Time to Kick Out the Corporate Bastards

www.counterpunch.org

June 29, 2007

Toward a New Environmental Movement

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK

The environmental movement is on life support. Some would say it is already dead. Even though climate change and Al Gore are fast becoming the conversation du jour around the American dinner table, it also happens to be the rallying cry for do-gooder conservationists and corporations alike.

Call it the eco-economy. Virtually all major corporations now claim they are going "green". Toyota dealerships cannot keep the hybrid Prius in stock. Apple, after heavy lobbying from Greenpeace and others, declares they are going to make their computers environmentally friendly. Genetically modified corn, which produces ethanol fuel, is being hawked by Monsanto as an alternative to petroleum based gasoline. Ethanol advocates are calling their program "Fuels for Profit", while they sip McDonald's organic coffee. The environmental movement has been corporatized.

Big green groups are not helping the situation. Their hands are tied by both the large foundations that pay their rent and the Democratic Party to which they are attached at the hip. They long ago gave up on challenging the system. Most groups today are little more than direct mailing outfits who have embraced a sordid neoliberal approach to saving the natural world. The true causes of planetary destruction are never mentioned. Industrial capitalism is not the problem, individuals are. Not the government's inability to enforce its weak regulations. Not big oil companies, or coal fired plants. These neoliberal groups argue ordinary people are to blame for the impending environmental catastrophe, not those who profit from the Earth's destruction.

Meanwhile, on the ground, grassroots environmentalists engaging in arson as a response to unfettered sprawl and our car addicted culture are dubbed terrorists by the Federal government. Despite their extreme and counter-productive methods, the cases are quite informative. In our post-9/11 world young eco-radicals are viewed by the FBI and corporations as if they are as dangerous as bin Laden. All activists, no matter their cause, should take heed. It is the first step in cracking down on radical activism.

Torching SUVs in the middle of the night, unfortunately, will not bring about any massive radical change, except, perhaps, in our "anti-terrorism" legislation. There are militant direct actions that are prevailing, however, from Paul Watson's crusade to protect the wild creatures of the sea, to the environmentalists who stake out in trees for weeks at a time, to the grandmothers who chain themselves to logging trucks, despite the dangers.

Such actions, coupled with the organization of the working class, could help steer the environmental movement in the right direction. The philosophy of the great wilderness advocate Bob Marshall may prove to be quite prescient in the age of foundation driven conservationism. Marshall believed wilderness was for the regular folks. He believed wilderness was a "minority right" and argued that elitism inside the movement would be inherently corrupt. He's right. The burdens of a coporatized society are great, not only for our forests and rivers, but to the workers who are consistently exploited and poisoned for profit.

Marshall believed the radical trade unions and socialized forestry was one answer to countering the destruction of the wild places he loved so much. Now is the time to once again embrace such an environmental ethic. Wilderness, that living symbol of freedom, exists for all to enjoy. It is not ours to exploit. The salmon and grizzly bears deserve better.

Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. His newest book is End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate, co-written with Alexander Cockburn.

Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK Press in March 2008.

They can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net

Extreme Confusion: Why Do Civil Rights Watchdog Groups Care About the Earth Liberation Front?

This article was published in the Lughnasadh issue of the Earth First! Journal.

Earth First! Journal • PO Box 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702-3023
(520) 620-6900 • collectiveearthfirstjournal.org • www.earthfirstjournal.org

Extreme Confusion
Why Do Civil Rights Watchdog Groups Care About the Earth Liberation Front?
By Josh

---

artwork by Brian Bowes (brianbowesart.com)

When federal prosecutors recently likened the Operation Backfire defendants to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), lawyers for the defense were quick to register their shock and disgust. Daniel McGowan’s attorney, Amanda Lee, appropriately condemned the comparison as “appalling,” “historically inaccurate” and “an insult to African-Americans.”

Although many animal rights and environmental activists seem startled by the prosecution’s analogy, it is merely the most visible and recent example of a growing tendency to conflate the Earth and animal liberation movements with racist hate groups. What’s most disturbing is that among the parties responsible for this trend are two of the nation’s largest and most prominent civil rights watchdog groups: the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

How did these organizations—which were founded with the express purpose of combating anti-Semitism and white supremacy, and which have enjoyed the strong support of liberals and progressives for decades—develop such a keen interest in the Earth and animal liberation movements? The answer lies in a disappointing, disturbing and largely unknown history of neoconservative political agendas, adherence to a centrist/extremist model of society, unethical and illegal intelligence-gathering activities, cooperation with law enforcement, poor journalism and fear-mongering.

The Anti-Defamation League

Founded in 1913, the ADL’s original mission of combating anti-Semitic slander and libel quickly expanded to include civil rights advocacy. During the 1930s, the ADL initiated the practice for which it has become best known: the monitoring of racist and fascist groups through research and covert intelligence gathering.

Previously a somewhat liberal organization, the ADL began to undergo a marked shift toward a neoconservative political orientation during the 1970s, which resulted in new alliances with the religious and political right, as well as increased cooperation with law enforcement. Additionally, the ADL adopted centrist/extremist theory, a neoconservative social model that clumps together all dissidents from the political right and left—regardless of their diverse and often conflicting agendas—and dismisses them as psychologically unstable people deserving of marginalization and imprisonment.

The disturbing results of the ADL’s blind commitment to centrist/extremist theory came to light in 1993, when a police investigation revealed that the ADL had assembled (perhaps illegally) files on thousands of Arab-American, anti-war, anti-apartheid, civil rights, environmental, labor and social justice groups, including ACT UP, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Indian Movement, Food Not Bombs, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Greenpeace and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Although criminal charges were (miraculously) never filed, the scandal harmed the ADL’s reputation and drew attention to its increasingly reactionary and paranoid suspicion of progressives and radicals.

Given this troubling history, it is not at all surprising that the “Extremism in America” section of the ADL’s website currently lists “ecoterrorism” alongside racist and fascist groups like the KKK, the National Socialist Movement and the World Church of the Creator. Moreover, the ADL’s profiles of Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) are littered with unqualified references to “terrorism” and “extremism,” as well as assurances that these nonviolent movements will inevitably (and intentionally) begin taking lives.

The examples that the ADL offers to confirm this charge are problematic at best and deliberately misleading at worst. For instance, the ADL states that in 1999, “a British reporter who had infiltrated the ALF the year before with a hidden camera… was abducted by a number of men. They branded the letters ‘ALF’ on his back.”

What the ADL doesn’t say is that, according to the British magazine Green Anarchist, this reporter had made similar claims before, like when he said that he’d been kidnapped and shot in the leg by EF!ers. The idea that two separate movements employed new, unprecedented and never-repeated tactics of kidnapping and torture against the same person is simply too far-fetched to be true. Apparently, the police found Hall’s story unconvincing and promptly abandoned their criminal investigation. In treating this highly suspicious incident as proven fact, the ADL has failed to uphold its mission of assembling “accurate, detailed, unassailable information” and disseminating its findings through responsible and ethical journalism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center

The SPLC has followed a similar path from legitimate anti-racist work to the demonization of radical dissent. The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees and Joe Levin in 1971, as a small law firm focusing on civil rights cases. During the 1980s, the SPLC was catapulted into the national spotlight by a series of legal victories that bankrupted KKK and neo-Nazi groups. It quickly became one of the most visible and best funded anti-racist watchdog groups in the US.

Like the ADL, the SPLC has attracted significant controversy. In 2000, Harper’s Magazine published an article by Ken Silverstein—the magazine’s award-winning Washington Editor—alleging that the SPLC greatly overstates the threat posed by hate groups in order to raise more money.

“In 1986,” Silverstein wrote, “the SPLC’s entire legal staff quit in protest of Dees’ refusal to address issues—such as homelessness, voter registration and affirmative action—that they considered far more pertinent to poor minorities, if far less marketable to affluent benefactors, than fighting the KKK.”

Another similarity to the ADL is the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, which gathers information on a variety of “extremist” groups and publishes its findings in the quarterly Intelligence Report. While typically focused on white supremacists, the Report began covering the anti-globalization, animal rights and radical environmental movements following the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, Washington. Although the Report has generally avoided the “ecoterrorism” label in favor of “ecoradicalism,” it has undermined this sober restraint through a campaign of innuendo, conjecture, misinformation and fear-mongering that makes the ADL look amateurish by comparison.

In the Winter 2000 edition of the Report, for example, the SPLC concluded that the WTO protests signaled a coming alliance between right-wing and left-wing
opponents of globalization, including neo-Nazis, the Nation of Islam and Earth First!. This charge was repeated in the Summer 2001 Report, which flung numerous outlandish accusations at the ELF in the hope that one might stick. The SPLC charged that “the ELF’s use of underground violence strongly resembles ex-Klansman Louis Beam’s concept of ‘leaderless resistance,’” as if this shared organizational structure is proof of a common racist ideology. Never mind the fact that leaderless resistance was actually developed by a US intelligence officer as a strategy for combating communist “extremists.”

The same Report also stated that “the ELF recently set this year’s ‘International Day of Action’ for April 19—a mythic date for the anti-government right. It was that day in 1993, when about 80 Branch Davidian cult members died in a fire in Waco, Texas…. It is also the day that Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168.” The Report ignored that the ELF chose the date for its proximity to Earth Day (April 22, 2001), and it did not even consider the possibility that the relation to Waco and Oklahoma City was a coincidence. Maybe the ELF picked April 19 because it’s the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising—a significant event in the history of Jewish liberation and the fight against fascism. This explanation is as likely as any other.

Dozens of similar articles in the Intelligence Report make it clear that the SPLC advances conjecture as fact and coincidence as conspiracy, while excluding any information that might undermine its desired conclusion that the ELF is on the verge of allying itself with violent racists.

Disturbing Implications

If the ADL and the SPLC were small organizations on the margins of popular discourse and public policy, there would be little need for concern. However, both groups are large, particularly the ADL, which has 30 regional and three international offices. The ADL and the SPLC are also incredibly well-funded, with total annual revenues of more than $50 million and $30 million, respectively. Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, both organizations enjoy significant influence with politicians, law enforcement and the public at large.

In 2002, a US congressional questionnaire sent to former ELF spokesperson Craig Rosebraugh quoted the SPLC’s charges of a growing alliance between the ELF and the racist, fascist right. It then asked, “How do you feel about the ELF being compared to the KKK? Is this an accurate comparison? Do you feel a kinship of cause with ‘racists and fascists,’ as the SPLC contends?” (For the record, Rosebraugh brusquely answered, “A) That is ridiculous and insulting. I would expect the SPLC to have more intelligence than that. B) No. C) No.”) These and other absurd allegations are frequently adopted as fact by lawmakers and law enforcement, resulting in policies and investigations based on ADL and SPLC propaganda. It is entirely possible—even likely—that the federal prosecution’s recent comparison of the ELF to the KKK was inspired by these organizations’ reports.

Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that both the ADL and the SPLC have a history of conducting covert investigations using surveillance and infiltration tactics that law enforcement is generally barred from employing without a warrant. The organizations then provide this information to the police and the FBI, effectively circumventing constitutional rights of privacy and assembly. The result is that these private watchdog groups are increasingly complicit in classically fascist systems of government surveillance and control. Apparently, the ADL and the SPLC oppose fascism when it is promoted by private individuals but condone it when practiced by the state, which is precisely when it is most dangerous.

The general public is also susceptible to the assertions of the ADL and the SPLC. Media reports on the Earth and animal liberation movements frequently quote these esteemed watchdog groups, whose statements are uncritically presented as expert commentary. To a populace that knows very little about the radical environmental and animal rights movements, the fact that the ADL and the SPLC are being quoted would seem to imply that there is an anti-Semitic, racist or fascist component to these movements.

By advancing this kind of innuendo, the ADL and the SPLC cheapen oppression and transform it into a kind of rhetorical capital that can be wielded for political gain. By painting the radical environmental and animal rights movements as a bunch of Nordic youths waiting to be Nazified, these organizations effectively marginalize and delegitimize the radical Jews and people of color who are actively working for the liberation of animals and the Earth. Perhaps more than anything, this shows how low the ADL and the SPLC have sunk.

Conclusions

Obviously, the ADL’s and the SPLC’s focus on the Earth and animal liberation movements needs to be challenged, but this must be done carefully. Speaking and writing against the ADL and the SPLC is a delicate undertaking, especially since both organizations are generally perceived as unassailable warriors in the fight against oppression. We must always be clear that our problem is not with combating anti-Semitism, racism and fascism, but with doing so in a manipulative and unethical fashion in order to advance a repressive, neoconservative agenda.

Additionally, we must be careful not to accidentally align ourselves with white supremacists. When researching the dark side of these organizations, pay close attention to what your sources are. Many websites “exposing” the ADL and the SPLC are operated by KKK and neo-Nazi groups. If your source refers to “the Jew Morris Dees” or cites the ADL as part of the “worldwide Jewish conspiracy,” you should look elsewhere for
information.

As a final word of caution, it is my strong belief that direct action must be avoided. Home demonstrations and property damage will not work against the ADL or the SPLC. These organizations’ employees have endured death threats and physical violence from neo-Nazis and the KKK. They won’t be swayed by animal rights and environmental activists. Besides, this kind of approach would prove suicidal from both a law enforcement and public relations perspective. If action is to be taken, it should be restricted to peaceful demonstrations at relevant public events.

Effective opposition to unethical practices of the ADL and the SPLC must necessarily focus on the general public. Both organizations depend upon direct mail fundraising campaigns that tend to target liberals and progressives, who are largely unaware of these organizations’ dirty dealings. Mainstream animal rights and environmental activists, as well as sympathetic liberals and progressives, are likely to respond positively to a reasonable critique of these organizations.

Finally, Jewish animal rights and environmental activists—like myself—who are deeply disturbed by the ADL’s activities should discuss this with family, friends and members of our community. The involvement of a vocal contingent of anti-racist organizers, Jewish activists and activist people of color would go a long way toward legitimizing a challenge of the ADL and the SPLC, and it would help assure that these efforts retain the nuanced and cautious tone that they will require to be successful. Ultimately, exposing the reactionary and repressive nature of the ADL and the SPLC is not just about defending the Earth and animal liberation movements. It is about creating legitimate methods of challenging institutionalized oppression wherever it appears.

Josh is really hoping that someone out there knows how to make a good vegan matzoh brei.

Eric McDavid Update - Fundraising, Website Updated, and More

From: sacprisonersupport@riseup.net

Dear friends and supporters,

Thanks to everyone who took advantage of the matching
funds!  We have already reached the $600 mark, which
means that matching funds are no longer available.
However, please do not let that keep you from donating!
We still have quite a way to go before we reach our goal
of $15,000, which is the minimum we need to cover Eric's
current remaining legal expenses.

We would also like to remind everyone to keep checking the website for
updates and info about Eric's case.  We recently added some new items to
the "Background" section on the site - a radio interview with Mark, Eric's
lawyer, as well as a link to a story that ran last year in a local
Sacramento paper (which has some really good information).  Most
importantly, we added a poem that Eric recently wrote in the "Updates"
section.  Make sure you check it out.

And please remember that these next few months will be particularly
difficult for Eric as his trial date approaches.  You all play an
important role in Eric's struggle as his connection with the outside
world.  Please keep him in your thoughts - send letters, pictures, poetry.
Send anything to remind him that people out here are thinking about him
and supporting him.  It makes a huge difference to him and helps keep him
sane in an insane situation.

Thanks again for your continued support.
Yours,
SPS


P.S.
For any of you New Yorkers out there, Christian Parenti will be speaking
at a fundraiser for Eric on July 5.  Please check the website soon for
> more details!

Daniel McGowan's motion denied. He goes to prison on July 2nd

Family + Friends of Daniel McG friendsofdanielmcg@yahoo.com

June 27, 2007

Bad news...

