Animal Activists Fight for Their Own Rights

[Animal 0]

City Weekly (Salt Lake City) May 12, 2010



Animal Activists Fight for Their Own Rights

Some Utah animal advocates fear being put in a legal cage.

By Jesse Fruhwirth

In June 2008, Jeremy Beckham took a day trip from Seattle to Vancouver,
British Columbia, with his girlfriend and brother to visit famed Capilano
Suspension Bridge. The longtime Salt Lake City animal-rights activist had no
problem entering Canada, but his name was flagged by the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection when he returned.

"They brought me in a separate room, so it was clear they were singling me
out," he said. He gave the agent his name, told him he was a student at the
University of Utah and that he was just visiting Canada as a tourist. "Then
[the agent] said, 'What student groups or political organizations do you
belong to?' " Nervous already, Beckham was now alarmed. Why should his
political beliefs have any bearing on his re-entry?

Beckham, 25, refused to answer the question, and all others.

The agent asked if he was refusing to cooperate with a "national security
investigation." Beckham's answer was not what the agent wanted to hear: "I'm
not refusing to [explain] why I was in Canada, [but] I'm not going to answer
questions about my political beliefs." Beckham was cuffed, and he recalls
the agent saying, "You can sit there until you're ready to answer some
questions."

He sat handcuffed for an hour or more. Eventually, a "good cop" with a kind
demeanor-to contrast the previous brusque "bad cop"-came into the room and
uncuffed Beckham. He asked the same questions as the first agent and Beckham
explained, for a second time, his trip to the Capilano bridge.

"Let me tell you a bit about why you were stopped," Beckham says he was
told. "We looked into you, and we know that you are an animal-rights
activist. Å That's your right. You might not be aware of it, but Canada is a
hotbed of violent animal-rights extremism. Å We don't think you're a violent
animal-rights activist necessarily, but we have to ask these questions. Did
you speak with any animal-rights activists [in Canada]'" Beckham remained
silent.

Twenty minutes later, he was free to go.

Agree with them or not, understanding their motivation is key to
understanding tactics that some find unsavory: picketing at animal
researchers' homes, for example, or publicly praising illegal mink releases.
While some activists have purposely violated the law in defense of animal
rights, those who are not willing to cross legal lines face anxiety-inducing
quandaries: When does free speech become illegal support of others' crimes,
and what are the consequences of being an "eco-terrorist" sympathizer?

Law enforcers from the FBI down to Salt Lake City Prosecutor Sim Gill remind
these activists that ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating it, and
yet refuse to issue legal opinions that clearly distinguish illegal behavior
and free speech. An FBI official recently told City Weekly that the
activists have nothing to worry about if they "don't push the envelope." But
activists are almost sure to keep pushing. In which case, they may face more
detentions at the border, FBI informants in their midst and more revisions
to the legal understandings of free speech and assembly.

Animal-Rights "Rock Star"

Peter Daniel Young, 32, is certainly the most prominent animal
liberator/convicted "eco-terrorist" in Utah. The son of a radio disc jockey,
Young was born in California and mostly raised in the Seattle-area community
of Mercer Island. Already a hardcore music fan and Straight Edge kid-meaning
he loved aggressive, angry music but disdained drugs and alcohol- Young
became only the second vegan in his high school and hasn't eaten meat or
dairy since, not even in prison.

The roots of his radical respect for animals can be traced to John Robbins'
markedly unradical Diet For a New America television special from 1992,
which Young saw in a high school class. The 60-minute film barely mentions
animal rights and focuses on Americans' unusual levels of meat and dairy
consumption relative to other countries. There's just a brief scene about
the conditions of animals on factory farms, but it's presented as more of a
gross-out to eaters than an argument that animals deserve better treatment.
Nevertheless, those images stuck with Young.

