plot to strike back.<\/p>\n The activists surrounded the Cavel West facility in Redmond, Oregon, and planted incendiary devices fueled by so-called vegan jello \u2014 a mixture of soap and petroleum. They timed them to go off at an hour when they believed the facility would be empty, then fled, stopping to dump their clothing in a hole, which they covered with acid and filled with dirt. An anonymous communique attributed the action to the Animal Liberation Front and the Equine and Zebra Liberation Front. The facility burned to the ground and did not reopen.<\/p>\n The fur and biomedical industries \u201cdramatically increased their efforts to convince the FBI and the DOJ to treat animal rights and environmental protesters as terrorists.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n During the same period, other activists burned down a Forest Service ranger station, set SUVs on fire, and\u00a0toppled<\/a>an 80-foot high-voltage transmission tower. The attacks and demonstrations were costly. In response, the fur and biomedical industries \u201cdramatically increased their efforts to convince the FBI and the DOJ to treat animal rights and environmental protesters as terrorists,\u201d said Shapiro of Property of the People. \u201cThis was the true genesis of the Green Scare.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just about arson. Patti Strand, a Dalmatian breeder and co-founder of the\u00a0National Animal Interest Alliance<\/a>, which works to \u201cpromote responsible animal ownership and use, and to oppose animal rights extremism,\u201d said that after she published her 1998 book on animal extremism she was targeted by radical activists. They put dead animals and garter snakes in her mailbox. \u201cI received letters that included information about my son, who was 11 at the time \u2014 what path he was taking to school and that they liked his new green jacket,\u201d she said. When others who had been targeted reached out to Strand with their stories \u2014 \u201cIf their fences were cut, if there were lawsuits that were going on, if they had started to receive death threats or things that were intimidating\u201d \u2014 she would pass along the details to the FBI.<\/p>\n By April 1998, the anti-environmental lobbying campaign was again bearing fruit. The Justice Department held a conference on animal rights terrorism and invited the executive director of the Fur Commission \u201cto address the attendees with her perception of the animal rights terrorism trends, and recommended investigative aids,\u201d according to an\u00a0FBI summary of the event<\/a>. Along with federal prosecutors, the attendees included officials from the FBI, the Justice Department\u2019s terrorism and violent crime section, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.<\/p>\n The Justice Department held a conference on animal rights terrorism in 1998, inviting the director of the Fur Commission to speak, according to an FBI memo.<\/p>\n Later that year, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on \u201cActs of Ecoterrorism by Radical Environmental Organizations.\u201d U.S. Rep. Frank Riggs, who had\u00a0accepted<\/a>\u00a0thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the forestry industry, described an activist stunt in which a large tree stump was dumped in the middle of his Northern California office. \u201cMy office was quite literally assaulted by a group of environmental terrorists,\u201d he said. \u201cUpon responding to the horrific sound, my two female staff members were greeted by the visage of several Earth First! terrorists, one wearing a black ski mask, and another wearing dark goggles and a hood.\u201d<\/p>\n Detective Greg Harvey joined the Eugene Police Department\u2019s special investigations unit in June of that year. For the better part of the next decade, solving the string of ALF and ELF arsons would become his primary task.<\/p>\n Harvey\u2019s work on the team coincided with an intense national tug of war over the meaning of terrorism. Indeed, Harvey had his own taxonomy. Blocking a road and trespassing? Not terrorism. The ALF and ELF arsonists? Not in the same category as international terrorists who kill people, but terrorists just the same. \u201cTheir whole intent is to change the way things are done,\u201d Harvey told The Intercept. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to close down businesses. Well, that\u2019s terrorism. When the families or the workers are afraid to do something, that\u2019s what I consider terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things we were really trying to focus on was breaking the movement,\u201d he said. Harvey and other law enforcement officials went after the group\u2019s omerta \u2014 its staunch refusal to cooperate with authorities. \u201cThat was one of the things that we broke.\u201d<\/p>\n But it would take a disaster even bigger than the Vail arson to give industry and law enforcement the political capital needed to cripple the movement. \u201cThey called us eco-terrorists before 9\/11,\u201d said John Sellers, former director of the Ruckus Society, which trains environmental justice organizers in direct action. \u201cBut no one really believed them.\u201d<\/p>\n Protesters, some proclaiming to be supporters of the Earth Liberation Front, march in Portland, Ore., on Feb. 12, 2002.