Daniel's motion to stay out on bond until the Bureau of Prison designates him to a permanent facility was denied today by Judge Aiken. He will be self-reporting to federal prison Monday, July 2nd. We hope he will be able to report to the Metropolitan Detention Complex (MDC) in Brooklyn. In the government's brief opposing Daniel's motion, the prosecutors cited Daniel's interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now a few days after he was sentenced as well as the fact that the website we run for him, www.supportdaniel.org, is still operational as arguments for why he should self report on July 2nd.

For clarity's sake, www.supportdaniel.org will be "operational" for the full term of Daniel's imprisonment and beyond. It is a support site set up by the McGowan family and his close friends and run by myself, Daniel's wife. We see nothing wrong in our advocacy for Daniel and believe he has a constituional right to free speech.

As soon as we know Daniel's address, we will send it out to the support Daniel announcement list and it will be posted on supportdaniel.org

This has been a truly horrendous time for all of us and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the amazing support and solidarity we have recieved from you in the past 19 months.

Jenny Synan, Daniel's wife
Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan


Notice of Electronic Filing

The following transaction was entered on 6/27/2007 at 4:30 PM PDT and filed on 6/27/2007

Case Name:	USA v. McGowan
Case Number:	6:06-cr-60124
Filer:
Document Number:	28(No document attached)

Docket Text:
ORDER: Denying Defendant's Motion to Amend Judgment [26] as to Daniel Gerard McGowan. Counsel is free to draft language for a letter from the court recommending that defendant be directed to surrender at the MDC in Brooklyn, NY. by Judge Ann L. Aiken

Daniel McGowan is an environmental and social justice activist. He was charged in federal court on many counts of arson, property destruction and conspiracy, all relating to two incidents in Oregon in 2001. Until recently, Daniel was offered two choices by the government: cooperate by informing on other people, or go to trial and face life in prison. His only real option was to plead not guilty until he could reach a resolution of the case that permitted him to honor his principles. As a result of months of litigation and negotiation, Daniel was able to admit to his role in these two incidents, while not implicating or identifying any other people who might have been involved. Judge Aiken sentenced Daniel to 7 years in prison on June 4, 2007.

Complete text of B.C. Court decision re. John Graham extradition

http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/ca/07/03/2007bcca0345.htm

COURT OF APPEAL FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA

Citation:
United States of America v. Graham,

2007 BCCA 345

Date: 20070626

Docket: CA032715

Between:
The Attorney General of Canada on behalf of
The United States of America

Respondent

(Applicant/Requesting State)

And
John Graham
also known as John Boy Patton

Appellant

(Respondent/Person Sought)

Before:
The Honourable Mr. Justice Donald
The Honourable Mr. Justice Hall
The Honourable Madam Justice Levine

T. E. La Liberté, Q.C., G. P. DelBigio and L. M. Sturgess

Counsel for the Appellant

D. J. Strachan and J. G. Johnston

Counsel for the Respondent

Place and Date of Hearing:

Vancouver, British Columbia
17 May 2007

Place and Date of Judgment:

Vancouver, British Columbia
26 June 2007

Written Reasons by:
The Honourable Mr. Justice Donald
Concurring Reasons by:
The Honourable Mr. Justice Hall (P. 18, para. 40)
Concurring Reasons by:
The Honourable Madam Justice Levine (P. 19, para. 43)
Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Mr. Justice Donald:

[1] John Graham was committed for extradition to the United States of America, to be tried for the murder of Anna Mae Aquash in South Dakota. After the committal order was made, 2005 BCSC 559, the Supreme Court of Canada concurrently released decisions in United States of America v. Ferras; United States of America v. Latty, [2006] 2 S.C.R. 77, 2006 SCC 33, and United Mexican States v. Ortega; United States of America v. Fiessel, [2006] 2 S.C.R. 120, 2006 SCC 34.

[2] Graham requests a new committal hearing on the ground that, deprived of the benefit of Ferras, the extradition judge did not assess the sufficiency of the prosecution case in the manner and to the extent mandated by Ferras, and therefore he is entitled to a reassessment according to the new approach.

[3] Having scrutinized the evidence according to my understanding of what Ferras decided, I am satisfied that it is sufficient for committal and accordingly I would dismiss the appeal.

[4] As the extradition judge noted, there were deficiencies in the "Record of the Case", but on the crucial issue of whether the person known as John Graham, also known as John Boy Patton, was the same person who committed the murder, the judge found that the evidence of John Trudell established identification. With respect, I think that finding was correct and it is not affected by the application of Ferras.

[5] The other elements of the offence are uncontroversial. Anna Mae Aquash was executed by a single gunshot to the back of her head on orders from the American Indian Movement because they believed her to be an informant for the F.B.I. This occurred in late 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. As a planned and deliberate killing, it constitutes murder in Canadian law.

[6] Two persons were indicted for first degree murder, the appellant and Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud. Looking Cloud was tried separately before a Federal Court judge and jury in South Dakota and convicted in 2004. His appeal was dismissed on 19 August 2005 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit: 419 F.3d 781, 2005 U.S. App. LEXUS 17578. The evidence summarized in the appeal decision at 784-785 mirrors the narrative which emerges from the Record of the Case and provides a useful overview:

Aquash's badly decomposed body was discovered in 1976, and police began to suspect foul play after identifying her as having been involved with the American Indian Movement. Due to lack of cooperation, the investigation made little headway until agents began talking to Looking Cloud in the mid-90s. Looking Cloud and almost every other witness in the case were members of, and were actively involved in, the American Indian Movement at the time of Aquash's death. The government's theory at trial was that Looking Cloud and other American Indian Movement members killed Aquash, who was also a member, because they suspected she was a federal informant, working with the government.

When the rumor began to spread around the American Indian Movement that Aquash was an informant, she fled Pierre to Denver. A few weeks later, Looking Cloud, Theda Clark and John Graham (also called John Boy Patton) received orders from the American Indian Movement to bring Aquash back to South Dakota. They tied her up and drove her to Rapid City to question her about being an informant. Aquash was constantly guarded and her requests to be let free were refused. At some point, Aquash realized that she was about to be killed. Looking Cloud, Clark, and Graham met with other American Indian Movement members in Rapid City and eventually the three drove Aquash to an area near Wanblee. Aquash begged to go free, prayed, and cried. Looking Cloud and Graham marched Aquash up a hill and Graham shot her at the top of a cliff. Her body was either thrown or it tumbled to the bottom of that cliff.

[Footnotes omitted.]

[7] Referring to the evidence of Trudell, considered by the extradition judge to be the key witness, the Appeals Court said, at 790:

Trudell testified that Looking Cloud told him that when Graham and Clark returned to the car for the last time, Aquash cried and begged them not to kill her. They drove to an area near Wanblee and parked the car. Yellow Wood testified that Looking Cloud told him that Aquash continued to cry, pray, and beg for her life as they forced her out of the car and marched her up the hill to a cliff. Two Elk testified that Looking Cloud told him he handed a gun to Graham and nodded at him. Aquash knelt to the ground, possibly to pray, and Graham held the gun to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. Afterwards, the three buried the gun under a bridge nearby.

[8] The appellant's position on appeal is encapsulated in the concluding paragraph of its factum, which reads:

103. The fact that almost 30 years had passed since the investigation of Ms. Aquash’s murder began gives rise to particular concerns of availability and reliability that an extradition judge must assess and consider. The ROC [Record of the Case] is silent with respect to whether the summarized evidence is based upon a recent interview, grand jury testimony and, if so, date and subject of the grand jury, or from a statement given 30 years ago. The extradition judge repeatedly expressed concern about this feature of the ROC (T. vol. IV, p.680, ll.24-37; p. 681, ll. 20-33; p. 686, ll. 3-13, 36-39; Reasons for Judgment (on committal), paras. 22, 35-36 @ AB, pp. 220, 224), yet committed the Appellant for extradition in any event because she accepted the current jurisprudence bound her to do so. In the circumstances, the ROC was so bereft of detail as to the circumstances in which the evidence was collected from the anticipated witnesses that the extradition judge was deprived of the information necessary to properly exercise her discretion to evaluate the sufficiency of the Requesting State’s evidence, as required by Ferras. In the circumstances, there were live issues with respect to identification, reliability, availability, and the justice or rightness of a committal. The extradition judge did not have the benefit of the changes in the law and, as a result, no meaningful judicial assessment was conducted in respect of these issues. In the result, there must be a new extradition hearing.

[9] The Record of the Case attracted valid criticism. There are discrepancies between the height, weight and racial "identifiers" in two parts of the evidence. The requesting state allowed (unwittingly, as the judge found) one witness's evidence to go forward as available testimony after he passed away. His evidence was withdrawn when that came to light. The appellant argues that assertions in the Record of the Case of Looking Cloud and another witness, Frank Dillon, to whom it is alleged the appellant admitted his role in the killing, were demonstrated to be unreliable. Looking Cloud's lawyer deposed in an affidavit that Looking Cloud has no intention of testifying in a trial against the appellant. In testimony before a Grand Jury, Frank Dillon resiled from a police statement that the appellant told him he "off'ed" the deceased. As the judge observed in her reasons at paragraph 22, the source of some of the evidence was not identified and she noted that no witness identifies the appellant as the same person in a series of photos, some taken in the 1970's and others more recently.

[10] Nevertheless, it was necessary for the judge to determine whether there was a sufficient case aside from these deficiencies.

[11] Her analysis of what she considered to be the dispositive evidence in the case was as follows:

[71] John Trudell’s evidence is the most significant evidence found in the Record of the Case. Without his evidence there would not be sufficient evidence to commit Mr. Graham for extradition.

[72] I set out Mr. Trudell’s evidence from the Record of the Case in its entirety:

John Trudell was an AIM [American Indian Movement] member at the time of this incident. He is expected to testify that Arlo Looking Cloud told him that he, GRAHAM, and Theda Clarke took Aquash from Troy Lynn Irving’s house in Denver. Looking Cloud stated to Trudell that Aquash was then taken to a house by the old Indian hospital in Rosebud. He further stated that Theda and John Boy then went to the house for a short time. Looking Cloud stated that afterwards they drove to the location where Aquash was shot. He stated to Trudell that he and John Boy marched Aquash up to a ravine and that she was crying and praying for her kids and begging them not to do this. Looking Cloud told Trudell that they made Aquash kneel down in front of them and that John Boy shot her in the back of the head. He is able to identify Graham in Exhibits 3 and 4, [Photograph 3 and 4], Exhibit 3 being a photograph taken in 1983 and Exhibit 4 being a photograph taken on or about the time of Graham’s arrest in Canada in the instant case in December, 2003.

[73] Given that hearsay evidence is admissible, Mr. Trudell’s evidence alone is sufficient to establish identification.

[74] When Mr. Trudell’s evidence is considered along with that of Angela Janis, Troy Lynn Irving and George Palfy, there is clearly sufficient evidence identifying John Boy Patton as John Graham, who is before me, and identifying him as the person who shot Anna Mae Aquash.

[75] Ms. Janis was at Troy Lynn Irving’s house when John Boy Patton took Ms. Aquash away and she has identified the earlier Photographs. Troy Lynn Irving was present for the conversation that Mr. Trudell reiterated from Arlo Looking Cloud.

[76] Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud’s evidence is also summarized in the record of the case, and I will repeat it below:

Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud is a co-defendant and his case will be tried separately from GRAHAM. He is expected to testify that in late November or early December of 1975 Aquash, was taken from Troy Lynn Irving’s residence in Denver, Colorado, in a Ford Pinto station wagon by John GRAHAM a.k.a. John Boy PATTON, Theda Clarke a.k.a. Theda Nelson, and himself, and that Aquash was placed in the back of the station wagon. He is further expected to testify that they drove all night from Denver, Colorado, to Rapid City, South Dakota, and that Aquash was kept at a house in Rapid City until the next evening when she was placed back in the vehicle and the same individuals then drove down to Pine Ridge. He recalled going to a house and staying outside with Aquash while Clarke and GRAHAM went inside the house. After that, when they were heading toward Kadoka, South Dakota, (just north of Wanblee, South Dakota), they stopped by the side of the road. Looking Cloud recalled that Aquash was praying and then was shot in the back of her head by GRAHAM. The gun used was a small silver .32 revolver. Looking Cloud then took the gun from GRAHAM and fired the rest of the rounds in it into the ground.

[77] Mr. Looking Cloud’s evidence is also sufficient to commit Mr. Graham for extradition when considered with Mr. Trudell’s and Ms. Janis’ evidence. However, even without Mr. Looking Cloud’s evidence, there is sufficient evidence of identification to commit Mr. Graham for extradition.

[78] Therefore, I conclude that there is sufficient evidence in the Record of the Case to commit John Graham for extradition to the United States to face the charge of murdering Anna Mae Aquash.

[12] As mentioned, the appellant filed an affidavit from Looking Cloud's lawyer saying that Looking Cloud would not testify. The judge held, correctly in my view, that that did not necessarily make his evidence unavailable:

[51] The only direct evidence of the killing is that of Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud. Mr. Looking Cloud was also charged with the murder of Anna Mae Aquash and, as noted, was convicted of that murder in 2004. As noted above, the defence in this case has tendered the affidavit of Terry Gilbert, Mr. Looking Cloud’s lawyer, which states that Mr. Looking Cloud will not testify in any proceeding against Mr. Graham.

[52] Without an examination of foreign law, which I am not encouraged to undertake in extradition proceedings, I cannot say that Mr. Looking Cloud’s evidence is not available for trial. I appreciate that the Record of the Case says he is expected to testify. However, I do not see how his refusal to testify would necessarily affect whether his testimony is available. Even if Mr. Looking Cloud refused to testify, it does not mean that his evidence is not available. Certainly, under Canadian law there is an argument that the evidence would be admissible even without his testimony. However, until he actually is called upon to testify, it cannot be said, with certainty, that he will not.

[13] Trudell's evidence is hearsay originating with Looking Cloud. Hearsay is admissible under the Extradition Act, S.C. 1999, c. 18. In Ferras, Chief Justice McLachlin, writing for the court, said:

[28] The Act provides that evidence is admissible if it is either properly certified pursuant to s. 33(3) in the case of proceedings on the record of the case or in accordance with the treaty in proceedings under the treaty method of submitting evidence. The evidence may be hearsay, and under the treaties at issue in the Ortega appeals, the evidence need not include certification that it is available for trial.

[Emphasis added.]

[14] While it is true that the judge did not have the benefit of Ferras when she decided this case, she did cast a critical eye over the evidence under the guidance of United States of America v. Yang (2001), 203 D.L.R. (4th) 337, 56 O.R. (3d) 52 (C.A.), and R. v. Arcuri, [2001] 2 S.C.R. 828, 2001 SCC 54, which to some extent anticipated Ferras. See, for instance, Yang at para. 63, quoted at paragraph 16 of the judge's reasons:

If the material presented in the record of the case is so bereft of detail, such as the witness' means of knowledge, that the judge cannot determine its sufficiency, the judge will have to discharge the person sought for prosecution.

and the passage from Arcuri at para. 29, quoted at paragraph 21 of the judge's reasons (dealing with circumstantial evidence at a preliminary inquiry):

However, where the Crown's evidence consists of, or includes, circumstantial evidence, the judge must engage in a limited weighing of the whole of the evidence (i.e. including any defence evidence) to determine whether a reasonable jury properly instructed could return a verdict of guilty.

[15] I propose to deal with two questions:

(1) What did Ferras decide?

(2) Assuming that this Court can undertake the analysis, does the case for extradition satisfy the Ferras test?
1. What Did Ferras Decide?

[16] The appellant seeks a new committal hearing on the basis that Ferras so altered the law, in the scope of the inquiry and the range of evidence and arguments now available to the person requested, that he should be able to take advantage of the new approach as a matter of fundamental justice.