Young graduated from high school in 1995 and continued his practices of
picketing businesses that exploited animals. He quickly grew intolerant,
however, of the slow pace of progress and moved on to criminal acts of
activism, often referred to as "direct actions." "We were under the illusion
that this [picketing] was building up toward some crescendo where all the
animals were free, and it just wasn't working."

His first illegal direct action was to smash the windows of a Seattle ham
store and paint "Meat is Murder" on the walls. That made the news, as did
other crimes he committed anonymously. Before long, though, both cops and
news crews recognized him as an activist. He felt "marked" and needed
anonymity to continue his illegal work, so he headed for the Upper Midwest
in 1997.

"The road trip that lead to my indictment was to be my last stop before
college," he said. "I wanted to do one last, great thing." That thing was to
assist in the release of thousands of mink from their cages at six ranches
in South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin, sort of an epicenter of mink farming.
Wisconsin is the top producer of mink pelts with 71 farms, according to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Utah is the second highest, with 65 farms.

It's not clear whether Beckham was listed in the FBI's Terrorist Screening
Database, or "watch list" as it's frequently called. Beckham has never been
charged with any so-called "eco-terrorism," but people he knows have, and
activist associates of his have been convicted of picketing-related charges.
Beckham believes the government hypes the threat of animal-activist crimes
in order to disrupt the entire movement and that merely being an animal
activist can make you guilty by association. Beckham and others believe
animal exploitation is the moral equivalent of human torture or murder, and
they're incredibly earnest and uncompromising in their beliefs that breaking
the laws to free animals is similar to the Underground Railroad.

Mink are among the best animals to liberate, Young says, because they're
scrappy survivors who have the instincts for life in the wild. The fur
industry disagrees about minks' chances of survival after a lifetime in a
small cage-which is usually only months long-never having time to run
around, much less hunt or swim. Each side has anecdotes and scientific
research to back their mortality/survival claims.

Young and a co-defendant were caught-their red Geo Metro with Washington
plates had been spotted at mink farms and was seized by a Wisconsin
officer-but he was not indicted until the next year. Young went underground
and stayed on the lam until 2005, when he was arrested in San Jose, Calif.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison and $254,000 in
restitution, most of which went unpaid because he stopped making payments
after his one-year probation expired.

Young became a convicted eco-terrorist, though he never intended to nor
actually did hurt anyone-except financially. He sees mink releases as akin
to interrupting a rape in progress, so he doesn't have any mixed emotions
about harming animal-exploitation businesses. He says he's now engaged only
in above-ground, legal activism because, as a "marked" man, he attracts a
lot of law-enforcement attention.

Young also drew attention of animal-rights activists, becoming a "rock star"
among local groups, at least according to a woman who once dated Young and
is now suspected of working as an informant for the FBI.

Spooky Gal

Sarah Bobbitt was 26 when Young first met her in the spring of 2008.

Attractive, blond, a conservative Republican, she was a photographer who
worked for the University of Utah's Daily Utah Chronicle and offered to
arrange for photos from protests to appear in the student newspaper. "She
was strange but disarming at the same time," Young said. Young was not yet a
Utah resident, but on a speaking tour passing through the state. Bobbitt
approached him about helping her with "a campaign to rescue Guatemala street
dogs, or something," Young said. She asked to go out for dinner after the
conference, then asked if she could stay with Young's hosts who were putting
him up for the night. He obliged.

"She was very forward," Young said, but never answered whether he was
sexually or romantically interested in her. Bobbitt says she briefly dated
Young.

Young's Utah comrades, he says, quickly pegged her as a snitch. She dressed
conservatively and asked inappropriate questions about illegal
activities-most activists are leery of informants and adhere to "security
culture" (pdf) (in which information on illegal activities is discussed only
on a need-to-know basis). He defended her, saying "snitch jacketing" someone
prematurely is unfair and counterproductive.

