[Ppnews] "Is ecosabotage terrorism?" and "An activist-turned-informant" articles from Seattle Times

[Political Prisoner News]

Four articles about repression against the 
radical environmental movement appeared in the 
Seattle Times today. Posted below are two of 
them. Please visit the Seattle Times website and 
participate in the forum discussion on "Is ecosabotage terrorism?"




Is ecosabotage terrorism?


By <mailto:hbernton at seattletimes.com>Hal Bernton

Who is a terrorist?

After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 
168 people, it was clean-cut Timothy McVeigh, a 
brooding loner — infused with hatred of the 
government — who was convicted and put to death for that crime.

After 9/11, which claimed the lives of more than 
2,900 people, it was the bearded visage of Osama bin Laden.

This year, the Bush administration has touted the 
arrests of terrorists of a different kind — 
homegrown militants who have embarked on arson 
attacks to protest treatment of animals and the environment.

During the past three years alone, FBI 
counterterrorism agents have conducted at least 
190 investigations into property crimes claimed 
by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the 
Animal Liberation Front (ALF). None of the crimes injured or killed people.

"Terrorism is terrorism — no matter what the 
motive," declared FBI director Robert Mueller on 
Jan. 20, when he announced the indictment of 11 
people in an alleged conspiracy that involved 17 
attacks. Those include arsons at a ski resort in 
Vail, Colo., a horse slaughterhouse in Oregon, a 
federal wildlife research center in Olympia and 
the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture.
Is it terrorism?

FBI says yes, even though environmental militants target property, not people.

More indictments are expected in the months ahead 
as federal grand juries meet in Seattle, Eugene, 
Denver, San Francisco and other cities. Most of 
those indicted earlier this year could face 
decades in federal prison. A few may face life 
sentences, if tried and convicted.

Some balk at putting the terrorism label on 
activists who have targeted property — not people.

In the post-9/11 era, they say that the word 
tilts the criminal-justice system against 
defendants and helps the Bush administration 
justify a broader infiltration — and surveillance 
— of groups that protest government policies.

Documents obtained by the American Civil 
Liberties Union indicate that the FBI has 
monitored the activities of some environmental, animal-rights and peace groups.

"You couple spying on political dissenters with 
grand jury subpoenas and a series of arrests, 
it's had a huge effect," said Alejandro Queral, 
executive director of the Northwest 
Constitutional Rights Center. "There is a serious 
danger of chilling dissenting points of view."

The FBI decision to run these investigations 
through a counterterrorism branch also has been 
questioned by its own Office of Inspector 
General, which in a 2003 report recommended that 
the cases should be handled by its criminal division.

In Oregon, the power of the terrorism label also 
generated concern from a federal judge. In a 2002 
hearing in Portland, U.S. District Court Judge 
James Redden told a federal prosecutor not to use 
the word "terrorist" in the trial of Jacob 
Sherman, an Oregon man inspired by ELF to set fire to three logging trucks.

"Basically, he [Redden] thought it was a fairness 
issue, and that it could prejudice the jury," 
said Andrew Bates, a defense attorney for 
Sherman, who avoided trial through a plea agreement.

Redden's concern underscores the lack of a 
universal definition for terrorism. Even within 
the U.S. government, there still is no unanimity, 
according to the Government Accountability Office.

For example, the State Department, when assessing 
violence abroad, defines terrorism as 
"premeditated politically motivated violence 
perpetrated against non-combatants" — in other 
words, attacks designed to injure or kill people.

Other federal laws and codes use a broader 
definition of terrorism that can include attacks 
on property as well as people. The statutes 
define domestic terrorism as acts of violence 
intended to influence the conduct of government 
or "intimidate or coerce a civilian population."

Even those definitions are open to 
interpretation. For example, the vast majority of 
attacks on abortion clinics, including those that 
have killed at least six people since 1993, are 
not classified by the FBI as terrorism.

Among federal prosecutors in Oregon, there is no 
debate that the ELF and ALF arsons add up to terrorism.

They say the attacks have posed a danger to 
humans, including firefighters who respond to put 
out the blazes, and were intended to further a political agenda.
A slaughterhouse was burned in Oregon, for 
example, to protest the killing of wild horses brought in from the range.

The overall goal of the ELF — defined in a 2001 
pamphlet distributed by its North American press 
office — is to use "direct action in the form of 
economic sabotage to stop the exploitation and 
destruction of the natural environment."