[17] The respondent, citing decisions from the Ontario Court of Appeal: United States of America v. Thomlison, 216 C.C.C. (3d) 97, 2007 ONCA 42; and United States of America v. Anderson, 219 O.A.C. 369, 2007 ONCA 84, submits that Ferras took only an incremental step beyond the landmark case of United States of America v. Shephard (1976), [1977] 2 S.C.R. 1067, 30 C.C.C. (2d) 424, and that, save in one respect – the ability of the extradition judge to disregard "manifestly unreliable" evidence – Shephard remains the controlling authority.

[18] The question "What did Ferras decide?" is important to this case and to extradition practice in this jurisdiction as it has arisen in several other cases presently before the Court. At least one judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia has taken the limited view expressed in the Ontario cases just mentioned: United States of America v. Graziani, 2007 BCSC 178.

[19] With respect, I do not think the respondent's interpretation of Ferras fully embraces the extent of the change envisioned in that case. My chief criticism is in the concentration on the phrase "manifestly unreliable", to the exclusion of other powerful and expressive language in Ferras.

[20] In Ferras, the Supreme Court of Canada addressed the problem created by two developments since Shephard was decided: the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, particularly s. 7, and the amendments to the Extradition Act, S.C. 1999, c. 18, that brought in the "record of the case" modality which was intended to ease the burden on the requesting state and which admitted evidence not admissible under Canadian law: s. 32(1)(a) and (b).

[21] The court decided that the Shephard approach did not bring a close enough scrutiny to the case for extradition, that it led to a rubber stamp process, and that in order for the Act to conform to the fundamental justice requirements of s. 7, the law had to move on from Shephard. Those requirements meant that the extradition judge must act only on reliable and available evidence and assess the evidence as a whole to determine the sufficiency of the case for committal. It is in relation to sufficiency that the controversy arises over the meaning of Ferras.

[22] As I understand the respondent's argument and the cases on which it relies, the extradition judge can now reject manifestly unreliable or unavailable evidence (which Shephard did not allow), but if there remains reliable and available evidence on each element of the offence in question, then the judge must commit on the presumption of sufficiency arising from the certification by the requesting state. That is, in my respectful opinion, a reductionist interpretation of Ferras and does not give full scope to the reasoning in that case.

[23] As I will soon develop, the Ferras approach demands more; it demands a judicial appraisal of the case to ensure that there is a "plausible case" and that the subject is not committed on a case where "it would be dangerous or unsafe to convict, [and] the case should not go to a jury" (para. 54).

[24] I return to my criticism of the undue concentration on the phrase "manifestly unreliable". The phrase came up in Ferras during the discussion of the majority reasons of Ritchie J. in Shephard. The context, at para. 39 of Ferras, is this:

On current jurisprudence, both inquiries appear to leave little or no room for the judge to evaluate the evidence from the foreign state and decline to extradite if the judge finds it unreliable or otherwise inadequate. This was the view taken by the majority of this Court in Shephard. At issue was whether an extradition judge could refuse to order committal for extradition where there was some evidence on every element of the offence, but the judge was nevertheless of the view that the evidence was so weak that reasonable grounds for extradition had not been made out and that it would be dangerous to commit for extradition. Ritchie J., for a five to four majority, stated that whether evidence is "manifestly unreliable" is not the test for removing evidence from a jury (p. 1087). Rejecting the test of the extradition judge and the dissenting minority, the majority in Shephard held that an extradition judge has no discretion to reject evidence on the ground that it is so dubious as to be dangerous and must commit if there is any evidence on all the necessary elements of the offence. Shephard was decided before the Charter. It has never been overruled or altered, except to permit a judge to engage in limited weighing of circumstantial evidence to ensure that inferences from the evidence are reasonably supportable to establish some evidence on all the required elements of the offence (see R. v. Arcuri, [2001] 2 S.C.R. 828, 2001 SCC 54).

[Emphasis added.]

[25] The phrase does not appear in the description of the new approach. Rejecting unreliable or unavailable evidence is part of the picture but not the whole picture. The more important aspect of Ferras is in the discretion not to commit on an insufficient case. The "manifestly unreliable" component is just one example of what could lead to a finding of insufficiency. I fear that the respondent's argument uses an example to swallow the larger rule.

[26] That there is more to Ferras than just rejecting "manifestly unreliable" evidence is apparent from the following passages suggesting reliability is part, not the whole, of the new approach:

[41] ... For a person sought to receive a fair extradition hearing, the extradition judge must be able to evaluate the evidence, including its reliability, to determine whether the evidence establishes a sufficient case to commit.

* * *

[43] As discussed above, admissible evidence alone cannot be sufficient to justify committal in the extradition context. Admissibility is only one part of determining whether evidence exists upon which a reasonable jury, properly instructed, could return a verdict of guilty. Justifying a committal depends on a combination of admissibility, double criminality, basic fairness and constitutional guarantees that, together, inform an extradition judge about whether to order committal. Most fundamentally, it depends on a judicial process conducted by a judge who has the discretion to refuse to commit the subject for extradition on insufficient evidence.

[Emphasis added.]

[27] The focus is on sufficiency, where unreliability is offered as an illustration of what might lead to a discretionary refusal to commit:

[50] I conclude that s. 32(1)(a) and (b) and s. 33 of the 1999 Act do not violate the right of a person sought under s. 7 of the Charter, because the requirements for committal of s. 29(1), properly construed, grant the extradition judge discretion to refuse to extradite on insufficient evidence such as where the reliability of the evidence certified is successfully impeached or where there is no evidence, by certification or otherwise, that the evidence is available for trial.

[Emphasis added.]

[28] Contrary to what the respondent argues, a sufficient case is not made out by relevant and available evidence on each element of the offence. Sufficiency is presumed in the certification by the requesting state. However, this is the minimum requirement (Ferras at para. 38) to meet the test of double criminality. Ferras demands a judicial assessment beyond this:

[46] Section 29(1)'s direction to an extradition judge to determine whether there is admissible evidence that would "justify committal" requires a judge to assess whether admissible evidence shows the justice or rightness in committing a person for extradition. It is not enough for evidence to merely exist on each element of the crime. The evidence must be demonstrably able to be used by a reasonable, properly instructed jury to reach a verdict of guilty. If the evidence is incapable of demonstrating this sufficiency for committal, then it cannot "justify committal". The evidence need not convince an extradition judge that a person sought is guilty of the alleged crimes. That assessment remains for the trial court in the foreign state. However, it must establish a case that could go to trial in Canada. This may require the extradition judge to engage in limited weighing of the evidence to determine, not ultimate guilt, but sufficiency of evidence for committal to trial.

[Underlining added.]

[29] The assessment of sufficiency involves a holistic appraisal of the case:

[54] Challenging the justification for committal may involve adducing evidence or making arguments on whether the evidence could be believed by a reasonable jury. Where such evidence is adduced or such arguments are raised, an extradition judge may engage in a limited weighing of evidence to determine whether there is a plausible case. The ultimate assessment of reliability is still left for the trial where guilt and innocence are at issue. However, the extradition judge looks at the whole of the evidence presented at the extradition hearing and determines whether it discloses a case on which a jury could convict. If the evidence is so defective or appears so unreliable that the judge concludes it would be dangerous or unsafe to convict, then the case should not go to a jury and is therefore not sufficient to meet the test for committal.

[Emphasis added.]

[30] I find myself in respectful disagreement with the statement in Anderson where Doherty J.A. said for the Ontario Court of Appeal, at para. 28:

. U.S.A. v. Ferras, supra, does not envision weighing competing inferences that may arise from the evidence. It does not contemplate that the extradition judge will decide whether a witness is credible or his or her evidence is reliable. Nor does it call upon the extradition judge to evaluate the relative strength of the case put forward by the requesting state. There is no power to deny extradition in cases that appear to the extradition judge to be weak or unlikely to succeed at trial.

[Emphasis added.]

[31] My difficulty with that way of putting the limit of discretion is that there are degrees of weakness and extradition judges should not be put off their task of assessing for sufficiency by a dictum that mere weakness is not enough. I agree that it is not enough. It may be more helpful to speak in terms of the test for reviewing verdicts for unreasonableness on appeal or for directed verdicts. The language used in paragraph 54 of Ferras, "plausible case" and "dangerous or unsafe to convict", and in paragraph 46, "[t]he evidence must be demonstrably able to be used by a reasonable, properly instructed jury to reach a verdict of guilty" suggests the kind of analysis described in R. v. Biniaris, [2000] 1 S.C.R. 381 at paras. 36 and 40:

The test for an appellate court determining whether the verdict of a jury or the judgment of a trial judge is unreasonable or cannot be supported by the evidence has been unequivocally expressed in Yebes as follows:

[C]urial review is invited whenever a jury goes beyond a reasonable standard.... [T]he test is 'whether the verdict is one that a properly instructed jury acting judicially, could reasonably have rendered'.

(Yebes, [ [1987] 2 S.C.R. 168] at p. 185 (quoting Corbett v. The Queen, [1975] 2 S.C.R. 275, at p. 282, per Pigeon J.).)

That formulation of the test imports both an objective assessment and, to some extent, a subjective one. It requires the appeal court to determine what verdict a reasonable jury, properly instructed, could judicially have arrived at, and, in doing so, to review, analyse and, within the limits of appellate disadvantage, weigh the evidence.

* * *

When an appellate court arrives at that conclusion, it does not act as a "thirteenth juror", nor is it "usurping the function of the jury". In concluding that no properly instructed jury acting judicially could have convicted, the reviewing court inevitably is concluding that these particular jurors who convicted must not have been acting judicially. In that context, acting judicially means not only acting dispassionately, applying the law and adjudicating on the basis of the record and nothing else. It means, in addition, arriving at a conclusion that does not conflict with the bulk of judicial experience. This, in my view, is the assessment that must be made by the reviewing court. It requires not merely asking whether twelve properly instructed jurors, acting judicially, could reasonably have come to the same result, but doing so through the lens of judicial experience which serves as an additional protection against an unwarranted conviction.

[Emphasis added.]

[32] In summary, Ferras stands for the proposition that extradition judges now have the discretion to disregard evidence shown to be unreliable or unavailable and in respect of the evidence that remains, to determine by an assessment of the evidence, including a limited weighing of the evidence, whether it is sufficient for a properly instructed jury acting reasonably to reach a verdict of guilty in Canada.

[33] I have considered the reasons of Newbury J.A. in United States of America v. Lorenz; United States of America v. Narayan, 2007 BCCA 342, at paras. 31-41, on the proper reading of Ferras, and I am in respectful agreement with those reasons.
2. Does the Case for Extradition Satisfy the Ferras Test?

[34] It must first be decided whether in fairness or as a matter of practicality there must be a new hearing. The argument for a new hearing is that the judge was not aware of the discretion available to her and that there are now avenues of defence, such as the impeachment of evidence, and an expanded range of argument, opened up by Ferras that were not explored in the hearing below. I regard those opportunities in this case to be merely theoretical. If there was more that the appellant could have done to impeach the evidence in some effective way or if he left an argument unsaid, it was not brought to our attention.

[35] I prefer to follow the lead in Ferras where the court revised the rules and then went on to apply them.

[36] In my opinion, a properly instructed jury acting reasonably could convict on the evidence that the appellant brought the deceased from Denver to South Dakota and there carried out her execution with the assistance of Looking Cloud.

[37] On identification, I think the evidence that the appellant is the person sought was proved on the balance of probabilities by his acknowledgment to a police officer that he was the person U.S. authorities were looking for in the Aquash matter: see the judge's reasons at paragraph 41.

[38] As to the question whether the person known as John Graham is the same as John Boy Patton, Trudell's evidence is sufficient and it is supported by other witnesses connected with the American Indian Movement who knew him at the material time.
Disposition

[39] For the foregoing reasons, I would dismiss the appeal.

“The Honourable Mr. Justice Donald”

Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Mr. Justice Hall:

[40] I have had the privilege of reading in draft the reasons of my colleague, Donald J.A. I generally agree with his reasons and with his conclusion that the evidence in this case was sufficient to support the committal order made by Bennett J.

[41] I wish, however, to note that I would consider it an extremely rare situation when an extradition judge could properly enter upon a consideration of the credibility of proposed witnesses. Credibility is pre eminently a jury question to be left to be considered by the trier of fact. Unreliability of evidence could arise for instance from serious deficiencies in a body of circumstantial evidence or from the opportunity for a witness to know or observe factual matters. But the mere fact that a witness might be thought by an extradition judge to be of less than stellar credibility would not normally suffice as a ground to refuse a committal order. That sort of issue, in my opinion, is best left to be decided by a trial court.

[42] Subject to this caveat, I am in respectful agreement with the reasons of Donald J.A.

“The Honourable Mr. Justice Hall”

Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Madam Justice Levine:

[43] I have had the privilege of reading in draft form the reasons for judgment of both of my colleagues, Donald and Hall, JJ.A. I agree with them that this appeal should be dismissed, and with the reasons of both of my colleagues.

John Graham loses extradition appeal for 1975 Pine Ridge slaying

Former AIM activist charged in 1975 death of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash

By The Associated Press
June 26, 2007

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- A Yukon native has been taken into custody after a British Columbia court denied his appeal of an order that he be extradited to the United States to stand trial for a 1975 slaying in South Dakota.

The ruling against John Graham came Tuesday morning in Vancouver and his bail was immediately revoked, so he was taken to jail.

Graham had been under house arrest since he was charged in December 2003 with first-degree murder in the killing Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in late 1975. Her body was found Feb. 24, 1976. The Nova Scotia native had been shot in the head.

Aquash's murder came amid a series of bloody clashes in the mid-1970s between federal agents and members of the American Indian Movement. Aquash, a member of Mi'kmaq Tribe of Canada, was among Indian militants who occupied Wounded Knee, S.D., for 71 days in 1973.

Prosecutors have said AIM leaders ordered Aquash's killing because they suspected she was a government informant. AIM leaders have denied that assertion.

The other man charged with killing Aquash, Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud, received a mandatory life sentence in 2004 after a federal jury in Rapid City, S.D., convicted him of first-degree murder committed in the perpetration of a kidnapping. A federal appeals court upheld the conviction.

Graham has said he's innocent, but a Canadian judge who issued a written ruling Tuesday disagreed.

"In my opinion, a properly instructed jury acting reasonably, could convict on the evidence that the appellant brought the deceased from Denver to South Dakota and there carried out her execution with the assistance of Looking Cloud," the judge wrote.

Witnesses at Looking Cloud's trial testified that Graham shot Aquash, whose family exhumed her body in 2004 from an Oglala, S.D., grave and reburied it in Nova Scotia.

A Canadian judge ruled in 2005 that Graham should be extradited and the Canadian minister of justice affirmed that decision last year.

Make a Call, Fax and Email Today for Peter Gelderloos!!!

*PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD*

!!ACTION ALERT!!
Tuesday, June 26: Phone and Fax Blitz of Embassy of Spain
***Demand All Charges Against D.C. Area Activist Peter Gelderloos be Dropped Immediately***

Oppose Political Repression of the Squatter’s Movement in Spain

CALL, FAX, and EMAIL the Embassy of Spain on 6/26:
Demand All Charges be Dropped!
Telephone: (202) 452-0100
Fax: (202) 833-5670
Email: embespus@mail.mae.es

----

Peter Gelderloos Held in Spain Awaiting Trial on Trumped Up Charges:

On April 23rd, VA activist and author Peter Gelderloos was arrested by
Spanish police at a demonstration at La Rambla. Peter was acting as a
witness for the arrest of Javier Mazas, when he was detained by police
under suspicion of setting off a petardo - a device used to scatter flyers
into the air. Police accused Peter of being a "terrorist" and the two are
being charged with illegal demonstration and public disorder, the latter
carrying a prison sentence of between six and three years because it was
allegedly committed with explosives. On April 25th, Javier was released
pending trial, and Peter was given a 30,000 euro bail and sent to Modelo
prison. Local community activists raised the bail in only two days and
Peter was released. However, Peter must remain in Spain, checking in at
court every two weeks until his court date which could take up to two
years.