Young continued on his speaking tour but returned to Utah shortly after two
fur farms-one in South Jordan in August 2008, another in Kaysville a month
later-had been sabotaged by activists, who released thousands of mink. The
Animal Liberation Front, a nom de guerre frequently adopted by activists who
anonymously take credit for illegal actions against animal enterprises, took
credit for the incidents. ALF is listed as a domestic terrorism group by the
FBI.

When Young and Bobbitt met again, she invited him to Moab for the weekend.

The trip got weird before they even got to Price. Young and Bobbitt were
stuck in a car together for hours, and she asked several questions about the
recent mink releases, Young says, questions which hung in the air like
flatulence.

The weekend ended worse than it started. They fought, Bobbitt left him, and
Young was deserted in downtown Moab, where he knew no one and had no
transportation.

Why is Bobbitt suspected of being an informant, or a confidential human
source (CHS), as the FBI calls them? An FBI reporting document (pdf)
describes the trip this way:

"CHS reported that Peter Young arrived in Utah about two weeks ago. Å CHS
traveled with Young to Moab, Utah, on Thursday, September 25, 2008. CHS
returned to Salt Lake City on Sunday without Young and hasn't talked to him
since."

When City Weekly contacted Bobbitt, she denied being an informant. The
Facebook conversation she had with City Weekly went silent after she was
asked about the seemingly incriminating FBI document, which was provided by
the government to defense attorneys for William "BJ" Viehl, 23, and Alex
Hall, 21, two men who pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to releasing the
mink at the South Jordan ranch in August 2008. Other documents suggest
Bobbitt may have had repeated contacts with the FBI that summer about other
activists.

Of the trip to Moab, Bobbitt wrote: "I am not an FBI informant and yes this
is starting to have an unfortunate effect on my life. ... I briefly dated
Peter nearly two years ago and haven't talked to him since. It ended with me
leaving him a long way from home, I know I pissed him off, but he was
unstable, manipulative and honestly scared me. Å And as for the 'several
people' [activists who believe Bobbitt was an informant], I can only imagine
they are the snobby elitists with whom I actually tried to be friends with
in fighting for a similar cause. All I can guess is that they pegged the
girl that didn't fit in and who didn't buy into their rock star's
manipulative ego."

Beckham is disturbed by informants. He thinks it keeps people from
supporting animal rights and other social-justice movements. People think,
"if the government is monitoring it, there must be something wrong with it,"
Beckham said.

Bobbitt is not the first individual thought to be an FBI informant by animal
rights activists, so they're always on alert. In 2001, City Weekly
investigated Richard Stone, who activists complain acted more like a
provocateur than an informant as he sat in on meetings to arrange protests
against the 2002 Olympic Rodeo. "He was the type that was always [saying],
'When are we going to stop talking and go blow up something?' " says David
Berg, a Salt Lake City man involved in the pre-Olympic protest planning.
According to Berg, Stone even accompanied the activists to a meeting with
the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah organized to discuss protesters'
rights.

Busy Litigants

Though some complain about being treated like terrorists, there are some
stark contrasts between them and suspected terrorist jihadis. Detainees at
Guantanamo Bay, for example, have been detained for nearly a decade without
being charged with a crime. The closest local situation with any
similarity-remote though it may be-is that of Jordan Halliday, 22, principle
organizer of a local Animal Defense League chapter, who spent four months in
civil detention for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury about
the local mink releases. Halliday says that he endorses mink releases and
believes he's being targeted for his speech. "[Federal prosecutors] are
trying to view me on the same terms as any ALF member because I'm vocally
supportive of it," he said. He was freed at the expiration of the grand jury
but soon after was charged criminally with contempt, which could send him
back to prison for years.

Often, the activists are in court as litigants, not defendants, and have
successfully argued multiple times that their rights have been violated.