Handling a case as terrorism can influence the 
number of arson and other charges that a 
prosecutor may seek from a grand jury. And, if 
terrorism is proved as a motive for arson, 
federal sentencing guidelines recommend substantially longer prison terms.
"There was never any question about how these 
[crimes] would be treated," said Stephen Peifer, 
a Portland-based assistant U.S. attorney involved in the prosecution.

Post-9/11 indictments

During the second term of the Clinton 
administration, FBI, state and local officials 
started searching for leads among the Eugene 
anarchist community and others who joined in more 
militant environmental actions.

But the current indictments are coming down in a 
much different, post-9/11 era, when terrorism is 
a central focus of the Bush administration.

Arson attacks in the Pacific Northwest fell off 
after the 2001 UW arson fire. But elsewhere in 
the nation, there has been plenty of activity, 
and the FBI ranks the ALF and ELF among the 
nation's top domestic-terrorism threats.

"There is no question as you look over the past 
several years at the amount of damage, at the 
amount of criminal activity that has been racked 
up by these various groups, that animal-rights 
extremists and ecoterrorists are way out in front 
in terms of the damage they are causing in the 
United States," said John Lewis, deputy FBI 
director, at a U.S. Senate hearing last May.

Since 1976, animal-rights and environmental 
militants have been involved in more than 1,100 
actions that have caused more than $110 million 
worth of damage, according to FBI statistics.

The FBI is worried that some groups want to ratchet up the violence.

Huntington Life Sciences, a British company with 
operations in the U.S. that uses animals in drug 
tests, has been a major target.

In England, the birthplace of the ALF, three 
masked assailants beat Huntington's managing 
director with baseball bats. An animal-rights 
activist was sentenced to three years in prison for the crime.

In the U.S., company researchers have received 
threatening phone calls warning them to stop 
experiments with animals. Executives who work for 
or do business with the company have had their 
homes and other property vandalized.

In 2003, two California companies with ties to 
Huntington were hit with bombs, including one 
wrapped in nails, according to the FBI. The bombs 
caused no injuries but the attacker appeared ready to harm people.

"Now you will reap what you have sown. All 
customers and their families are considered 
legitimate targets. ... No more will all the 
killing be done by the oppressors," said a 
communiqué claiming credit for the attacks from a 
group called the "Revolutionary Cells of the Animal Liberation Brigade."

The California attack appears to reflect a rift 
among some animal-rights militants.
The ALF advocates "direct action" attacks against 
property, such as laboratories and slaughterhouses, but rejects harming humans.

Meanwhile, splinter groups believe that it may be 
morally justified to injure or even kill a human 
being — if the action could save many animal 
lives, according to Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles 
trauma surgeon who has acted as a spokesman for the ALF since 2004.

FBI officials say such beliefs justify 
investigating these cases aggressively as terrorist acts.

Earlier this year, an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. 
District Court in California disclosed how that 
agency recruited an informant to infiltrate the movement.

The affidavit details the two-year odyssey of an 
informant who was granted authority to 
participate in illegal activity as she journeyed 
about the U.S. She helped set up surveillance of 
three militants as they allegedly prepared for 
sabotage of California targets, and was paid 
$75,000 for her work, according to Mark Reichel, 
an attorney representing one of the militants.

Who should investigate?

In making its 2003 recommendations, the FBI 
Office of Inspector General said that funneling 
those cases from the counterterrorism to the 
criminal investigative division would free up 
more terrorism investigators to pursue threats 
such as those posed by Islamic fundamentalists.

The FBI has rejected that suggestion, saying the 
investigations are best handled by 
counterterrorism agents, since the groups are 
often organized like terrorist cells.
Some outside the agency question the FBI's 
ranking of those groups as a top 
domestic-terrorism threat, since they haven't killed or injured people.

Among the domestic-terrorism incidents included 
in the FBI database, individuals with ties to 
white-supremacist and other anti-government 
groups killed six people and injured more than 135 people since 1996.

During the past decade, the Justice Department 
has uncovered numerous right-wing plots to 
assassinate police officers, judges, politicians 
and civil-rights figures, as well as to amass 
missiles, explosives and chemical weapons, 
according to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report.

"In my opinion, they [the FBI] are mistaking the 
frequency of incidents with the overall threat," 
said Mark Potok, editor of a report that monitors 
extremist crimes for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Seattle Times researcher Gene Balk contributed to this story.
Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or 
<mailto:hbernton at seattletimes.com>hbernton at seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company



An activist-turned-informant

By <mailto:hbernton at seattletimes.com>Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

EUGENE, Ore. — The arsonists hit before dawn, 
laying down fuel-soaked sheets and jugs of 
gasoline to torch 35 SUVs at a Chevrolet dealership.