Peter’s lawyers believe that with even minimal pressure from activists in
the U.S. through political pressure and media attention that we can have a
very real effect in getting the charges dropped. Please take a few minutes
out of your day on June 26 to make a call, email and/or fax on Peter’s
behalf. The point of this action will be to let the Spanish Emabassy know
that Peter has a large base of support in the U.S. who will not sit silent
while the Government of Spain attempts to push these charges against
Peter.

Support is needed from U.S. based activists to pressure the Spanish
Embassy to let them know this injustice will not be tolerated.

Please spread the word and encourage others to call, email and fax!

----

Sample of what to say when you call:

I am calling regarding the case of Peter Gelderloos, a U.S. citizen who is
unjustly facing charges in Barcelona. I urge you to drop the charges
immediately so that Peter may return to his life in the United States. It
is appalling to see Peter's case as an example of Spain treats tourists,
and that Spain allows visitors to be treated this way. The details of this
case are being relayed to media outlets and numerous human rights
organizations in the US and if proper action is not taken - if charges are
not dropped and arresting officers go uninvestigated then further actions
to alert the media and public to this horrible situation will be taken.

Points to stress:

1) Drop the unjust charges against Peter Gelderloos and his co-defendants
now.
2) Allow Peter to return to the United States immediately.
3) If the Spanish Government does not remedy this situation immedidately,
public pressure will only increase.

----

Peter Gelderloos is an activist and author from Virginia. Whenever he is
allowed to be in the good ole US, he is active supporting prisoners and
participating in the movement for prison abolition. He works with groups
such as Copwatch, Anarchist Black Cross, Food Not Bombs, and the local
infoshop. He has written a number of articles and pamphlets, and two
books, How Nonviolence Protects the State, and Consensus: A New Handbook
for Political, Environmental, and Social Groups. He is currently stuck in
Spain awaiting trial.

----

For more information on this case:
An article by Peter about his arrest:
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2007060418585321

Peter’s Support Email: shigmagism@yahoo.com

Support Peter Page on MYSPACE:
www.myspace.com/supportpetergelderloos

Break the Chains Blog turns one year old!

Hey everyone, the Break the Chains blog is a year old. We have over 700 stories visited over 23,000 times. The blog has become a good place to go to get information about political prisoners and resistance to state repression. The content can now be translated into 9 different languages.

This might be a good time to reflect about what you all might like or dislike about the blog and share ideas to make it more informational and useful.

ProLibertad Activist Digest

The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign
http://www.ProLibertadWeb.com
ProLibertad@hotmail.com and ProLibertad.Campaign@gmail.com
ProLibertad Hotline: 718-601-4751
_______________________________________________________________________________

ProLibertad Activist Digest:

1. July 21st ProLibertad Cookout 2007.
2. Donate to Isabel Rosado, she needs our support...
3.  Message from OScar Lopez Rivera: Check oput the ProLibertad Blog:
http://prolibertad-freepuertorico.blogspot.com
_______________________________________________________________________________

Check out the following reviews of the ProLibertad Freedom Cookout
from leading activists/revolutionaries:

"The ProLibertad Freedom Cookout is an amazing event. Fun, sun and great
camaraderie. It is the only reason I will ever enter the belly of the
beast"-President Fidel Castro, The Republic Of Cuba

"The ProLibertad Cookout is a great way to network, build solidarity and
engage in political discourse. I credit my current political development to
this cookout."-President Hugo Chavez, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

"It is historically inevitable that you will have a good time at the
ProLibertad cookout."-Karl Marx

"Get yourself to the ProLIbertad Cookout this summer, by any means
necessary."-Malcolm X

*******************************************************************************
Join ProLibertad on our annual Freedom Cook out to HighLands Pool in
Ringwood, New Jersey!!

Enjoy the sun, fun and relaxation of HighLands Pool!! Bring your swimming
trunks for the cool and refreshing Chemical-free mountain stream-fed pool!!

We will have DELICOUS BORICUA FOOD, FUN,
MUSIC,DOMINOES, GAMES, SPORTS and RELAXATION!!

Saturday July 21st, 2007 at 9am!! Get on the Bus!!

Meet at the corner of w179th St. and Broadway at 9am to catch one of our
Freedom Vans to HighLand Pools!!

Transportation from NYC ($10), Entrance to HighLand Pools ($5) and Food
($5); all together $20 (Adults) $15 for (Children)

Contact ProLibertad to reserve a seat on our Freedom Bus by calling the
ProLibertad hotline: 718-601-4751 or email us at : ProLibertad@Hotmail.com
_______________________________________________________________________________

Together we can move mountains, alone we can't move at all.

Dona Isabelita is living in a home for the elderly!! At 99 she is
will and still active. The expenses for her care are close to $1000.
a month. Her community here and in Puerto Rico is committed in
providing for he!! Please join in this effort.

Things you can do:

Send a cheek in her name
Organize an activity/ educational
Talk to 10 people to give you $25, $50,
$100 and send it in their names.
Organize a Celebration
Be part of this Organizing Outreach Network

Write to Dona Isabelita at:
Hogar Divina Misericordia, c/o  IsabelRosado Morales,
PO BOX 1557,
Ceiba, PR  00735

If you have any other Ideas get in touch with Melissa Montero
zoemontero@hotmail.com or at (718) 404-7174

SEND YOUR DONATIONS FOR DONA ISABELITA ROSADO TO :

Comite Pro Derechos Humanos
Apartado 9088
San Juan , PR 00908-9088

todosenlibertodpr@hotmail.com
_______________________________________________________________________________

Message from Oscar López Rivera to the 20th Annual Vigil for Dignity
in Isabela, Puerto Rico.

Warm and patriotic greetings to all those present:

Why is there so much chaos in the world? Why does the world appear to be
upside down? Who is behind this chaos and who benefits from it? Why is there
such exaltation for the use of violence and for war?…

Want to read the rest? Then go to the ProLibertad Freedom Blog and post a
comment or two...

http://prolibertad-freepuertorico.blogspot.com/

News from Greece

Greece: Anarchist Solidarity Demo for Timo Behrendt
Date Wed, 20 Jun 2007 a-infos

On Sunday 17-6-2007 more than 150 anarchists, following a demo waving black flags through the streets of Salonica with cars, buses and motorbikes, arrived at Diavata Prison at exactly the time that the prisoners were in the yard to hold a solidarity demo to Timo Behrendt from Germany. Timo was arrested on the 20th February 2007 after a solidarity concert which was organised by students in the "University of Thessaloniki" to those accused for taking part into student riots
against a proposed education bill that shook Greek for almost a year.
After the end of the concert, there was a quarrel with the police
because they wanted to clear the place. Timo from Berlin that had
helped with the concert, was brutally arrested by the police in the
late evening. Allegedly he had taken part in the protest against the
police interference. There is no evidence for this accusation and
merely police witnesses claim to have seen him. Even at the date of
the habeas corpus - in front of an enormous, supporting audience - no
further evidence could be brought forward. Since 24th February the
non-previously convicted person has been imprisoned and awaits trial
that may take place up to 18 months after his imprisonment. He can
only be visited by his family.

The anarchist solidarity demo, which was guarded by riot police
almost caused a prison riot since those gathered and the prisoners
for almost an hour were shouting along political slogans with just a
wall separating them. The prison guards that could not handle the
situation locked themselves up waiting for the anarchist demo to end.

THE PASSION FOR FREEDOM IS STRONGER THAN ANY PRISON CELL

Greece: Anarchist Solidarity Demo for Timo Behrendt outside the
prison that he is held

Photos from the demo can be found at
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=722213

Video from the demo outside Diavata prison can be found at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSHjXm69Yzg

The video can be downloaded from
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=722213#722220

Letter by two imprisoned anarchists in Greece

Thursday, June 21 2007 Infoshop News

Greek anarchists Tsourapas and Kontorevithakis were arrested earlier this month (see here) and were badly beaten by the police (more).

Following is a letter they released on the morning of the 21st of June, only a few hours before their 20 year old female friend was forced out of the hospital were she was treated and into Korydallos prison, thanks to an order by the attorney general and without completing her treatment.

There's a war going on, whether we like it or not. At this war everyone takes a stance, a position. The so-called "neutral", i.e. those who chose the silence of neutrality, do no other than contributing to the strengthening of sovereignty.

We no longer tolerate the crimes initiated in the school cells, mental health institutions and prisons and which continue via waged slavery, or in other words, the institutionalised robbing of thousands of labourers. We no longer tolerate a society sinking into the mire of consumption frenzy and indifference: A society doing no more than bowing to sovereignty, allowing the imperialist wars of the new Rome, of the Pax Americana and its obedient allies, which leave countless dead behind them (Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Palestine) in the name of the enforcement of a democratic totalitarianism.

It is for these reasons that we chose to take part in this war as anarchists on the side of the revolution, knowing from the beginning the repercussions of our decision. A revolution that, in the words of Rosa Luxembourg, "knows how to say I was, I am and I will be". A revolution that knows no other than attack.

We express our solidarity to political prisoners who, whether accepting the charges against them or not, are currently in prison.

Finally, we do not wish to talk about our case neither to comment on our beatings, the information leaks of the police concerning supposed gathered information nor do we wish to demand anything for us. We do, however, want to denounce the unjust pre-trial detention of the 20-year old female student of the Economic University of Athens who had absolutely nothing to do with our attempted action.

It is provocative to imprison a 20-year old human with the only "incriminating" evidence against her being a friendship, while at the same time defrauders like Tsitouridis and Papamarkakis* are on the loose, despite stealing 800 million Euros from the greek people, and continue their robbing activity unharmed.

INFORMERS ABACK -COMRADES, ONWARD!

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES BY ALL MEANS UNTIL THE FINAL VICTORY

THE PASSION FOR FREEDOM IS STRONGER THAN ANY PRISON

REVOLUTION FIRST AND ALWAYS

M. Tsourapas
Fourth Wing, Korydallos Prison, Athens

Ch. Kontorevithakis
Aulona Prison

*Ex-Minister of Labour Savvas Tsitouridis was forced to resign in late April this year after it was revealed that he and his associates were involved in a scandalous sale of government bonds to state pension funds.

Portland, OR: Benefit for eco-scare defendant Briana Waters 6/28

Folk the Man!

A benefit show for eco-scare defendant Briana Waters

Featuring folk musicians:

Hanz Araki (more information: myspace.com/hanzaraki)

Timothy Hull (more information: timothyhull.com)

and other surprise guests...

Thursday, June 28th

Speakers at 7pm

Music at 8pm

Liberty Hall (311 N. Ivy St.)

$10-$20

Who is Briana Waters?

Briana Waters is a devoted, loving mother and partner, a dedicated musician and violin teacher, and a caring friend to many. It has come as quite a shock to everyone who knows her that she has been wrongly accused of participating in a politically motivated arson at the University of Washington. These charges carry a draconian mandatory minimum sentence of 35 years in prison should she be convicted. Briana pled not guilty to the charges, first brought on March 15, 2006, and was released pending trial. This trial is currently scheduled to begin September 17, 2007.

For more info: visit www.supportbriana.org

Event flyer – print and distribute!

http://stream.paranode.com/imc/portland/media/2007/06/361267.pdf

Come to Court for SF Bail Hearing Wednesday - 10 am 850 Bryant St

Come to Court - SF 8 Bail Hearing - Wednesday at 10 am 850 Bryant St

Today in Court - Tuesday June 19

Lawyers for the SF 8 argued to seal or suppress documents and statements filed by the prosecutors in opposition to bail reduction. The defense argued that the government wants to use statements made under torture and duress as well as criminal histories filled with factual inaccuracies dating back over 36 years to give the impression that these Black elders are a threat to public safety or are flight risks. The government wants to introduce documents that will not only prejudice bail arguments but continues to criminalize these men to the media and public. Instead the defense lawyers raised strong challenges to statements made after people suffered electrocution, asphyxiation, sensory deprivation and beatings. Lawyers will attempt to clarify which documents are at issue during a closed session this afternoon.

Attorney Daro Inouye was officially appointed to represent Jalil Muntaqim stating that he and Jalil joined in the defense motions regarding prejudicial documents, stating that some of the materials and old statements violate Jalil's constitutional rights if introduced.

Court will re-convene Wednesday at 10 am and is expected to include Judge Moscone's decision on sealing documents as well as the beginning of bail reduction arguments for Ray Boudreaux and Richard O'Neal. Further Discovery motions are scheduled for Thursday at 10 am.

Eric McDavid Update

Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007

From: sacprisonersupport@riseup.net

A brief update
-------------------------
Things here seemed as if they were slowly coming to a head. After almost
a year and a half, Eric finally had a trial date set for early July. It's
easy to write that sentence, but when we think about the meaning of it,
and the struggle and pain that has colored the days during that time, it's
completely overwhelming. Then we found out that the trial was going to be
pushed back, yet again, to late August. Then this week it was pushed back
yet again, to September 10. This was devastating news, as it means Eric
will have to suffer through two more months of solitary confinement at
Sacramento County Main Jail. This, after a year and a half of waiting...

A year and a half of Eric suffering through health problems and poor
nutrition with no proper medical care and a complete lack of care and
concern from the people responsible for his well-being. A year and a half
of total separation - a category of custody at the jail that means Eric
has been confined to his cell almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
with no contact with the outside world - not even other prisoners. He
rarely even gets to step foot outside, and when he does it's on the 4th
floor of a building, with nothing but concrete under his feet. A year and
a half of threats about Eric spending 20 years in jail.

And then we think about Eric and his courage and strength and we're
completely amazed. He has remained true to his principles - compassion
and love and integrity - in the most dire of situations. A grueling two
week hunger strike to gain access to vegan food. His stories about his
interactions (very limited) with the other prisoners - sharing books and
stories and helping each other in the small ways that must seem so huge in
that cold, dead place. The letters he writes - which are somehow still
full of joy and beauty and compassion. He has chosen life.

With only a few months left until trial, we still have to raise $6000 for
Eric's legal defense. His family has been paying his legal fees, but
finally had to ask for help. We couldn't let the government continue
imposing this huge financial drain on Eric's family, and so have been
trying to fundraise the remaining $15,000 for them.

We're right at $9000, but with only a few months left, we are in dire need
of everyone's help and support. The response from around the world has
been truly amazing and inspiring. People from across the globe have been
writing Eric, sending him books, and donating money. But this final push
is proving to be quite difficult.

PLEASE, send whatever you can. We need to ensure that Eric gets the best
representation possible, and unfortunately we can't do that without money.
If you don't have time to organize a fundraiser (vegan bbq? art auction?
bake sale? movie screening? show?), just send whatever you can. Every
penny helps.

Please keep in mind - this is about our civil rights being snatched from
us. This is about government surveillance and cointelpro and the
targeting of political dissidents. (If you haven't read the criminal
complaint against Eric, we urge to you do so. It's very...insightful.)
And this is about Eric - a beautiful, amazing, inspiring individual. Eric
is a non-cooperating defendant, which means he has chosen the difficult
path. He knew this would not be easy - very few people take their cases
all the way to trial. But Eric felt that this was the only principled
decision - to fight these outrageous charges against him and the
government repression from which they stem.

You can make checks out to "Sacramento Defense Fund" and send them to:

SPS
PO Box 163126
Sacramento, CA 95816

or you can visit www.supporteric.org (which you should do anyway) and
donate through paypal.

We know some of you have already donated, and for that we are forever
grateful. The outpouring of support from everyone has been amazing and
inspiring, and has helped all of us through the last year and a half.

Please keep Eric in your thoughts these next few months. And please check
the website for updates.

Matching Funds
---------------------------------
Thanks to some amazing supporters in New York, any donations sent in right
now (up to $600) will be matched. This means that you can double the
impact of every dollar you donate to Eric's legal defense. Please take
advantage of this fantastic opportunity. And our most sincere thanks to
our friends in New York!