The most recent example involved a protest at a mink farm in Morgan County.
Members of the Salt Lake Animal Advocacy Movement argued in a federal
lawsuit that Morgan County and the Utah Department of Public Safety violated
their rights to protest near a mink farm in November 2008. In February, the
case was settled, which netted civil rights attorney Brian Barnard nearly
$40,000 in legal fees from the state and county.

The criminal penalties they suffer have also been rather modest, compared to
other convicted terrorists or even to drug convicts, despite complaints that
the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2005 lumps them together with other
terrorists. Viehl, for example, was sentenced to two years in prison in
February but expects to be released from prison in just five months, he
wrote to City Weekly in a letter. He was given credit for time served
pretrial.

In 1997, the most destructive act of eco-terrorism in Utah history was
committed against the Fur Breeders Agriculture Co-op in Sandy, a
farmer-owned co-op that provides livestock food, when an incendiary device
started a fire that caused about $1 million in damage. Brothers Douglas
Joshua Ellerman, then 21, and Clinton Colby Ellerman, then 22, later pleaded
guilty to explosives charges and served seven years and five years each in
prison, while a federal jury acquitted three others charged in the incident.
None are currently active in local animal rights groups.

Recently, five activists were acquitted after being charged with violating
Salt Lake City's targeted-residential picketing ordinance, passed in July
2007, to manage animal rights protests at the homes of University of Utah
researchers who use animals in their experiments [see "Residential Picketing
Case Ends in Acquittals," May 6, City Weekly]. At least six residential
demonstrations were held after the ordinance passed without arrests, says
acquitted picketer Thomas Risk, but at the seventh demonstration, 16
picketers were cited. Others were convicted, four of whom are appealing.

But another case local activists have no direct relationship to has them
worried. The so-called SHAC-7 case, upheld by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of
Appeals in December, charged six activists and their organization-Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty-with animal-enterprise terrorism and stalking. The
group coordinated protests at the homes of officials from Huntingdon Life
Sciences, an animal-testing agency based in New Jersey.

No one was charged with actually vandalizing property, issuing violent
threats or trespassing, though prosecutors presented unproven evidence of
those crimes and others. The SHAC-7 were nevertheless convicted of
encouraging and supporting illegal activities, in part, by posting addresses
on its Website and cheering on illegal acts that they say were committed
exclusively by others. The Center for Constitutional Rights has asked for an
en banc review of the 3rd Circuit panel's decision, stating Americans have
long been allowed to condone illegal behavior. CCR argues that what the
SHAC-7 did with their Website was "menacing public speech," which has been
protected by the courts in the past, not a "true threat," which is not
protected.

The case deeply concerns Young. He's the closest thing to a SHAC-like entity
in Utah. Since his release from prison, he's compiled The Blueprint, a
national directory of hundreds of mink farms across the country and
distributes it on his Website. Previous to Hall and Viehl being arrested, he
offered a $2,500 defense fund to anyone arrested in connection with the mink
release. He repeats ALF communiques posted on other Websites. He publicly
endorses illegal actions like mink releases.

Could he be investigated for supporting illegal activities based on those
facts alone? Industry spokeswoman Teresa Platt is curious about that very
question. As the executive director of Fur Commission USA, she knows Young
by name, as well as Viehl, Hall and others. Indeed, she thinks the
"terrorist" label is appropriate for them and says ranchers who use animals
are a persecuted minority. "They're just ordinary, hard-working people
trying to figure out how to deal with these crimes of special-interest
domestic terrorism," she says. She says the roughly 40-year history of
illegal animal-rights actions has contained many violent threats and some
actual violence against ranchers and animal researchers, and thus, many
animal rights actions now carry an implicit threat and encouragement of
violence. "If you read some of [Young's] statements, they're borderline
incitement, right? He does offer people money should they get caught
breaking the law. Is that incitement? Å He's probably had legal advice on
what he can and can not say, but he is close."

The FBI won't say how close he is, but it seems the FBI already associates
Young with at least one of the 150 eco-terrorism investigations the FBI
acknowledges are ongoing.

