New laws target increase in acts of ecoterrorism

A rise in ecoterrorism is prompting federal and state lawmakers to craft laws aimed specifically at radical environmental and animal-rights activists.

For those wanting to crack down on people who use arson and threats of personal violence to force better treatment of animals and nature, tougher legal penalties are logical. But to civil libertarians, and especially to law-abiding activists, this trend is an attempt to stifle legitimate political dissent, including peaceful civil disobedience. That it comes at a time of political stress over the war in Iraq, sometimes rough protests against international trade agreements, and calls to patriotism is not lost on either side.

Initially, acts of "monkey wrenching" amounted to little more than vandalism aimed at such targets as logging equipment and mink farms. In the 1990s, that escalated to major arson and bombings. Meanwhile, the range of targets in recent months has expanded to include biotechnology firms, SUV dealers, housing developments, Wal-Mart stores, and a bottled water plant.

According to the FBI, there have been some 600 acts of ecoterrorism in the United States with property losses totaling nearly $50 million. Speaking of recent attacks on biotech firms, Phil Celestini, head of the FBI's domestic terrorism unit in Washington, told the Associated Press, "We've seen a drastic escalation in the use of violent tactics in the past year."

So far, groups like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) seem to have carefully avoided human injury or killing. Operating in small, unconnected groups with no central command, they've almost always avoided capture and prosecution as well.

But in September, when a group calling itself the "Revolutionary Cells Animal Liberation Brigade" set off a bomb at a California beauty products company with links to another company that uses animals for research, it warned that "all customers and their families are considered legitimate targets." And in a personal message to the head of a biotech company that had been attacked earlier this year, the group wrote: "You never know when your house, your car even, might go boom."....