<\/p>\n From 9\/11 to the Green Scare<\/span><\/div>\n Rescue workers were only beginning to survey the damage when Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young picked up a call from an Anchorage Daily News reporter on September 11, 2001. Few details had emerged about who was behind the attacks, but Young was unfazed. \u201cWar has been declared as far as terrorists go,\u201d he told the newspaper. \u201cI\u2019m not sure they\u2019re that dedicated, but eco-terrorists \u2014 which are really based in Seattle \u2014 there\u2019s a strong possibility that could be one of the groups\u201d behind the assault.<\/p>\n Young\u2019s remarks were prescient: Eco-saboteurs would become one of the U.S. government\u2019s lesser-known war on terror adversaries. September 11 was a crisis perfectly suited to the groundwork industry groups had laid in the 1990s, and corporate actors stood ready to exploit it. It didn\u2019t hurt that the saboteurs aligned themselves against capitalism, which was being defended as critical to America\u2019s suddenly imperiled way of life. With political careers freshly dependent on hammering terrorism, eco-sabotage became an easy target.<\/p>\n The attacks \u201cdid not set off the Green Scare,\u201d Shapiro said. Instead, \u201c9\/11 was exploited by Green Scare warriors to turn up the volume on their surveillance and suppression of the animal rights and eco\u00a0movements.\u201d<\/p>\n The Patriot Act\u2019s broad new definition of domestic terrorism, signed into law in October 2001, was another step toward institutionalizing the notion that eco-saboteurs were terrorists. The law targets those who commit criminal acts \u201cdangerous to human life\u201d that \u201cappear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population\u201d or influence government policy. It also made it\u00a0easier<\/a>\u00a0for the FBI to wiretap and surveil U.S. citizens. Even though a core tenet of ALF and ELF was to avoid harming living things, the Justice Department considered the movement\u2019s acts of arson and vandalism dangerous enough to count.<\/p>\n Craig Rosebraugh, a\u00a0spokesperson\u00a0for the Earth Liberation Front, on May 24, 2001, in Portland, Ore.<\/p>\n \n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The domestic terrorism section chief of the FBI, James Jarboe, announced that ALF and ELF were \u201cthe No. 1 priority in the domestic terrorism program.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosebraugh tried to turn the tables on his accusers. \u201cIf the U.S. government is truly concerned with eradicating terrorism in the world, then that effort must begin with abolishing U.S. imperialism,\u201d he wrote in prepared remarks. \u201cMembers of this governing body, both in the House and Senate as well as those who hold positions in the executive branch, constitute the largest group of terrorists and terrorist representatives currently threatening life on this planet.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawmakers at the hearing proposed various legislative fixes, including an Agroterrorism Prevention Act, which would have made activists eligible for the death penalty if someone were to die in one of the arsons. That bill was never passed, but another proposal \u2014 an expansion of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act \u2014 did become law, with help from industry.<\/p>\n In tandem with politicians\u2019 maneuvers, Quimby and the other law enforcement officers assigned to the arsons were doubling down on capturing the saboteurs. In the summer of 2001, they had met to discuss how they could crack open what had become stubbornly cold cases. \u201cWe decided we were going to be much more overt, and we were going to go start knocking on doors,\u201d Quimby said.<\/p>\n Armed with a list of 30 to 40 targets, the lead agent on the case began popping up in coffee shops and neighborhoods where he knew activists would recognize him. \u201cYou start to induce a little bit of paranoia,\u201d Quimby explained. The idea was that the activists would start thinking, \u201cAre they on to us? Are they watching me? Are they on my phone? Are they monitoring my email account?\u201d she told The Intercept. \u201cIt sewed some seeds of doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey called us eco-terrorists before 9\/11, but no one really believed them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Eugene detective Harvey\u2019s job was to remain unseen. \u201cI lived in the shadows. I basically sat in my car, watching people, buildings,\u201d he said. At one point, he said, he spent hours sitting outside the Castle Superstore where one of the activists worked, in the hopes that Dibee would show up to visit.<\/p>\n The operation zeroed in on Jake Ferguson, who was suspected of being one of the most prolific arsonists. \u201cWe were following around Jake Ferguson for months and months,\u201d said Harvey. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at a heroin user, which makes him unbelievably paranoid.\u201d Agents from multiple states moved into a shared office in Eugene, where the walls were papered with charts, photos, and timelines.<\/p>\n Quimby doesn\u2019t fully credit 9\/11 for the intensified investigation. But \u201cthere\u2019s no question that funding that became available as a result of 9\/11 may not have been there\u201d if not for the attacks, she said. The ALF and ELF cases \u201cbecame a priority and a very visible priority.