Trial set for September
----------------------------------
After a month of gearing up for a July trial date, we recently found out
that trial will be moved back to September 10. This was very difficult
emotionally for everyone, but now we have to refocus on the new dates. If
any of you are going to be in the area in September, please consider
coming to the trial. We're trying to get the courtroom packed with
supporters for Eric. The court has slated two and half weeks for trial.
If you are planning on coming, please make sure you come dressed
appropriately for court. If you have any questions, please let us know.


Eric says...
---------------------------------
Eric has been receiving your letters and sends everyone his love. Please
keep them coming! However, he wanted us to let you know that the next few
months are going to be a bit crazy for him and he more than likely will be
unable to respond to everyone's mail. Please don't let this discourage
you. He loves getting mail and needs to hear from you - just don't take
it personally if you don't hear back from him.

Chile, 34 Years Later Torture's Long Reach

www.counterpunch.org June 19, 2007

By Dr. SHEPHERD BLISS

A summons from a Chilean attorney that arrived a couple of weeks ago opened a dam and painful memories from 34 years ago flooded in: "We are looking for Mr. Shepherd Bliss in order for him to travel to Chile to testify in the case of Frank Teruggi."

The attorney is gathering testimony in a slow-moving court case against those who kidnapped, tortured and executed my young, idealistic friend Frank and another American, Charles Horman, whom I did not know. He represents survivors of the Teruggi and Horman families and wants me to testify before a judge about what Frank was doing in Chile.

As someone who was raised in the prominent military family that gave its name to Fort Bliss, Texas, and served as a U.S. Army officer myself, I could be a credible witness to counter the generals being tried who seek to justify their atrocities and murders.

Soon after graduating from divinity school and being ordained a United Methodist minister I worked in Chile during 1971-72 on a church-funded mission. Dr. Salvador Allende had recently been democratically elected president. On Sept. 11, 1973, Gen. Augusto Pinochet toppled his government, with the well-documented support of the U. S.

Frank and Horman were among thousands slaughtered during the coup's brutal aftermath, which continued for years and still haunts the surviving families and friends of those touched by that state terrorism. Horman's shocking story was graphically revealed in the award-winning l982 film "Missing" by Costa-Garvas.

I have thought often of returning to Chile since that bloody event, but my traumatized body and soul have not yet followed those travel directives from my mind.

Unfinished business awaits me in Chile. Returning to the scene of that terrible crime and the massive trauma that it caused could support justice and promote my own healing. So I will probably go, but I have doubts and fears. My goal would be to help uncover what has been concealed these many years and report it widely.

Pres. Allende's Chile had become a gathering place for those--especially young people-- wanting to participate in a non-violent, democratic process of a progressive government that was not dominated by the U.S. Our innocence was shattered by Pinochet's unrelenting violence. As Welsh poet Dylan Thomas writes, "After the first death, there is no other."

I worked in Chile on religious, educational, artistic and journalistic projects and Frank was one of my closest associates. A common interest in spirituality, especially during times of change, connected us. Substantial change was occurring in the U.S. with a growing peace movement, and in Chile with the election of Dr. Allende.

The summons to come to Chile surprised me. I had given up hope of justice in Frank's case. My patience these 34 years of waiting had ebbed. The legal, political, and social obstacles standing in the way of justice have been substantial.

Pinochet died Dec. 10, 2006, at the age of 91. Though he finally confessed to his crimes, he was never brought to justice. His power and wealth protected this U.S.-supported dictator and enabled him to escape the justice that would have benefited many survivors and set a precedent for other vicious dictators.

Courts in Chile, Europe, and the U.S-into which Pinochet's long killing arm reached-have failed the families and friends of those hurt by this assassin and his accomplices. Justice for Pinochet was delayed and denied, which has been happening also in the cases of Frank and Horman.

I remember Frank and think often of him--a playful and creative artist. At times memories overwhelm me. The request to return to Chile now brings tears to my eyes. Then I freeze, suppress the feelings. I shiver and shudder, though it is not cold outside on this California summer day.

I remember walking toward my office at Harvard University when I first heard of the military coup in 1973. Crushed, I fell to my knees on the sidewalk, knowing that some of my friends were probably hurt and possibly killed. Sept. 11 has been a Memorial Day for me since.

When I learned of Frank's death, much of my life came to a halt. His family invited me to be a pallbearer at his funeral in Chicago, but initially I did not respond. When a plane ticket from his girlfriend Annie arrived, I realized that I had to go and carry Frank's body. It had been so butchered that the casket was closed. What was I doing, at twenty-something, carrying the tortured-to-death body of my good friend?

One might expect that I would appreciate the summons to return to Chile to contribute to a long-denied act of justice. But rather than respond immediately from the heart or mind, my initial response was in my traumatized body-a body that partly had shut down. A familiar numbness returned.

Even my tongue had lost its fluency in Spanish, a language that I had begun hearing as a child living in the Panama Canal Zone with my military family. My mind no longer thought clearly in Spanish.

Psychologists call such a defense mechanism "psychic numbing"--a protection of the psyche from feelings too powerful to endure. My memories of Frank and others were in Spanish, so by losing Spanish I was being protected from that terrible loss and enabled to continue living at least a partial life. Only decades later, when giving a paper at a psychology conference in Spain, did my Spanish begin to return. In Chile I will need to speak Spanish and deal with whatever memories return.

I write about this personal experience to honor my dear friend and to dilute the continuing hold that the horror of his death has had on me. Perhaps speaking my truth may help educate and remind others about that tragic Sept. 11, l973.

You may not have consciously met anyone who was literally tortured by a professional. You can read about torture by the U.S. military going on right now, but that is different from feeling it in your body. The multiple effects of torture reach far beyond the immediate victims to their families and friends, even to the torturer and his (or her) family members and to the nation itself that sponsors or condones torture.

Today's Chile differs from that of the Pinochet regime. Its current president, Michelle Bachelet, was imprisoned and tortured by the Pinochet junta. Her father was a general who did not support the coup, so Pincohet killed him.

Chile no longer kidnaps, imprisons in secret jails, or tortures people. However, the U.S. can no longer make such a moral claim. Pinochet's Chile parallels what has been happening today in Guantanamo Bay, at Abu Ghraib, and in numerous secrets prisons maintained by Washington in many countries.

It is now the U.S. that sequesters people--many of them innocent of any crimes--in secret places and detains them for years without charging them or giving them access to attorneys. Their families do not even know where they are. Can you imagine how you would feel if this happened to a member of your family?

The cases of Frank and Chile are hence instructive to us here in the U.S., especially since Henry Kissinger and the Nixon administration helped orchestrate Pinochet's coup. Justice for Frank and Horman could have meaning for others currently held by the U.S. and help strengthen an international legal precedent.

By writing my story I seek to expose and speak out against the long-term traumatic effects of torture on its multiple survivors. Washington's current torture of people from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere is not new. The U.S. has trained torturers from around the world for decades at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Some of Pinochet's worst torturers were trained there. HR 1701 is a bill to close that torture school, introduced to the U.S. Congress by Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.).

The Chile summons came a couple of days before our Veterans' Writing Group met again. We've gathered regularly for nearly 15 years, told our stories to each other, wrote the award-winning book Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, edited by Maxine Hong Kingston, and recently spent an hour on Bill Moyers' PBS-TV program. The veterans supported me to go to Chile, though I still feel some internal resistance.

I lost more than Frank in Chile; part of my soul perished, which I seek to recover. As I listen to stories of veterans returning to Vietnam and finding healing there, I am inclined to go to Chile. It is time to release and express more of my feelings and speak more of my truth, especially as Washington admittedly engages in torture, thus staining our nation and weakening our relationship with other countries and hence our national security. I have business to complete, both for myself and for society.

I would carry Frank with me to Chile, since he remains always with me. Frank's life was stolen, because of his love of liberty, freedom, and authentic democracy. I want resolution about his death so I can more fully remember his life-youthful, playful, imaginative, and idealistic.

Frank Teruggi, Presente!

Dr. Shepherd Bliss owns Kokopelli Farm in Northern California and teaches college. The website of the Veterans' Writing Group is www.vowvop.org.) He can be reached at: sb3@pon.net.

SF 8 - Court Update - Monday, June 18

June 18, 2007

---

Waiting outside the courtroom today.

Hi Friends. A large crowd gathered in front of the SF Courthouse at 850 Bryant Street at 8 am Monday morning calling for the release of the SF 8 and the dropping of all charges. If you can, come to the court Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. It is likely that the hearing continue to the end of each day, so if you can only come in the afternoon, please do. Wednesday will probably be bail reduction hearings, so may be the best day to show continuing solidarity.


Despite the 9am court hearing being delayed two hours, with many supporters having to leave for work or other obligations, the courtroom was packed. The hearing was held in a high-security courtroom in which supporters are separated from the courtroom by a ceiling high plastic barrier and screen - making it difficult to hear the proceedings and creating the sensation of a caged, dangerous and criminalized process. In a dramatic moment, Michael Burt, the attorney for Ray Boudreaux whose bail reduction motion was to be argued first, asked that the judge acknowledge that people had made a concerted effort to appear in support of a motion to reduce bail for Ray. At that point Burt asked that all those who supported Ray’s motion rise – the entire courtroom rose and stood in support of the motion and the SF 8, and remained standing for several minutes. This show of unity strengthened everyone and gave a great sense of community commitment to the court and the 8 themselves.



Further hearings were scheduled for 10 am Tuesday, Wednesday and possibly Thursday which will include legal arguments about discovery, challenging the shackling of the 8 in court, demurs which challenge the jurisdiction of the court to proceed given that some of the 8 would be tried again for some of the charges in the complaint, and motions to reduce the $3 million bail set for 6 of the 8 that will begin on Wednesday with testimony from Professor Craig Haney of UC Santa Cruz about the absence of danger to the community from these men who are now in their late 50s to early 70s.

_______________________________________________

For continuing information and updates, go to www.cdhrsupport.org/

Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)

PO Box 90221

Pasadena, CA 91109

(415) 226-1120

FreetheSF8@riseup.net

Memo to the Queen

www.counterpunch.org

June 18, 2007

Bobby Sands Died for Your Sins

By DON SANTINA

Dear Elizabeth II,

What a dandy duo of imperialism you and our own George II made during your recent visit to Jamestown. How appropriate that together you celebrated the 400th anniversary of the theft of indigenous lands in the Americas.

It wasn't long after the settlement of Jamestown that your country introduced the plantation system into Ireland, forcing the Irish off their lands and replacing them with loyal British settlers. And then there was the rest of world to seize.

Those pesky Irish were always rebelling, so-between Cromwell and the Penal Laws--your people turned that country into a charnel house of cultural genocide which included denying people access to the resources of their own land. The subjugation of the Irish was an illustrative model for our own George II as he and his corporate comrades made plans to lay waste the people and culture of Iraq and take their oil. The tragedy for the people of Iraq is that our own George II didn't read the part where people don't like being occupied by somebody else and will fight to the death over the right to their own land. Of course, maybe he just didn't get it; the original story was prettied up by the embedded historians, like most of our Anglo-American history books.

"Play the orange card," Lord Randolph Churchill said a few hundred years later when the Irish were at it again for independence. And it certainly worked! Nothing like fomenting sectarian and ethnic violence to keep the blighters under your majesty's thumb. What a concept! So successful you used it in Sri Lanka, India, Kenya, Palestine, Malaya--you name it.

Hey, did you or Tony Blair tell our own George II that divide-and-conquer would also work in Iraq? Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Baathists, etc.-set them all against each other, so the Anglo-American "interests" can be served without interruption from any kind of unified rebellion. Keep those internecine cauldrons boiling, and hopefully, no one will notice what the "interests" are up to!

How about our own George II's colony at Guantanamo, a geopolitical purgatory where prisoners are held indefinitely without the benefit of a trial? Sort of like the concentration camps your guys invented in South Africa over a hundred years ago: when folks get uppity, round 'em up and stick 'em all in one place! And how imaginative those Victorians were! Up until that time, people thought barbed wire was used to keep cattle from wandering onto the neighbor's ranch. Who would have thought it could be used for corralling people?

You must have been miffed during the beginning of your reign when the ungrateful people of Malaya decided that they no longer wanted to be part of the British Empire. But you guys couldn't let that happen, so you pioneered the "strategic hamlet" plan--a variation of the old South Africa resettlement model--and crushed the insurgency. That plan didn't work so well for us in Vietnam though, so now we just take insurgents out of their own country and imprison and torture them somewhere else. Clever, huh? And so much cheaper!

Last year Americans flocked in droves to your movie, "The Queen," and our tastemakers heaped awards all over it. (I thought, my God, not another movie about all those royal layabouts--but, who's counting?) One thing we can say about Americans: most of us can't wait to genuflect when a bit of perceived royalty passes our way, whether it's a pop star or a politician or some old royal roach with a title. A sad indication of our own tumble from our democratic ideals is that we haven't flocked to "The Wind that Shakes the Barley," a more accurate portrayal of the consequences of resisting royal occupation.

Sometimes the ordinary soldiers refuse to do the dirty work for our familial and financial dynasties. Like after WWI when the rank and file had had it with rich people's wars. But, Elizabeth, you don't have a problem with that, do you? We know the drill: pay someone else to do the heavy lifting! Over two hundred years ago, your country hired Hessians to put down the American revolutionists. During the Irish War for Independence, your grandfather set those murderers-for-hire known as the Black and Tans loose on Ireland. (Did you know that in Cork they had orders to shoot anyone who had his hands in his pockets?)

Our own George II and Dick Cheney figured that one out quick. They hired thousands of mercenaries-high-paid killers from companies like Blackwater--to subdue Iraqis and protect Big Oil's new preserves. No military supervision, no Geneva Convention, no legal or moral restraints whatsoever. "Kill' em all and let God sort 'em out," they say, video game style.

Occasionally, we hear some chatter from Tony Blair and our own George II about "the rule of law," so I think we should address some of that law stuff here. Like, ha- ha, when did you guys really need a law to OK the invasion of another country or the seizure of their resources? But, seriously, we know you have to provide the voters with some tidbit of legality so they can tuck the kids into bed at night and tell them all's right with the world and they'll live happily ever after. Because, of course, they live in the country that DROPS the bombs, not the one that RECEIVES them. But, all legal, mind you.

I know: quibble, quibble, quibble. However, you guys do need those laws, at least so your house historians can write You-Done-Good when you're dead and gone. So Parliament and Congress passes stuff like The Prevention of Terrorism Act, The Patriot Act, and The Military Commissions Act, enabling the government to do whatever the hell it wants without any legislative interference. The Magna Carta and the Constitution went down the drain but, c'mon: be there or be square! We're makin' history here!

I don't want to be a spoilsport, but some people are calling our legislative bodies "The Weimar Parliament" and "The Weimar Congress" because the original Weimar Reichstag passed eerily similar legislation in 1933 enabling Hitler to do his thing without any legislative constraint. However, the Nazis were more up-front about it. They actually called it the "Enabling Act."

The Magna Carta never did apply to occupied Ireland, though. For example, during Internment in the 1970's, your police arrested people without charge, held them incommunicado, tried and convicted them without jury trials and imprisoned them in places like Long Kesh. (There's that barbed wire again!)

And then, in a transparent attempt to re-frame Ireland's historic struggle for liberation into a criminal enterprise, your government rescinded political status for the Irish political prisoners.

Margaret Thatcher, your prime minister during that time, liked to posture a lot with tough-guy tautologies like "crime is crime is crime." Engulfed in privilege and surrounded by bodyguards, Thatcher never put herself in harm's way for her principles, did she? Heaven forbid! Nor have you or Tony Blair, our own George II or Dick Cheney. It's so much more comfortable to send other folks and their children off to war and occupation isn't it?

In 1981, a courageous young man stood up and said That's Enough and--Gandhi-like-- began a hunger strike for the principle of political status. His words were bold. "They have nothing in their imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of one Irishman who doesn't want to be broken," said Bobby Sands.

For "Irishmen," insert any nationality struggling against oppression. At that point and forever, Bobby Sands represents the political prisoners of the world: Nelson Mandela, Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Lori Berenson, Gerard Jean Juste. And all those unknown prisoners on a list which is growing like a cancer in a socio/political milieu where imperial oppression, not justice, is the order of the day.