The communiqué from the saboteurs — acting under 
the banner of the Earth Liberation Front — 
proclaimed a new, more militant era, when the 
sins of the "rich who parade around in their 
armored existence" would no longer go unchallenged.
Federal, state and local officials converged on 
the scene after the March 2001 attack, sifting 
through charred wreckage for evidence — just as 
they had in more than a dozen other major arson 
attacks around the West claimed by the ELF or the Animal Liberation Front.

The investigation hit a dead end. As in the other 
attacks, prosecutors couldn't muster enough evidence to charge anyone.

"If you don't get a break, arson is a really 
tough case to make," said Thad Buchanan, a 
retired Eugene police captain involved in the 
investigations. "Most of your evidence burns up."

Three years after the Eugene fires, investigators 
finally got their break: A sinewy, tattooed 
heavy-metal guitarist named Jake Ferguson agreed 
to cooperate and donned recording wires to meet with other activists.

Soon, the secrets of the underground network 
thought responsible for the attacks began to be exposed.

Ferguson was a high-profile participant in some 
of these crimes, according to court documents and 
court statements by defense attorneys with access to unreleased documents.

Is it terrorism?

FBI says yes, even though environmental militants target property, not people.

It is unclear whether he had any role in the 
Eugene fires. But he admits to helping out in at 
least four arsons, including a 1998 fire at a 
federal facility in Olympia, according to a court 
statement by Craig Weinerman, a federal public defender involved in the case.

As federal prosecutors prepare for trial this 
fall, Ferguson's tapes and testimony will likely 
play a large role in the fate of 13 men and women 
accused of a conspiracy to carry out 17 acts of 
arson and sabotage between 1996 and 2001.

Most of those accused now face spending decades 
in prison if convicted. Some could wind up with 
life sentences if found guilty at trial.

So far, Ferguson remains free and hasn't been charged with any crimes.

But his cooperation with investigators has made 
him a notorious figure among militant 
environmentalists: Ferguson has received 
threatening phone calls and been repeatedly 
trashed on activist Web sites as a turncoat, snitch and worse.

In an interview with The Seattle Times, Ferguson 
declined to comment on the alleged crimes and 
bristled at accusations that he was the first to fold.

"I didn't roll; people rolled on me, and I was 
faced with a situation where I could go to jail 
for the rest of my life," Ferguson said.

A devoted father who liked guitar, Ferguson lived 
in the Whiteaker neighborhood of Eugene, a 
collection of aging wooden homes. It's a place 
where people can find shelter in aging buses 
parked in a front yard or a yurt that features 
access to an organic garden and wood-fired sauna, 
and — in years past — weekly meetings to debate anarchist philosophy.

He was known for being into his music, playing 
lead guitar in a band at a local bar. He also 
trained in Aikido, and, friends say, was devoted 
to his young son, who lives with his mother.

There was another side to Ferguson, as well.

In 1999, he was arrested on charges of carrying a 
concealed weapon in his pickup — a 9 mm handgun, 
according to Eugene court records.

He also has struggled with a heroin addiction, 
and at times displayed a volatile temper, 
according to Micah Griffin, a former bandmate.

"There was a certain aura about him," said a 
former housemate. "He was the bad boy. And there 
was a certain attraction to that in an anarchist movement full of pirate talk."
Ferguson earned some of his early activist 
credentials when he joined the marathon Warner 
Creek logging protests of 1995 and 1996.

Protesters spent more than 300 days blockading a 
road that led to a 14-acre patchwork of 
old-growth timber scheduled to be cut in a 
burned-over area of the Willamette National Forest.

At Warner Creek, Ferguson was a tactician, 
someone who helped fortify the lines by digging 
ditches and building barricades.

In a documentary titled "Pickaxe," a bearded 
Ferguson smiles as his head pokes above the walls 
of a log stockade strung across the road.

"We've had schoolkids from Vermont come here to 
do all-night watch shifts with their teachers," 
Ferguson told the interviewer. "It's really been 
an inspirational place for activists from all over the country."