\u201d<\/p>\n By the end of 2001, however, Dibee and fellow activists had begun to move away from radical protest tactics like arson, according to Lauren Regan, a lawyer who would later represent one of the Backfire defendants. \u201cIt was causing division, because there was no way to control who was doing what,\u201d she said. \u201cThey felt as if, sooner or later, some wildcard would potentially screw something up and kill themselves or kill someone else.\u201d An October 2001 arson, of a hay barn at a Bureau of Land Management holding facility for wild horses, would be the last fire prosecutors attributed to Dibee and other Backfire defendants.<\/p>\n Dibee also had a falling out with one of his closest collaborators in the movement, Jonathan Paul. Paul had participated in the Cavel West arson, and he and Dibee had co-founded an organization called Sea Defense Alliance, which sought to physically disrupt the Makah people\u2019s whale hunt (an action that is hard to imagine in today\u2019s environmental movement, which seeks to follow the lead of Indigenous people).<\/p>\n The two activists sued each other over ownership of the organization\u2019s boat, and at one point, Dibee drove toward Paul\u2019s home with a gun, allegedly planning to confront him, according to law enforcement accounts included in federal court filings. But Dibee got lost and was pulled over by police, and the meeting was averted.<\/p>\n For a time, Dibee appeared to move on with his life, maintaining his adrenaline high by racing cars and flying planes. But the Backfire case was about to break. In 2003, Ferguson, who had a young child to consider, agreed to wear a wire and travel around the U.S., visiting his activist friends and convincing them to talk about the old days.<\/p>\n Huntingdon Life Sciences in East Millstone, N.J., on Feb. 3, 2006.<\/p>\n Breaking the Movement<\/span><\/div>\n Among the earliest casualties of the Green Scare was a group known as the SHAC 7. After reporters and undercover activists obtained\u00a0disturbing footage<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0inside the laboratories<\/a>\u00a0of the research company Huntingdon Life Sciences, a campaign called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty emerged to shut it down. The nerve center of the campaign was a website where administrators posted communiques describing protest actions that targeted not just Huntingdon, but any company or individual that supported it \u2014 from clients to investment firms to the club where the CEO played golf. In response to persistent disruptions, dozens of companies severed ties with Huntingdon.<\/p>\n In January 2004, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful organization whose members include legislators and corporate lobbyists, released\u00a0draft legislation<\/a>\u00a0meant to strengthen the Animal Enterprise Protection Act to make it even easier to crack down on activist groups like SHAC. Under ALEC\u2019s model, titled the \u201cAnimal and Ecological Terrorism Act,\u201d filming an animal facility without the owners\u2019 consent could be prosecuted as terrorism. ALEC\u2019s version would also have created a \u201cterrorist registry\u201d of anyone convicted under the law.<\/p>\n But prosecutors didn\u2019t need ALEC\u2019s draft legislation to go after SHAC. A few months after the proposal was finalized, seven SHAC organizers were arrested and six were later sentenced to prison terms under the original version of AEPA. They were accused of encouraging and publicizing radical tactics, but not participating in acts of sabotage themselves.<\/p>\n Nor did authorities need a new anti-terrorism law to go after the ALF and ELF arsonists. In December 2005, FBI agents carried out\u00a0simultaneous<\/a>arrests in five states. Over the next year, 18 alleged ALF and ELF saboteurs would be accused of participating in a domestic terrorism conspiracy. The feds interviewed Dibee. Then he disappeared.<\/p>\n The pressure on the eco-radicals to inform on their friends in exchange for reduced prison time was immense. Hanging over their heads were terrorism sentencing enhancements developed in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which could\u00a0increase<\/a>\u00a0prison time for a\u00a0specific list<\/a>\u00a0of crimes if they were \u201ccalculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.\u201d Among the charges that fit the enhancement were arsons of buildings involved in interstate commerce or belonging to the U.S. government.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Given the prison time at stake, with some facing possible life sentences, nearly every activist shared information. \u201cSome named every name they could,\u201d Harvey said, while others \u201clisted involvement without naming names.\u201d<\/p>\n Prosecutors declined to negotiate with the handful of defendants who refused to cooperate, according to Regan. But that changed overnight, she said, after defense lawyers issued an extensive motion demanding the government reveal whether the National Security Agency or FBI had used warrantless wiretapping or Patriot Act-authorized surveillance against the activists. When the judge supported the motion, and prosecutors changed their tune. \u201cThey said, \u2018OK, we\u2019ll do a noncooperating plea deal if you\u2019ll drop this motion,\u2019\u201d Regan recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I had to choose who was the greater threat, I would obviously go with the ones who were killing people.