After sixty-six days, while the world watched in horror and pleaded with your government to negotiate, Bobby Sands passed into history. And then-one by one over the following three months--nine more young men in the hunger strike died hideous deaths: Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, and Michael Devine.

Margaret Thatcher has written in her memoirs that her meetings with you were "quietly businesslike and Her Majesty brings to bear a formidable grasp of current issues and breadth of experience."

What did you and Thatcher say to each other when you talked about the hunger strikers? Were your conversations "quietly businesslike" while these young men died the horrible death of starvation? Did the telephone ring to inform you that another one had died? Or was it really not that important in your conversations?

Do you or Tony Blair ever chat with George Bush or Dick Cheney about Abu Graib and Guantanamo, two of the latest products of the Anglo-American empire? I wonder if George and Dick are also "quietly businesslike" in their discussions of things like waterboarding.

Do any of you hear the screams of the tortured in your sleep?

Don Santina is a cultural historian who received a 2005 Superior Scribing award for his Counterpunch article "Reparations for the Blues." He can be reached at lindey89@aol.com.

San Francisco 8 Face Bail Reduction Hearings Starting on June 18th

Sun Jun 3 2007 (Updated 06/10/07) Indybay.org

Audio from the protest

SF Court Date for Former Black Panthers Rescheduled to 18th

After an 18-day extradition process that led to his arrival in the Bay Area on May 31st, political prisoner Herman Bell was reported to be in good spirits and health. A hearing in Herman's case was held on Monday, June 4th. The first of at least two bail hearings for the 8 is scheduled to be held on Monday, June 18th, with a rally beforehand at 8:00am. The hearing will take place at 9am before Judge Philip Moscone in Department 21, 850 Bryant Street, San Francisco. This hearing was rescheduled from June 11th due to a scheduling conflict on the part of Judge Moscone. A Night of Solidarity with the SF8 will be held on Sunday, July 1st at 6:30 at the Women's Building in San Francisco. The evening will include speaker Derrick Jensen and an update about the case of the 8.

The San Francisco 8 have called for a national movement to demand the reopening of COINTELPRO hearings. They write, "We, the SF8, urge friends and supporters to phone/fax/write to John Conyers, Chair of the Judiciary Committee in Congress, and appeal for him to conduct public hearings on why victims of COINTELPRO languish in prison over 30 years after it was declared unconstitutional. We, the SF8, ask friends and supporters to contact your congressional representative, Congressional Black Caucus members and other elected officials urging them to enable John Conyers to reopen COINTELPRO hearings."

Report from 6/4 Hearing for Herman Bell | Read more about Herman Bell and the SF 8 | Committee in Defense of Human Rights | Indybay's Past Coverage of the San Francisco 8 | Herman Bell and the New York 3

ALF action for Jeff Luers

"On 6/14/2007 at approximately 4:30am, Linda's Fashions and Fur Salons, at 903 Old Scalp Avenue, Johnstown, PA, was visited under cover of night by masked activists. The letters ALF were spraypainted on the building, and a cinderblock was thrown through the front door. This action was carried out in solidarity with Earth Liberation Prisoner Jeffrey Luers, who recently began year seven of his almost 23 year sentence, and all others who refuse to compromise in defense of our earth. We refuse to be intimidated by the forces of government repression, and we refuse to forget our comrades. Until all the cages are empty and all are free, our struggle continues. This is not the last you'll see of us Linda."

Source: www.directaction.info
Posted by: myspace.com/alongingforcollapsepress

ProLibertad Cookout 2007

The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign
http://www.ProLibertadWeb.com
ProLibertad@hotmail.com and ProLibertad.Campaign@gmail.com
ProLibertad Hotline: 718-601-4751
_______________________________________________________________________________

Check out the following reviews of the ProLibertad Freedom Cookout
from leading activists/revolutionaries:

"The ProLibertad Freedom Cookout is an amazing event.  Fun, sun and
great camaraderie.  It is the only reason I will ever enter the belly
of the beast"-President Fidel Castro, The Republic Of Cuba

"The ProLibertad Cookout is a great way to network, build solidarity
and engage in political discourse.  I credit my current political
development to this cookout."-President Hugo Chavez, Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela

"It is historically inevitable that you will have a good time at the
ProLibertad cookout."-Karl Marx

"Get yourself to the ProLIbertad Cookout this summer, by any means
necessary."-Malcolm X
_______________________________________________________________________________

Join ProLibertad on our annual Freedom Cook out to HighLands Pool in
Ringwood, New Jersey!!

Enjoy the sun, fun and relaxation of HighLands Pool!!  Bring your
swimming trunks for the cool and refreshing Chemical-free mountain
stream-fed pool!!

We will have DELICOUS BORICUA FOOD, FUN,
MUSIC,DOMINOES, GAMES, SPORTS and  RELAXATION!!

Saturday July 21st, 2007 at  9am!!  Get on the Bus!!

Meet at the corner of w179th St. and Broadway at 9am to catch one of
our Freedom Vans to HighLand Pools!!

Transportation from NYC ($10), Entrance to HighLand Pools ($5) and
Food ($5); all together $20 (Adults) $15 for (Children)

Contact ProLibertad to reserve a seat on our Freedom Bus by calling 
the ProLibertad hotline: 718-601-4751 or email us at :
ProLibertad@Hotmail.com

FBI Audit Finds Widespread Abuse in Data Collection

June 14, 2007
by Reuters staff

WASHINGTON - An internal FBI audit has found the agency violated rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data on domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The number of violations uncovered by the audit was far greater than those previously documented in a Justice Department report in March, the Post said. 0614 03

The vast majority of newly discovered violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect, the Post said.

The agents retained the information in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities, according to the report.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the FBI’s national security investigations since 2002, so the actual number of violations in the FBI’s domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials told the newspaper in interviews.

The Justice Department audit found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling.

Of the more than 1,000 violations uncovered by the new audit, about 700 involved the provision of information by phone companies and other communications firms that exceeded what the FBI’s National Security Letters had sought, the Post said.

However, some two dozen of the newly discovered violations involved agents’ requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have, the audit found.

National Security Letters allow the FBI to compel the release of private information such as communications or financial records without getting court authority.

Their use has grown exponentially since the September 11, attacks, the Post said. More than 19,000 such letters were issued in 2005 seeking 47,000 pieces of information, it said.

“The FBI’s comprehensive audit of National Security Letter use across all field offices has confirmed the inspector general’s findings that we had inadequate internal controls for use of an invaluable investigative tool,” FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni was quoted as telling the Post.

Caproni said that steps have been implemented since March 2007 to fix the problem.

FBI officials said the audit found no evidence that any agent knowingly or willingly violated the laws or that supervisors encouraged such violations, the Post reported.

Rather it showed that many agents did not understand or follow the required legal procedures and paperwork requirements when collecting personal information, the Post reported.

Human Rights Lawyer Plots Future

June 15, 2007

Human Rights Lawyer Plots Future

Meredith Hobbs, New York Lawyer

ATLANTA -- Lisa L. Kung joined the Southern Center for Human Rights in
Atlanta as a staff attorney in 1999 because it was the only public interest
law firm in the South filing lawsuits for poor people caught up in the
criminal justice system.

"The criminal justice system in the South is a different beast. The rate of
incarceration is off the charts compared to the rest of the country," she
said.

The South's higher incarceration rate is driven by race, she said. More
African-Americans are locked up there than in other parts of the country. In
Georgia, African-Americans make up 61 percent of the state prison
population, though they comprise only 30 percent of the state's population,
according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

The center's mission is "to challenge the misuse of the criminal justice
system to target and control poor people of color," said Kung, 37, who
became the Southern Center's director last year after its longtime leader,
Stephen B. Bright, stepped aside to devote himself to full-time lawyering
there.

It does that by representing indigent prisoners facing the death penalty and
suing to improve prison conditions and indigent defense. Most of its work is
in Georgia and Alabama.

Before coming to the Southern Center, Kung said, "I had some theoretical
understanding of the criminal justice system, but I don't think I
appreciated how deeply it has come to permeate our society.

"Until you dip your toe in it, you don't realize how directly the criminal
justice system is used to target poor people and people of color. When here,
in Georgia, African-American men have a one in four chance of seeing time
inside the prison system and a one in two chance of being under correctional
control of some sort in their lifetime, it's hard to claim you're a free
country," she said.

The South's prison system after the Civil War was built on the convict lease
system and use of the death penalty, Kung said: "The convict lease system
was created to control newly free African-Americans. That's the legacy we're
working off of."

In 1868, Georgia made its first convict lease, sending 100 African-American
prisoners from the Milledgeville state penitentiary to work on the Georgia
and Alabama Railroad for a year at $25 apiece. Sixteen of them died.
Undeterred, the state leased out all 393 of the penitentiary's prisoners the
next year, and the practice soon became an important source of revenue. The
conditions for the leased-out prisoners were brutal; laborers on the
railroads' chain gangs generally did not live for more than two years.

That past is still with us, Kung said. Her firm just filed suit against the
Macon Diversion Center in Georgia, which last fall started leasing inmates
to Crider Poultry in Stillmore, an hour and a half away from Macon, after
the plant's cheap Latino labor force was deported for immigration
violations. The center is representing a former female inmate who says she
was refused medical care after she was injured at the plant while working
12-hour shifts lifting cases of chicken. "The people being forced to work
these jobs are almost all impoverished people of color," said Kung.

The Southern Center exerts a disproportionate influence for a small public
interest law firm whose nine lawyers' combined salary is less than that of
the average partner at a big Atlanta firm. Because the center receives no
government money, it's one of the rare public interest groups that can bring
class actions against prisons and jails. In 1996, Congress banned class
actions by any legal aid group receiving federal money.

Its 2004 class action against the Fulton County Jail for overcrowding, lack
of medical care and abysmal conditions prompted a federal judge, Marvin H.
Shoob, to bring in an outside monitor. After a critical quarterly report two
weeks ago, Shoob threatened to call in the U.S. Attorneys Office or the FBI
to investigate the jail's management and to put the jail in receivership if
conditions did not improve.

Other Southern Center class actions have stopped the Clinch County Jail in
south Georgia from charging prisoners for room and board, then keeping them
imprisoned until they paid up, and it forced the Limestone Correctional
Facility in Alabama to markedly improve its care of HIV-positive prisoners.
Southern Center suits also helped launch Georgia's first statewide public
defender system in 2005.

The center was founded in 1976 after the reinstatement of the death penalty.
When Bright joined as director in 1982, death penalty representation
consumed almost all of his time, but as the center has grown, its practice
has broadened.

Kung joined in 1999 to fight substandard prison and jail conditions, not to
represent those on death row. Her first job after graduating from Emory
University in 1991 was as a program assistant at AM radio station WGST, just
as it was morphing from a news station into talk radio. After helping to
launch Sean Hannity's career, she decided that radio was not the best way to
fight for social justice. She briefly considered medicine, but saw law as a
better avenue to systemic change. "I went to law school because I had a debt
to society to repay after making coffee for Sean Hannity," she joked.

After graduating from New York University Law School in 1997, Kung spent a
year as a fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice, which works with criminal
justice agencies, but decided that change from within was not for her. After
a year's fellowship at the Georgia Law Center for the Homeless, she joined
the Southern Center.

Kung said the rapid growth of the American prison system over the past 30
years prompted the center's expansion into systemic challenges. "The
criminal justice system has been exploding in size and power," she said.
Since the center's launch in 1976, the number of people in prison has
increased eightfold, giving the United States the distinction of the highest
incarceration rate in the world.

Under Kung's leadership, the center has continued to take on more systemic
work. Last year it challenged the constitutionality of Georgia's new sex
offender law banning convicted offenders from living within 1,000 feet of
public places and investigated New Orlean's nonfunctioning indigent defense
program in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "There were people who'd been in
jail for 18 months on public drunkenness charges who'd never seen an
attorney. The system had completely collapsed," Kung said. After the release
of the center's report, the city's entrenched indigent defense board was
replaced.

Are there cases the center cannot take on because of lack of resources?

"Yes, of course," she said. "You can throw a dart against a map of Georgia
and Alabama, and there's work to be done. The challenge right now is
figuring out, strategically, which parts of the system need to be challenged
so there aren't so many people in prison."

To do that, the center needs money. Its primary funding comes from attorney
fees and contributions from other lawyers. It also receives a grant from the
Soros Foundation. Kung believes plenty of nonlawyers would support it if
asked. "We have to get better at asking," she said.

The American Lawyer named Kung one of its 50 top litigators under 40 in
January, but she prefers to remain behind the scenes. The center was
scheduled to throw its second Atlanta fund-raiser last week -- but Kung's
name was nowhere to be found on the invitation among those of a swarm of
friends, benefactors and host committee members.

"As executive director, you're the public face of the center. How can you
represent it and raise money when you're not even on the invitation?" I
asked her.

"That's just plain director," she corrected me. "And it's with a small 'd.'"

It's Bright whom people identify with the Southern Center, she said, which
seemed to suit her just fine. Although blunt and articulate by nature, she
is reticent when speaking about herself.

Kung spends most of her time managing the center and fund raising, but she
still handles cases. She has just joined Bright on the Fulton Jail suit and
continues to represent the inmates of the Tutwiler Prison for Women in
Wetumpka, Ala., which has been under a court-ordered monitor since 2002,
when the Southern Center sued it for overcrowded conditions and deficient
medical care.

Since Kung joined the center, its staff has turned over almost entirely. Its
lawyers and investigators, who are in their 20s and 30s, generally stay for
only three to five years, she said. As people get older and start families
they can't keep up the demanding travel schedule. She estimated that the
center's lawyers and investigators put about 350,000 miles on its rapidly
aging five-car fleet last year, a lot of it down back roads to remote
prisons and jails in South Georgia and Alabama, with the odd foray into
Louisiana and Mississippi. The center welcomes any vehicle donations, she
added: "Our dream car is a hybrid, but we'd be happy to get a low-mileage
Honda."

Why is Kung still at the Southern Center?

"The job's not done," she said.

She thought about leaving a few years ago when her partner at the time
received a tenure track job in Los Angeles -- but discovered that she could
not leave the center or her clients, particularly the women prisoners at
Tutwiler.

"A cold statistic on the page can't tell you the story of what happens to a
woman's family when she's sent to prison for drug possession," she said of
her experience representing the women.

What would she be doing if she were not at the Southern Center?

She was silent for a long moment. "I can't imagine doing anything else," she
said.

---

Source : New York Lawyer

http://www.nylawyer.com/display.php/file=/probono/news/07/061407a

Message from the former Swedish prisoners

ELP Information Bulletin (13th July 2007)

Dear friends

Recently ELP reported the arrests and remandings of three Swedish
animal rights activists.  More recently we reported the happy news of
their release from prison.

When we circulated their details we only provided an e-mail address
for people to send messages of support to.  People sometimes ask do
these e-mail addresses really work?  Do prisoners really appreciate
the letters of support they receive?  To answer that, please read the
below letter from the three former Swedish prisoners....

 If ELP have any oportunity, the exprisoners want us to spread this letter:

"Dear friends,
just a short note to let you know that all your
support through e-mail was truly appreciated!
After three weeks of incarceration, we were
released on Thursday, June 7th, following our trial.
The whole experience has been tough, but all the
kind and strengthening words and wise thoughts
from strangers made it much easier! The days passed
quicker just knowing that compassionate and
intelligent people like you continue making the world a
better place.
  Warm regards,
T, M and L in Sweden"

Oaxaca journalist investigating Brad Will's murder is shot

New York, June 13, 2007 Infoshop News

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the shooting of a Mexican journalist who had received death threats in connection with his investigation of the slaying of a U.S. journalist during violent street protests last fall in the southern city of Oaxaca.