The Feds

In March, Young moved to Salt Lake City, where most of his eight roommates
are animal-rights activists, vegan and Straight Edge. The entire household
was served a search warrant by the FBI on March 15 that authorized the
agents to seize any materials that may contain information about Young's
travels, associates, or communications that may be connected to "animal
enterprise terrorism." Cell phones, iPods, pictures and computers were
taken, not just from Young, but from some of his roommates.

The warrant was issued out of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern
District of Iowa where Scott DeMuth, 22, of Minneapolis, is on trial,
accused of vandalizing a University of Iowa animal research laboratory in
2004. Young says he doesn't even know DeMuth, nor did he have anything to do
with the Iowa incident, but he blogged critically of the prosecution on
multiple occasions, both before and after the raid. He believes federal law
enforcement is trying not just to hassle and make people distrust him, but
to do that to the entire household of activists. Young's roommate, Matt
Bruce, and others in the house believe the FBI purposefully waited for Young
to move in-only four days prior to the raid-in order to instill fear and
gather possessions from all of them. "It's definitely been an activist house
for years," Bruce said.

Many of the activists want to utilize all legal means in pursuit of their
goals, and they want clear direction from law enforcement on what, for
example, prompted the FBI to sic an informant on them. How can they avoid
being investigated in the future but still fully flex their constitutional
rights? Is that even possible?

On the municipal level, they have on multiple occasions asked Salt Lake City
officials for clear guidance on the residential targeted picketing ordinance
and have gotten nothing-no advice and no guidance. Salt Lake City Prosecutor
Sim Gill told City Weekly, "My job is not to give legal advice."

Especially in the face of the SHAC-7 case and what it represents to them,
the activists complain, that's not good enough.

Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kenneth Porter, of the FBI field office in
Salt Lake City, compares that sentiment to "children asking their parents
how far they can go without being spanked." He has parentlike advice as
well: "Don't push the envelope."

Local FBI officials say the line between free speech and illegal support of
others' crimes is determined on a case-by-case basis, so they can't provide
a detailed guide on how to approach the line of legality without crossing
it. FBI Chief Division Legal Counsel Trent Pedersen said that if activists
are spotted in the middle of the night near a mink farm-as Viehl and Hall
once were-they might be investigated for genuine concerns that they are
planning to commit a crime-which is itself a crime under federal law. But
what if the activists are in a researcher's neighborhood late at night
holding candles, which local activists have done during vigils? Does that
justify a full-blown terrorism investigation involving informants, search
warrants and all? The FBI won't say.

The FBI also declined to discuss the local mink releases from 2008, because
even though both Hall and Viehl have pleaded guilty, Hall has yet to be
sentenced, and the bureau rarely comments on active cases. Likewise, the FBI
wouldn't comment on FBI informants past or present the search warrant at
Young's home or whether Beckham is listed on a terrorist watch list.

Pedersen says no group is targeted because of its political beliefs and says
the bureau does not intimidate political groups with investigation tools
like search warrants. "That happened in the '70s Å but the Attorney
General's guidance on that is very clear, we're not authorized to do that."
If a political group is to be investigated for suspected criminal activity
of its members, he said, "the First Amendment is our guide" and extra
precautions are taken to ensure the investigation won't violate anyone's
constitutional rights.

Which may not be an easy task. Like Young, Viehl and Hall started as
above-ground activists and hung around people from local animal-rights
activist groups. That doesn't mean anyone else in those groups encouraged
Viehl and Hall to free mink or even knew they planned to do so, but it could
explain-and, for some, justify-the use of informants and other investigation
techniques that intimidate, scare and aggravate law-abiding activists even
as they help determine the identities of guilty vandals.

Beckham, for one, worries government obstruction of legal actions is part of
the inspiration for illegal actions like ecoterrorism. He quotes John F.
Kennedy, who said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make
violent revolution inevitable."

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