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A narrower version of ALEC\u2019s law, introduced by Republican Sen. James Inhofe and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, passed the following November. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, or AETA, left out much of ALEC\u2019s wish list, limiting the law to animal enterprises rather than actions targeting mining, timber harvesting, and fossil fuel extraction. However, it\u00a0succeeded<\/a>\u00a0in criminalizing \u201cinterference\u201d in the activities of any entity with a connection to an animal enterprise, a lower bar than AEPA\u2019s \u201cphysical disruption.\u201d It also increased the maximum penalty for causing economic damage, from three years in prison to 20, and allowed for up to five years in prison if an action simply caused someone a \u201creasonable fear of serious bodily injury or death.\u201d<\/p>\n The section that would have criminalized filming at animal facilities was picked up by state lawmakers across the U.S. \u2014 \u201cag gag\u201d bills became law in nine states, though they\u2019ve been\u00a0overturned<\/a>\u00a0as unconstitutional in three, and legal battles continue.<\/p>\n Twelve\u00a0of the Backfire defendants received terrorism enhancements. They were sentenced to between one and 12 years in prison. One defendant\u2019s status as a \u201cterrorist\u201d was later used to justify his transfer to a communications management unit, where his contact with friends, family, and the public was severely limited.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t prison time that most deeply undermined the movement. \u201cThe level of betrayal that took place during the Green Scare and the number of hardcore activists that basically crumbled under minor pressure by the state to become snitches or informants really shook the foundations of the radical movement,\u201d Regan said. \u201cIt was very, very difficult for a lot of people to organize and trust each other in the aftermath of that shakeup.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Dibee, the FBI suspected that he sheltered with relatives in Syria. Friends thought he might have died in the violent civil war there. One by one, the other Backfire fugitives were picked up. After 30-year-old New Jersey native Justin Solondz was arrested on drug charges in 2009 in the backpacker community of Dali, China, he\u00a0pleaded guilty<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. to firebombing the University of Washington\u2019s Center for Urban Horticulture. Thirty-nine-year-old Rebecca Rubin, who had been hiding in her home nation of Canada, turned herself in in 2012, exhausted by years when \u201cshe was forced to live in what is, in some ways, a prison without walls,\u201d as her lawyer told a Maclean\u2019s reporter.\u00a0She\u00a0pleaded guilty<\/a>\u00a0to freeing wild horses and helping with the Vail arson.<\/p>\n While Dibee was on the lam, Obama\u2019s election drove much of the environmental movement\u2019s energy toward legislative change and away from direct action. The Intercept identified only 13 eco-activist cases prosecuted federally after 2008 \u2014 all but two charged under AETA. Six of the cases involved activists freeing mink from fur farms \u2014 actions that could hardly be considered terrorism even under the Patriot Act\u2019s broad definition. Four more of the cases were dismissed. \u201cThe primary purpose of these laws is to try and brand activists as terrorists in order to turn public opinion against their advocacy and their campaigns,\u201d Regan said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Democratic leadership failed to deliver any meaningful response to the deepening climate crisis and resulting biodiversity loss. Rising ocean temperatures caused the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, which Dibee had visited as a kid, to bleach and die. Wildfires burned with more intensity through the desiccated Pacific Northwest forests that he\u2019d fought to protect from the timber industry. Orca whale populations shrunk to perilous levels off the coast of Washington state. And Donald Trump was elected president, paving the way to reverse even the minor steps the Obama administration had taken to challenge corporate polluters.<\/p>\n Daryl Johnson, a former domestic terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security, near Rockville, Md., on Jan. 7, 2016.<\/p>\n A Rising Threat Dismissed<\/span><\/div>\n Daryl Johnson started at the Department of Homeland Security as a domestic terrorism analyst when eco-terrorism was still one of its major priorities. He didn\u2019t have a problem with that. \u201cI still believe they\u2019re terroristic threats, because it\u2019s ideologically motivated violence against property,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if I had to choose who was the greater threat, I would obviously go with the ones who were killing people.