Oaxaca journalist investigating Brad Will's murder is shot

A Oaxacan reporter who had been subject to death threats relating to his
investigation into the murder of U.S. journalist Brad Will was shot on
Tuesday and seriously injured. Below is a press release with the details
from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

- Eileen Clancy
I-Witness Video

website: iwitnessvideo.info

---------------------------------

http://www.cpj.org/news/2007/americas/mexico13jun07na.html

Committee to Protect Journalists

MEXICO: Oaxaca journalist shot and wounded

New York, June 13, 2007— The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the
shooting of a Mexican journalist who had received death threats in
connection with his investigation of the slaying of a U.S. journalist
during violent street protests last fall in the southern city of Oaxaca.

Misael Sánchez Sarmiento, a reporter for the Oaxaca-based daily Tiempo,
was shot twice Tuesday evening by an unidentified assailant outside his
home on the outskirts of Oaxaca, 323 miles (520 kilometers) southeast of
Mexico City, the paper’s director, Wenceslao Añorve, told CPJ. Sánchez was
wounded in his jaw and left leg and was in stable condition today after
surgery.

Sánchez covered local political news and was in charge of the daily
paper’s investigative unit. He had received death threats in November 2006
after reporting on the killing the previous month of U.S. journalist
Bradley Will, an independent documentary filmmaker and reporter for the
Web site Indymedia. Will was shot while documenting clashes between
activists and government agents in the provincial capital.

Añorve said he did not know the motive behind the attack, but believes it
is related to Sánchez’s journalism. The local police and state attorney’s
office are investigating, he said.

“We condemn the shooting attack on Misael Sánchez Sarmiento,” said Joel
Simon, CPJ’s executive director. “We call on Oaxaca authorities to
thoroughly investigate the attack, find all those responsible and bring
them to justice.”

Tiempo is a pro-government paper that has criticized the local
antigovernment group Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO),
which clashed last year with Oaxaca authorities during a months-long
conflict that paralyzed the city.

The conflict began last June when authorities used tear gas to break up a
demonstration by striking teachers. That prompted leftist activists to
take to the streets in a bid to oust Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Media
outlets were targeted by both sides in the ensuing unrest, and several
journalists were beaten and harassed while covering the violence. The
conflict peaked with Will’s murder in October.

Since 2000, six journalists have been killed in direct reprisal for their
work in Mexico, and CPJ is investigating the circumstances surrounding the
slayings of 12 others. In addition, five journalists have disappeared
since 2005, three of them this year.

On May 9, a CPJ delegation met with Arturo Sarukhan Casamitjana, the
Mexican ambassador to the United States. The delegation called on Mexico’s
federal government to take concrete steps to protect press freedom and
prosecute those responsible for crimes against the press.

source.
infoshop.org
posted by.
myspace.com/alongingforcollapsepress

June 14, 2007

America's Newest Political Prisoners

Charred SUVs and the End of Citizen Eco-Activism

By MICHAEL DONNELLY Counterpunch.org

O n June 16, 2000, 22-year-old forest activist Jeffrey “Free” Leurs joined with Craig “Critter” Marshall and proceeded to a Eugene, Oregon car dealership and set fire to three SUVs as a statement against such vehicles’ contribution to Global Warming. The fire was put out quickly; no one was hurt; the SUVs sustained less than $40,000 in damages and were restored and later sold. An arson expert later testified that no one was ever in danger as the fire was small and far from any fuel sources.

Leurs was arrested within 30 minutes of the arson by three undercover agents who it seems were following him that night. How they got on to him remains a mystery as does the question of why they didn’t stop the arson in the first place.

A year later, on June 1, 2001, Leurs was sentenced by Judge Lyle Velure to 22 years and 8 months in prison. He has been in the Oregon State Penitentiary ever since. He filed an Appeal of the sentence in January 2002. After three-and-a-half years, the Appeal was finally heard on November 30, 2005. Another year dragged on before, on February 14, 2007 the Court of Appeals unanimously ruled to reverse the case and remand it back to the Circuit Court for resentencing -- an effort likely to reduce the Draconian sentence by 15 years. A new trial date for appeal has yet to be set and Jeff Leurs continues to be confined.

Property Destruction = Terrorism

Obviously, Leurs' sentence was a message to Eugene activists that property destruction dissent would not be tolerated -- a message driven home recently with the Green Scare arsonists also getting sentences much larger than the median for no human injury property offenses. Symbolic property destruction -- a la the Boston Tea Party -- was effectively morphed into “terrorism” upon Leurs’ sentence. (Judge Velure and prosecutor Karen Tracy would put Sam Adams away for decades if they could.)

A comparative analysis of Oregon sentences handed down in 2001 in other cases with human harm (arsons, rapes, murders, assaults) is available at freefreenow.org/. Of course the disparity between sentences for political property damage and those with harm against persons make it very clear that this was a political sentencing. Whether one agrees with such arsons or not (I do not), it is clear that Jeffrey Leurs is a political prisoner -- the judge made it quite clear.

Free “Free”

On Wednesday, June 13th, the Jeff Luers' Support Group, the Civil Liberties Defense Center and the International Socialist Organization co-sponsored a gathering of activists in Eugene to note Leurs seventh year in prison and to get updates on his appeal and the recent sentencings of the Green Scare defendants. They also saw the premier showing of Brooklyn filmmaker Lauren Cynamon’s new film on Leurs’ life: How I Became an Eco-Warrior.

What’s Next

The wave of political arsons that started with charred SUVs and culminated with the Green Scare sentences (check the CLDC website for a list of sentences) has weakened the forest protection movement to such a point that on June 12th, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to remove hard-won protection for the Northern spotted owl on over 1.5 million acres of their habitat -- 22% of the set aside habitat that was inadequate to begin with in 1993 when Bill Clinton resumed old growth logging in public-owned owl habitat.

Such a blatant timber grab would rightly have been met with sustained resistance just a few years ago. But, now opposition has evaporated. The defense has been left to the very foundation grant-dependent folks -- eco-attorneys EarthJustice and other Big Greens -- who signed off on Clinton’s plan in the first place. Predictably EarthJustice attorney Kristen Boyles bleated "There's no scientific justification for this," referring to the new Bush plan. As if there was any “scientific justification” for the insufficient Clinton plan EarthJustice rammed down the throats of their eco-plaintiffs back in 1993!

"If they don't have a seat at the table, they got nothing to sell."
--Steve Spahr

Even more predictably, the token Big Green forest ecologist on the panel that came up with the new plan, foundation carpetbagger Dominick DellaSalla of the World Wildlife Fund failed miserably. He failed to defend the wildlife dependent on the lands to be stripped of protection; he failed to expose it to the depleted grassroots (who had to wait for press reports to find out) and he failed to lambaste the obvious non-science pressure emanating out of DC while the plan was being concocted - preferring to keep silent and protect his "seat at the table" instead, when exposing it while on the drawing board was the only way to derail it.

The “terrorism” label applied to non-lawyer, non-foundation-dependent eco-activism by industry and their captive politicians and judges has paid off -- for now. The unpaid, effective, non-property destruction activism of just a decade ago has evaporated.

Jeff Leurs’ Appeal will proceed and his outrageous sentence will be changed and he likely will be released on time served. The Green Scare sentences will also likely be reduced after another round of excruciatingly slow Appeals. In the end, the damage done to SUVs, genetic tree farms, feral horse slaughtering plants, etc., pales compared to the damage done to the forest protection movement.

MICHAEL DONNELLY was plaintiff in the first successful lawsuit over continued destruction of Ancient Forest habitat. Ultimately, that led to the habitat set asides. He can be reached at pahtoo@aol.com

San Francisco: A night of solidarity with the SF8 - featuring Derrick Jensen

Greetings all - Please forward widely and please attend if you can. The SF8 need all the support they can get. In addition, Derrick Jensen is a fantastic speaker and he tells like it is. If you have not yet read any of his books, this is a great opportunity to see him in person, hear what he has to say. In solidarity - Donna [dbwall@earthlink.net]

Please join us for a night of solidarity with the SF8

Sunday July 1st 6:30pm SHARP

$5 - $25 no one turned away for lack of funds

The Women's Building

3543 18th St. (Between Valencia & Guerrero)

Audre Lorde Room

San Francisco

Eight former Black Panthers were arrested January 23rd, 2007 in California, New York and Florida on 30-year-old charges related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. Similar charges were thrown out after it was revealed that police used torture to extract false confessions from some of these same men who were arrested in New Orleans in 1973.

This event will feature a talk and Q&A session by Derrick Jensen, a longtime activist, speaker and author whose works include The Culture of Make Believe, A Language Older than Words, Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control, and most recently Endgame for which he was named the Press Action person of the year. His writings consider injustice, oppression and the overwhelming assault on the natural world, and explore the part our technologized and industrial civilization has to play in these atrocities. For more information about Derrick Jensen please visit http://www.derrickjensen.org.

SF8 committee member Penny Schoner will give an update on the case and offer ways we can show support.

All proceeds from this event will go to benefit the San Francisco 8.

For more information on the defendants & how to help please visit:

www.freethesf8.org

http://www.derrickjensen.org

Jeff Luers 7th Anniversary Event

Features New Film, Two Bands and Speakers
Wednesday, June 13th 7pm at Cosmic Pizza, 199 W. 8th Ave.

For immediate release:

Contact: Lydia Bartholow femmemilitia@gmail.com 541-556-3392

*Premier Showing* of the new film How I Became An Eco-Warrior
*Presentations* on Green Scare Sentencing Hearings & Jeff’s Appeal
*Great Music* by the Inkwell Rhythm Makers & the Blair St. Mugwumps
*Updates* by members of the Jeff Luers Support Group & the Civil Liberties Defense Center

On Wednesday, June 13th at 7pm at Cosmic Pizza (199 W. 8th Ave.) will be the Jeff Luers 7th Anniversary Benefit featuring speakers, a new 40-minute film and two live bands. Updates about the Jeff’s recent appeal ruling and the Green Scare sentencing hearings will begin the evening, along with the film. Two great jug bands will entertain after the speakers, film and updates.

The Jeff Luers Support Group, the Civil Liberties Defense Center and the International Socialist Organization co-sponsor this evening of entertainment to generate funds, awareness and continuing support for Jeff’s case and other ecological activists facing a terrorist label by the Bush administration. There is a $5 suggested donation, with no one turned away at the door.

The film, How I Became An Eco-Warrior is a compelling story of a young man’s life sacrificed as he attempted to tackle a global environmental crisis. Lauren Cynamon, the filmmaker, is based out of Brooklyn New York and currently works on environmental shows at VBS.tv.

There will be presentations by members of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, the Jeff Luers Support Group, and others and updates on Jeff’s appeal and the “green scare” campaign of repression against environmental and animal rights activists.

www.freejeffluers.org

June marks the 7th year that Oregon political prisoner Jeff "Free" Luers was sentenced to an outrageous 22 years and 8 months imprisonment for burning three SUVs at a Eugene car dealership in protest of global warming and ecological devastation. Although Jeff recently won his appeal and is expecting a reduced sentence, this case is not over. In Jeff’s own words:

"I have spoken with my attorney and there are still many battles ahead. Hard choices will have to be made. I am by no means close to walking out of prison, just one step closer. This is a victory, and while my own personal struggle is making headway others are just beginning."

"This June, show your solidarity with me, and all those who have struggled, past and present, to make this world a better place. It doesn’t matter what cause or issue you fight for - we are all connected. What does matter is that we stand united and make our voices heard."

Daniel McGowan on Democracy Now

Facing Seven Years in Jail, Environmental Activist Daniel
McGowan Speaks Out About the Earth Liberation Front, the Green Scare and the
Government's Treatment of Activists as "Terrorists"*

Last week McGowan was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in two
acts of arson in Oregon in 2001. The judge ruled that one of the fires was
an act of terrorism. He was sentenced along with nine other environmental
activists ­ the government compared the activists to the Ku Klux Klan. We
also speak with Lauren Regan of Civil Liberties Defense Center.

Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/11/142258

Nathan Block's new address

Urgent ELP! Bulletin (11th June 2007)

Dear friends

ELP has just learnt that American Eco-Defence prisoner, Nathan Block,
has been moved to FCI Sheridan.

Please send letters of support to:

NATHAN BLOCK #36359-086
FCI SHERIDAN
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 5000
SHERIDAN, OR  97378
USA

Daniel's sentencing update

June 11, 2007 Friends and Family of Daniel McGowan

Hi friends,

It has been a week since Daniel's sentencing and we wanted to give you some more information about what happened. We have uploaded Daniel and his wife Jenny's statements to the court at sentencing.

• Daniel's statement: www.supportdaniel.org/news/dm_sentencing.html
  
• Jenny's statement: www.supportdaniel.org/news/js_sentencing.html
  

Also, you can read extensive and detailed notes of Daniel's sentencing at
www.supportdaniel.org/news/sentencing_report.html

Daniel is set to self report to prison in early July but we are not sure where. As soon as we find out this information, we will let you know. His sentence is currently 7 years with 3 years of supervised release and the terrorism enhancement for the Jefferson Poplar arson. How that affects Daniel's time in prison and afterwards is not known at this time.

Because legal costs are high and we have a goal of paying for Daniel's masters degree tuition, we still need your help. Filastine has released a benefit CD for defendants in Daniel's case. A full $5 from every CD sold goes to the defendants. You can order it from www.crimethinc.com/a/filastine/index.html
Also, some friends have released a benefit children's book entitled The Secret World of Terijian. You can order it from www.crimethinc.be/home.html
for $6

Please keep Daniel's codefendants in your thoughts. Their info is below.

As always, thanks for your support at this very difficult time.
Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan

Nathan Block
#1663667
Lane County Jail
101 W 5th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401
Received a 7 year 8 month sentence on June 1, 2007.

Joyanna Zacher
#1662550
Lane County Jail
101 W 5th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401
Received a 7 year 8 month sentence on June 1, 2007.
supportersofnathanandjoyanna@gmail.com

Jonathan Paul
Out on bail until August
Received a sentence of 51 months (sentence is not final)
friendsofjonathanpaul@yahoo.com
Friends of Jonathan Paul
PMB 267
2305 Ashland St., Ste. C
Ashland, OR 97520

THurs. June 14th-Free Puerto Rico

The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign
http://www.ProLibertadWeb.com
ProLibertad@hotmail.com and ProLibertad.Campaign@gmail.com
ProLibertad Hotline: 718-601-4751
_______________________________________________________________________________

FREE PUERTO RICO: End Colonialism NOW!!

Thurs. June 14, 2007 at 6:30pm at
Hunter College West Building 2nd Floor
Room 217
E68th St. and Lexington Avenue (Take the #6 train to E68th St.)

Donation: $10 or your best offer (no one will be turned away)

Join the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign for our annual Reception/Forum for the
Puerto Rico Delegation of the United Nations De-Colonization Committee
Hearings!!

Every year a Delegation from Puerto Rico comes to the United Nations to
testify to the U.N. De-Colonization Committee; to make the case for the
liberation of Puerto Rico, Vieques and the release of the Puerto Rican
Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War.

This delegation is made up of various activists from the different
organizations throughout Puerto Rico that fight for the independence of
Puerto Rico.

This reception/forum is an opportunity for allies of the Puerto Rican
independence movement in NYC to converse with activists from Puerto Rico!!

Come hear updates on: Economic Crisis in Puerto Rico, Labor Struggle in
Puerto Rico, FBI Repression of the Independence Movement

The following organizations and individuals are invited: El Frente
Socialista, The Island of Vieques, ProLibertad, El Partido Nacionalista
Puertorriqueño, and many other organizations from New York and Puerto
Rico...
______________________________________________________________________________


Join NYC Jericho & Friends for an evening dedicated to Struggles for the
Land at The Brecht Forum 451 West Street (West Side Highway, between Bank &
Bethune Streets)

Friday, June 15, 2007
7 to 10 p.m.