The protest spurred nonviolent civil disobedience 
around the region, with hundreds arrested before 
the Clinton administration finally backed off from logging that tract.
There was tension about how far to take the 
protests: Some people held fast to civil 
disobedience in the traditions of the Rev. Dr. 
Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.
Others thought violence could be justified 
against an industrial society doing plenty of violence against the Earth.

"It was a constant debate, and people weren't 
just sitting in a room, they were sitting in the 
middle of the road, so the argument was based on 
the reality of what might be happening that day," 
said Tim Lewis, an activist who produced the "Pickaxe" documentary.

Those camped out included Kevin Tubbs, a 
Nebraska-reared son of a Vietnam Marine veteran. 
Then 26, Tubbs already had made a name for 
himself as an animal-rights activist with a passion for rescuing stray animals.

At Warner Creek, Tubbs tied himself on top of a 
wooden tripod set in the middle of a road. It was 
rigged so that the smallest bump from a logging 
truck would dislodge the structure, and "bring me 
crashing to my death," he told an interviewer in the documentary.

The protest also drew Bill Rodgers, a 
soft-spoken, balding man who loved to hike, 
explore caves and read books. He had a mystical 
streak, taking the nickname "Avalon," from "The 
Mists of Avalon," a novel about King Arthur told 
from the perspective of a druid priestess.

Others who joined the Warner Creek protest don't 
recall any special bonding among Tubbs, Rodgers and Ferguson.

But court documents and statements by attorneys 
allege that in the years to come, the trio — 
sometimes working side by side — would help carry 
out a wave of arson attacks on behalf of the 
Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front.

The first ELF attack took place a month after the 
Warner Creek protests, a failed attempt to burn 
down a Willamette National Forest ranger 
building. Two nights later another ranger station burned down.

In the years that followed, the saboteurs hit 15 
other targets with a mix of stealth and bravado, 
sometimes spray-painting the ELF or ALF initials 
at the scene. They used homemade bombs, sometimes 
consisting of 5-gallon jugs filled with gasoline 
and detonated with electronic timers. But they left scant evidence behind.

To make headway, investigators needed somehow — 
some way — to penetrate the underground.

"It was very difficult. It was a very tight 
group. We knew that it was going to be a long, 
slow process," said Buchanan, the retired Eugene police captain.

Unexpected lead gives investigators "a red flag"

Around the time of the Chevrolet dealership fire, 
police and federal investigators got an unexpected lead.

Shortly after the arson, a woman reported a 
stolen vehicle and believed that Ferguson had 
taken it, according to Buchanan. She then had a 
change of heart and withdrew that report.

A few days later, another woman showed up at the 
Eugene police station and asked for information 
about the stolen-vehicle report and the fire at 
the dealership, according to police and federal sources.

Police were surprised by this query.

Could Ferguson — and this truck — have been involved with the fires?

"It was a tremendous red flag," Buchanan said. 
"Before that, we had never head of Ferguson. He wasn't on our radar."

Investigators located the truck. But a search 
didn't turn up evidence that linked the fires to 
Ferguson, according to Buchanan.

But Ferguson was still a suspect when federal 
investigators began looking into the dealership 
fire again. By then, ELF and ALF attacks in the 
Pacific Northwest had ebbed, but other actions were continuing elsewhere.

In Eugene, a federal grand jury summoned numerous 
witnesses, including several of Ferguson's friends.

By the summer of 2004, Ferguson would tell 
friends that "the feds" were closing in on him, 
even following him as he drove through town.

"Most of the time he joked about everything, and 
it was hard to know when to take him seriously," 
said a former housemate. "But the one time he 
really seemed serious, he said that they [federal 
authorities] were trying to get him for [the dealership] fire."
Several defense attorneys say they've seen no 
evidence that Ferguson participated in the dealership fires.

Federal prosecutors decline to discuss Ferguson, 
though U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut said in a 
news conference that inside information was of 
"critical importance" in cracking the case.

Ferguson did not say who put the federal 
officials on his tail, what information persuaded 
him to cooperate or what kind of deal, if any, he struck with prosecutors.
But by September 2004, Ferguson was cooperating 
with investigators, according to defense 
attorneys who have gained access to numerous FBI affidavits.

In some of those documents filed in court, 
Ferguson appears as "CW-1" (Confidential Witness 
1) or simply "CW" (Confidential Witness), 
according to Weinerman, a defense attorney for an 
alleged co-conspirator in some of the arsons. In 
indictment papers that outline the crimes, 
Ferguson appears as a "person known to the Grand 
Jury," according to a motion filed by another defense attorney.