\u201d<\/p>\n By 2009, Johnson had come to see right-wing extremism as a severe, rising threat. That April, he became the lead author on an intelligence assessment that found that right-wing movements were using Obama\u2019s election as a recruiting tool. That same month, three police officers in Pittsburgh were ambushed and killed by a man who regularly posted on the white supremacist website Stormfront. \u201cLone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent right-wing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States,\u201d the report concluded.<\/p>\n The report was leaked, and the backlash was swift. Conservative groups were particularly offended by its suggestion that veterans might be vulnerable to recruitment by far-right groups. Everyone from Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner to the American Legion released statements deriding it.<\/p>\n At first, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano defended Johnson\u2019s work. \u201cWe must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence,\u201d she said in a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0a week after the report was published. But after 20 conservative groups put out ads calling for her to resign, she backtracked,\u00a0claiming<\/a>there had been a breakdown in internal review processes and\u00a0promising<\/a>\u00a0to replace the report.<\/p>\n In contrast to the crackdown on eco-radicals, DHS stepped back from focusing on domestic terrorism altogether. Johnson\u2019s unit was gutted, and he left the agency along with many of his peers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sent a chilling effect in the law enforcement and intelligence community. They saw what happened to me and how my unit was politicized,\u201d he told The Intercept. As a result, \u201cyou have 10 years of attacks almost,\u201d said Johnson, who now works as a consultant on domestic extremism. \u201cLots of people have died. The threat [of far-right groups] is still very active right now, and so it\u2019s thriving.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the Anti-Defamation League, between 2002 and 2018, 80 percent of extremist-related murders in the U.S. were carried out by people linked to right-wing movements. Only 3 percent were linked to left-wing ideologies, and 17 percent to Islamic movements. Every single extremist killing in 2018 \u2014 50 in all \u2014 had a link to a right-wing movement.<\/p>\n Journalist and civil liberties advocate Will Potter, whose book \u201cGreen Is the New Red<\/a>\u201d exposed industry influence over Green Scare-style prosecutions, argues that the federal focus on animal rights activists over right-wing extremists was driven by more than corporate lobbying. \u201cBeliefs that motivate [animal rights] activists were presented as this ideological threat to core concepts that underpin what some people think it means to be an American \u2014 defense of capitalism, a religiously aligned state, defense of industry, the belief that humans are exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n In contrast, many of America\u2019s foundational values \u2014 Christianity, individualism, gun rights, and white supremacy \u2014 align with those of right-wing extremists. As Johnson put it, right-wing groups \u201coperate under some of the same values that [I], an FBI agent, might believe.\u201d<\/p>\n Shapiro went even further: \u201cNo shit the FBI doesn\u2019t like to go after right-wing groups. They\u2019re on the same team.\u201d<\/p>\n Activist Jessica Reznicek, left, talks with Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Deputy Steve Sproul while protesting the\u00a0Dakota Access pipeline on Aug. 30, 2016, at a construction site near Keokuk, Iowa.<\/p>\n A New Generation<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In October 2016, as thousands of opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline gathered in protest camps in North Dakota, activists simultaneously turned above-ground valves on five tar sands oil pipelines across the U.S., shutting off the oil\u2019s flow in solidarity with the Standing Rock tribe. They livestreamed the actions and stayed on site, awaiting arrest.<\/p>\n Less than a year later, holes burned using welding tools began appearing on valves along the Dakota Access pipeline. Two pipeline activists, Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek, called a press conference to claim responsibility for the sabotage.<\/p>\n In response to the resurgence of direct action tactics, 84 members of Congress, including four Democrats, sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in October 2017 asking whether \u201cthe attacks against this nation\u2019s energy infrastructure, which pose a threat to human life, and appear to be intended to intimidate and coerce policy changes,\u201d fell within the Justice Department\u2019s understanding of domestic terrorism.<\/p>\n \u201cJust because time passes doesn\u2019t mean the FBI forgets.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The American Petroleum Institute praised the letter and told the industry publication\u00a0Natural Gas Intelligence<\/a>\u00a0that the group was working with the Trump administration on the issue, including the Justice Department and the FBI. \u201cA key component of securing our nation\u2019s energy infrastructure is ensuring that law enforcement has the tools needed to prosecute those who attack it,\u201d an institute spokesperson said.