In these documents, Ferguson, as CW, talks about 
joining Tubbs on a 1998 road trip from Eugene to 
Olympia. There, they joined with Rodgers in an 
arson attack on a federal wildlife-research 
facility. The group had an unreliable vehicle, a 
van that kept breaking down. Eventually, it had 
to be dropped off at a Federal Way repair shop, according to an FBI affidavit.

In late 2000, Ferguson claimed to have joined 
Tubbs and three other people to scout out another 
target — an Oregon poplar farm, which would 
eventually be set fire to on May 21, 2001, along 
with the UW Urban Horticulture Center. And as an 
informant, he would later return to the area to 
point out landmarks to an FBI agent.

To bolster the case against other alleged cell 
members, Ferguson also agreed to don a body 
recorder, and travel around the country coaxing 
at least six of his alleged accomplices to talk 
about past exploits. Those recordings included 
conversations with Tubbs reminiscing about the 
Olympia attack, and Rodgers discussing his work 
on a how-to manual, "Setting Fires with Electronic Timers."

Ferguson's work made him a notable recruit in a 
broader FBI effort to penetrate the ALF and ELF.

The feds begin to make arrests

The federal crackdown began early last December.

Rodgers was among the first taken into custody. 
He was arrested at the bookstore and community 
center that he had opened in Prescott, Ariz.

"Never did I imagine that things would turn out 
like this. I have been betrayed before and each 
time I was astonished, and saddened," Rodgers 
wrote from jail. "But this is the ultimate 
betrayal, delivered straight into the hands of my 
enemies. On top of all that, I can see that 
multiple parties are willing to blatantly lie and exaggerate."

He also wrote a will. Two weeks after his arrest, 
the 40-year-old Rodgers pulled a plastic bag over 
his head and committed suicide. His girlfriend 
received some 30 pages of letters, including a farewell note.

"Certain human cultures have been waging war 
against the Earth for millennia," Rodgers wrote. 
"I chose to fight on the side of bears, mountain 
lions, skunks, bats, saguaros, cliff rose and all 
things wild. I am just the most recent casualty 
in that war. But tonight I have made a jail break 
— I am returning home, to the Earth, to the place of my origins."

Tubbs, who was arrested in Eugene where he worked 
at an adult bookstore, made a different choice.

Accused of involvement in at least nine attacks, 
he faces the possibility of spending the rest of 
his life in prison. He has chosen to cooperate.

In a Jan. 31 letter, he appeared hopeful his 
assistance would earn him release on bail so he 
could reclaim his job as an assistant retail 
manager at an adult video and magazine store and 
share some time with his family and six cats and two dogs.

"I sincerely regret any involvement in the 
activities I am accused of," Tubbs wrote U.S. 
District Court Judge Thomas Coffin. "I was 
motivated only out of a desire for positive 
social change, but I have long since realized 
events like those actually do more harm than 
good. To prove this point, I am doing everything 
I can to help resolve this complicated case as quickly and easily as possible."

In a February court hearing, prosecutors 
portrayed Tubbs as a desperate man willing to die 
for the cause and a flight risk. They persuaded Coffin to deny the bail motion.

Ferguson has become a target for scorn

Ferguson, at least through early March, was still 
living in the Eugene area. Though he's kept a low 
profile, he became a target of scorn in some activist circles.

"The reason why a community has been shaken to 
the core is this: Jacob Ferguson," declared a 
posting on the Indymedia Portland Web site.

"In a community where there is distrust, even 
disgust for the federal government and especially 
its law-enforcement operatives, Jake pretended he 
was one of us. He was and is one of them."

A former housemate was surprised to see him 
earlier this year driving one of the ELF's 
despised symbols of industrial excess — a gray 
SUV. Ferguson said it was a rental vehicle.

Once this winter, Ferguson also ventured to an 
old Eugene hangout, the Tiny Tavern.
"I didn't know whether I wanted to hit him, or 
give him a hug," said Griffin, his former bandmate.

Ferguson told Griffin about his difficult 
upbringing without his father, who spent time in 
prison. Ferguson hoped his cooperation with the 
Justice Department would spare his own son the same fate.

Still, he feared he might have to serve as much 
as 10 years behind bars. Throughout their 
meeting, Ferguson was full of tears, sorrow and regret.

"He said he had become a victim of his own crimes," Griffin said.

Seattle Times researcher David Turim contributed to this report.
Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or 
<mailto:hbernton at seattletimes.com>hbernton at seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company



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