<\/p>\n As if on cue, ALEC entered the fray. By December 2017, it had introduced a model Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which would increase penalties for trespassing on or inhibiting the operations of oil and gas pipelines. Under the model, \u201cconspirator\u201d organizations, such as activist groups, would face a fine several times that of the trespasser. Eight states are\u00a0considering<\/a>\u00a0versions of the law, and\u00a0industry groups<\/a>\u00a0and oil and gas companies, including Dakota Access parent company\u00a0Energy Transfer Partners<\/a>, have been lobbying on its behalf.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the corporate state bringing out the same old tired playbook and repeating the same plays again and again,\u201d said Regan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While legislators\u2019 efforts haven\u2019t yet translated into Green Scare-style prosecutions, their enthusiasm reveals that the anti-eco-terror framework built in the 1990s and strengthened in the wake of 9\/11 could easily be deployed again.<\/p>\n On August 10, the FBI held a press conference to announce it had captured Dibee. \u201cJust because time passes doesn\u2019t mean the FBI forgets,\u201d FBI agent Tim Suttles, who worked the Operation Backfire case for 14 years, said in a statement. \u201cWe are very gratified to have Dibee in custody.\u201d<\/p>\n Dibee\u2019s lawyer declined to comment. But if his case turns out like those of his co-defendants, he\u2019ll probably negotiate a guilty plea. The judge is likely to consider a terrorism enhancement, and Dibee will be sentenced to years in prison.<\/p>\n Harvey, the Oregon detective who spent years trying to catch Dibee, learned of the arrest from a friend who\u2019s still working on the case. \u201cI was extremely happy,\u201d he told The Intercept.<\/p>\n Quimby, the former FBI agent, was similarly gratified. \u201cWhen Joe was picked up, it was sort of cool, like one more down, one to go.\u201d<\/p>\n But she knows it\u2019s not over. One Backfire defendant, Josephine Overaker, remains missing. \u201cShe speaks fluent Spanish and may seek employment as a firefighter, midwife, sheep tender, or masseuse,\u201d the FBI said in its press release announcing Dibee\u2019s capture.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Overaker still out there the case isn\u2019t closed,\u201d Quimby said. \u201cIt won\u2019t be until she comes into custody.\u201d<\/p>\n Source documents used in this reporting were obtained by Property of the People and shared exclusively with The Intercept. You can learn more about Property of the People\u2019s work litigating Freedom of Information Act requests\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Intercept by Alleen Brown Behind the scenes, corporate lobbying laid the groundwork for the Justice Department\u2019s aggressive pursuit of so-called eco-terrorists. JOE DIBEE\u2019S 12 YEARS\u00a0on the lam came to an end last August, when Cuban authorities detained the 50-year-old environmental activist during a layover in Havana and turned him over to the United\u00a0States. More … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/FBI-Officials-at-Domestic-Extremism-Press-Conference-1553118338.jpg\")
<\/a>Michael B. Ward of the FBI\u2019s counterterrorism division speaks at a press conference on Nov. 19, 2008,\u00a0about a reward for the capture of four Operation Backfire fugitives. With Ward is Portland Assistant Special Agent in Charge Daniel Nielsen.<\/p>\nIndustry Intelligence-Gathering<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nRadical Tactics Reach Their Peak<\/h3>\n
<\/a>In the summer of 1997, Dibee was involved in another dramatic action, this time to protest the\u00a0overfishing<\/a>\u00a0of pollock in the Bering Sea and the harm it was causing the endangered Steller sea lion. Seven Greenpeace activists planned to dangle from ropes off Seattle\u2019s Aurora Bridge, more than 200 feet above Lake Union, in an effort to block four giant American Seafoods trawlers from entering Puget Sound. A skilled climber, Dibee was to position himself underneath the bridge, maneuvering along\u00a0its metal support structure to assist the other climbers as\u00a0needed.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>In October 1998, in the midst of renewed focus on their activities, Earth Liberation Front activists raised the stakes. In the name of protecting lynx habitat, they burned down several buildings at a new ski resort near Vail, Colorado, causing $12 million worth of damage. \u201cThe environmental groups who have not just\u00a0claimed credit, but in some cases have been proved to have committed criminal acts, are a very, very serious part of our domestic terrorism focus,\u201d then-FBI Director Louis Freeh\u00a0told Congress<\/a>\u00a0a few months later.The Fur Commission celebrated. \u201cOver the last year, the people of the fur trade have been key players with other animal and resource-based industries in a concerted effort to push eco and animal rights terrorism up the government\u2019s priority pole,\u201d according to\u00a0a March 1999 newsletter<\/a>. \u201cThese efforts have resulted in a strong statement of commitment from the FBI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n