Screening of the film
Un Granito de Arena (A Grain of Sand)

For over 20 years, global economic forces have been dismantling public
education in Mexico, but always in the constant shadow of popular
resistance. Granito de Arena is the story of that resistance, the story of
hundreds of thousands of public schoolteachers whose grassroots, non-violent
movement took Mexico by surprise, and who have endured brutal repression and
incarceration in their 25-year struggle for social and economic justice in
Mexico’s public schools.

Speakers will include:
Ismael Guadalupe Ortiz

Vieques Land Struggle Activist

Report from Chiapas

Invited speakers on the Oaxaca struggle

Light refreshments will be served

For more information, call the Brecht Forum at (212) 242-4201 or
NYC Jericho at (718) 853-0893

A, C, E or L to 14th Street & 8th Ave, walk down 8th Ave. to Bethune, turn
right, walk west to the river, turn left. 1, 2, 3 or 9 to 14th Street & 7th
Ave, get off at south end of station, walk west on 12th Street to 8th Ave,
left to Bethune, turn right, walk west to the river, turn left. PATH Train
to Christopher Street, north on Greenwich St to Bank Street, left to the
river.

Sponsored by NYC Jericho: www.jerichony.org; nycjericho@riseup.net

3 new arrests for gas canister attack in Athens, 05 June 2007

Sat, 9 Jun 2007

anarchist cores <anarcores@yahoo.gr3:00 in the night of June 5, 3 persons were arrested
in Palio Faliro - Athens (2 men 22 and 20 years old,
and one woman 21) by undercover cops. They are accused for
aledgedly attempting to burn up a police car. After their
arrest they were tortured for several hours by the cop pigs,
and they were taken to a hospital a day after. All three are
kept under detaintion (up to 18 months in prison before any trial).

The two young men are active in the anarchist movement, and
according to the polie one of them (22 y.o. unemployed) was
identified by some undercover cops bying gas canisters, as he had
been arrested in an anti-war riot 2 years ago. The other one (20
y.o. student in Pireaus University) is also an anarchist. They both
plead guilty to the prosecutor last Friday, and took responsibility
for the action. The girl is a student in the economics university,
and seems to have nothing to do with the action. She is in an
extremely bad condition as she was beaten and harassed, and she has
serious health problems, now faces a nervous breakdown. The two men
were also beaten (especially in the genitals) severelly and not
taken to a hospital until one day later...

All three are currently detained, according to greek laws = put
into prison for up to 18 months before the trial...

Home-made gas canister bomb attacks are an often common practice
of the antagonist movement in Greece, as some about 5-15
capitalist/police targets are damajed every month, mostly in
Athens, Thessaloniki, and sometimes other major cities. The greek
minister of public order, expressed a month ago his desire to have
at least one "gas canister bomber" arrested and prosecuted. After
the dissolution of leftish armed guerrilla groups such as the
"November 17", anarchists are on the top of the local
"anti-terrorist" agenda.

You can also check out the prisoner list on our site:
http://www.geocities.com/anarcores/krat.html

A photo police gave to the press:
http://assets.in.gr/AssetService/Image.ashx?c=3945874&amp;amp;amp;amp;r=0&p=0&t=0&q=70&w=300

Athens.indymedia on the 3:
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=716228

>   R. from www.geocities.com/anarcores

3 good articles on PLN records case settlement for $541k

The articles below were published by various media in WA today about our settlement in our long running public records case against the WA DOC. The suit was filed in 2000. Many thanks to Alison Howard, Andy Mar and Michelle Earl Hubbard at Davis, Wright and Tremaine for taking the case pro bono and vigorously representing PLN for the past 7 ½ years on this matter. This is also the third public records case against the WA DOC that DWT has represented PLN on and in which we won.

For what it’s worth, the WA DOC still isn’t complying with my public records requests. And as far as the Seattle Times file picture of me goes, I think I have better mug shots than that. L

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003741106_publicrecords09m.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/319142_publicrecord09.html

http://www.theolympian.com/news/story/130219.html

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/319142_publicrecord09.html

Corrections to pay $541,000

Record settlement set for withholding public records

Saturday, June 9, 2007
Last updated 12:38 a.m. PT

By AMY ROLPH
P-I REPORTER

The state Department of Corrections will pay a Seattle-based prisoner-rights newspaper $541,000 for withholding public records -- the largest public-records-related settlement in state history.

The judgment Friday comes more than seven years after Paul Wright, the editor of Prison Legal News, submitted two requests for public records detailing how 14 prison medical workers were reprimanded for their treatment of 10 inmates who died or suffered serious injuries. The records included one prisoner whose wound was closed with Krazy Glue.

"The fact that this was the biggest penalty payout in a public records case in state history kind of speaks for itself," said Wright, who was serving 25 years for felony murder in a 1987 Seattle shooting when he made the initial request. He was released in 2003.

Friday's settlement, filed in Thurston County Superior Court, comes after Prison Legal News spent years wading through the appellate court system. The DOC won the initial case and one appeal before the state Supreme Court ruled that the records should be turned over without names redacted with black ink.

"It was our belief that we were on solid legal ground," DOC spokesman Gary Larson said. "This wasn't a situation where the department ignored the law ... it was only when the Supreme Court ruled that we found we were wrong."

The DOC takes the state's Open Public Records Act seriously, he said. From January through March this year, staff members processed 1,100 records requests -- more than 75,000 pages of documents -- and many of those requests have been from inmates, he said.

But Michele Earl-Hubbard, the lawyer representing the newspaper, thinks the DOC didn't respond fast enough after the Supreme Court's ruling. If it had, the settlement might have been smaller, she said.

For all 266 days the newspaper didn't receive the documents after the ruling, the DOC agreed to pay $100 per request -- the maximum penalty allowed by law.

The issue became even more complicated when the DOC couldn't provide 19 pages of documents because the originals had been redacted.

"It was a simple mistake," Larson said. "It was not a willful altering of an original document."

That mistake added nearly $50,000 to the settlement. Peter Berney, a lawyer for the state, said DOC staff members supplied the redacted information after all; they were able to make out the words by holding the documents up to a light bulb.

Berney thinks that since the penalties are determined by how many days the DOC failed to provide the documents, "the department is kind of paying a penalty for the length of time it took to complete the court process."

Earl-Hubbard said she wonders if it would have taken almost one year for the DOC to produce the documents if the state weren't picking up the settlement bill.

"The checks they write are ultimately not their own -- it's taxpayer money," she said.

The settlement amount surpassed a recent court decision to raise the amount a Vashon Island man received because King County didn't provide economic-impact studies relating to Qwest Field in a timely manner. In 2005, Armen Yousoufian was awarded $300,000 for the county's mistake, but that amount subsequently has been increased by further rulings.

About $200,000 of Friday's settlement is made up in penalties. The rest comprises attorneys' fees and other costs. Prison Legal News plans to buy an office in Seattle with the settlement money, Wright said.

As for the documents Wright requested in 2000, they're not much of a story anymore, he said. The documents included the DOC's account of the 1998 death of prisoner Charles Snipes, who died in his Monroe cell after medical staff thought he was "faking," Wright said.

"The reality is the fact that they kept the records under wraps for more than six years and basically killed the story," he said.

Wright plans to resubmit the request, this time asking for records from 2000 through this year. He wants to have a story in print by the end of the summer.

"Hopefully we'll get a more timely response," he said.

---

P-I reporter Amy Rolph can be reached at 206-448-8223 or amyrolph@seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Saturday, June 9, 2007 - 12:00 AM

Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo, other than personal use, must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail resale@seattletimes.com with your request.

STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Paul Wright, the editor of Prison Legal News, sued the state Department of Corrections in 2001.

Corrections Dept. secrecy brings record fine

By Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporter

The state Department of Corrections has agreed to pay a record fine of $541,000 for wrongly withholding employee-discipline records from a prison watchdog magazine.

The agreement, filed Friday in Thurston County Superior Court, includes an admission that the agency destroyed 19 of the documents sought by Prison Legal News. That act, which the department called inadvertent, added nearly $50,000 to the award.

The fine, which was negotiated out of court, is the largest levied for a violation of the state's Public Records Act, which allows citizens to seek fines when they are wrongly denied access to public documents.

In this case, Paul Wright, who at the time edited Prison Legal News from behind bars, filed a pair of requests in 2000 with the department for records related to medical errors and discipline against prison medical providers. The department released more than 1,000 pages, but redacted so much information — including the names of disciplined employees — that Wright sued in 2001.

The department convinced a Superior Court judge and an appeals court that releasing the names would jeopardize the staff members and undermine prison safety. But the state Supreme Court in 2005 dismissed that argument and ordered the department to release the names and to pay fines and attorney fees dating to Wright's original request.

"The bad thing is this is the taxpayer's money," said Michele Earl-Hubbard, Wright's lawyer. But "it sends a message to agencies that if you violate the law, it will have an impact on you in the future."

Department spokesman Gary Larson said the fine was so large because it mounted each day and the case took a long time to decide.

"We thought we were on pretty solid legal ground on our interpretation of the law," he said. "It was only when we got to the state Supreme Court that we found out we were wrong."

Deficient medical care

Wright, who was released from a 17-year murder sentence in 2004, said the records show deficient prison medical care that his magazine, a monthly with 6,000 subscribers, has long documented.

Among the records are two cases of inmate deaths attributed to medical errors, including that of Charles Snipes, who was left to die in his cell at Monroe after complaining of breathing problems.

They also show that a husband-wife team of physicians' assistants was fired in 1994 for gross incompetence: she was for sending a pregnant inmate back to her cell despite hearing no fetal heartbeat; he was for causing a patient to be needlessly airlifted to Seattle — at a cost of $5,600 — after a misdiagnosis.

"We knew medical care in prison was bad, and we knew their system of medical discipline was ineffective," Wright said. "It's one thing to know it; it's another thing to have the documents to prove it."

The payout awards Prison Legal News $200,000 in fines because the department withheld the documents, the result of a formula varying between $5 and $100 a day. Prison Legal News, which is based in Seattle, will buy office space with the money, Wright said.

Blacked out originals

The fine was boosted by nearly $48,000 because the department acknowledged last year that it had also blacked out original versions of 19 documents. Larson called it an inadvertent mistake, and said most of the information was recreated by holding documents up to the light.

Earl-Hubbard, however, said the size of that fine indicated the seriousness of the error. "They never ultimately could produce records in a lawsuit, which is a huge mistake," she said.

Her firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, which also represents The Seattle Times, was awarded $341,000 in fees and costs.

The fine tops the $425,000 paid by King County to Seattle businessman Armen Yousoufian for records related to the construction of Seahawks Stadium. That case, however, is still active, and Yousoufian is seeking higher attorney fees.

Wright, who now lives in Vermont, said he is filing more requests, seeking more current disciplinary records of medical staff members.

"Hopefully, they'll pony the records right up," he said. "Hopefully."

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

This is a printer friendly version of an article from the The Olympian.
To print this article open the file menu and choose Print.

[Back]

---

Published June 09, 2007

Prisons must pay for delay on records

Brad Shannon

Washington’s prison system must pay $541,155 in fines and legal fees to a prison-issues newspaper that had to wait five years to receive public information about medical personnel who injured inmates.

Judge Anne Hirsch approved the settlement Friday in Thurston County Superior Court.

“I think it is the biggest public-records judgment in the state,” said Seattle lawyer Michele Earl-Hubbard, who negotiated and signed the agreement for Prison Legal News, a Seattle-based publication founded by a former inmate. “The biggest thing is it begins to show agencies that if you do delay and do not turn over records, you will have to pay dollars,” Earl-Hubbard added. “The unfortunate thing to me is, it isn’t their money; it is taxpayers’ money.”

Department of Corrections spokesman Gary Larson disagreed.

“We believe we were acting responsibly and within the law. … Two lower courts agreed with us,” he said.

Larson said he does not know how or from where the agency will find the money to pay the judgment.

It includes $200,000 in penalties to the newspaper for late disclosure of documents and $337,6646 for legal costs to Earl-Hubbard’s firm, Davis Wright Tremaine.

State Auditor Brian Sonntag, who is on the board of the open-government coalition, said he hopes the judgment grabs agencies’ attention, including that of local governments.

“What I hope comes from this is an increased sensitivity to public records and public information being readily made available to the public. This will be a very visible lesson to state agencies and local government that public means public,” Sonntag said. “The bottom line is it gets down to the mindset: Are we going to look for ways to make information available to the public or ways to find exemptions?”

Paul Wright wrote in an e-mail he intends to use the money to buy an office for his paper in Seattle. And he thanked the Davis Wright Tremaine firm for taking on the case without promise of payment during years the outcome was in doubt.

The case grew out of a 2000 request from Prison Legal News, which Wright founded while serving 17 years in prison for a felony murder in Washington. The newspaper reports on prison issues nationwide and circulates about 6,000 papers, Wright said.

Wright filed two records requests that were in dispute. He sought information about DOC employees who worked under restricted medical licenses because of past misconduct or whose care injured patients, including some patients who died in custody.

State prison officials provided more than 1,200 pages of documents in 2001 that had the names of prison workers, patients and witnesses blacked out. The “redacting” of names was necessary to protect the safety of staff, inmates and witnesses, the agency claimed.

After the Supreme Court ordered the documents released in 2005, DOC took 266 days to provide some documents, and 19 were discovered to have been damaged while the case was on appeal. The biggest penalties of $100 per day were paid for the damaged records — which had names blacked out on original copies and were reconstructed by holding them up to light.

Larson and assistant attorney general Pete Berney, who signed the settlement agreement, said much of the delay occurred when the public- records dispute was on appeal from 2002 to 2005. That was after Thurston County Judge Tom McPhee ruled that the agency was right to black out the names of medical personnel, victims and witnesses; an appeals court later agreed.

The Supreme Court reversed the case in April 2005 on a 6-to-3 decision authored by Justice Richard Sanders; Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote the dissent.

Once the Supreme Court ruled, Larson and Berney said the DOC needed time to review the documents again for redactions; they also needed time to let personnel named in the documents have a chance to seek court action, and other staff needed to reconstruct the damaged papers.

“All those are reasons that it took the time that it did from the time of the Supreme Court decision until April 2006,” Larson said. “It wasn’t an attempt to delay the production of these records …”

Wright, who lives in Vermont, said that records eventually showed that the state disciplined 14 medical staffers for treatment of two inmates who died and eight more who had serious injuries. He said the judgment means DOC has now paid his newspaper close to $1.3 million in the past decade for various judgments he has won.

Larson said he could only verify a portion of that, including $412,000 in settlements of bulk-mail disputes involving the newspaper in 2000 and 2005.

Earl-Hubbard has done work for other media companies in the Northwest, including The Olympian, on public records issues. She also is past president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, which advocates for more disclosure of government records.

Brad Shannon is political editor for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-753-1688 or bshannon@theolympian.com.

Animal Rights & Antifa News

ELP Information Bulletin (8th June 2007)

Dear friends

ELP has three lots of news for you.

1) Zhenya Shimanskiy is free!
2) Vahtang Devitlidze arrested
3) Three Swedish people convicted of rabbit farm raid

1) In Spirit of Freedom June 2007 we reported the remanding of
Belarus animal rights activist, Zhenya Shimanskiy, who was held for
both spray painting graffiti and throwing a brick through a
McDonalds window.  ELP has literally just heard that in court Zhenya
received 2 years probation and a fine and he is free now!  His
support campaign said to say thanks to everyone for all the support!
However Zhenya must now pay a fine of 1200 dollars and his supporters
have only been able to raise 500 dollars, so any donations are
welcome. Please e-mail punker@375crew.org if you want to help.

2) Vahtang Devitlidze is an anarchist from Krasnodar, Russia, who has
been jailed for defending himself against a fascist. ELP is not sure
of the full details of the attack Vahtang suffered (from which he
defended himself), but he is imprisoned until the Autumn of 2008. 
Therefore please send letters of support to:

Vahtang Devitlidze
ul. Libbedova 42, UO 68/2,
otryad 14, brigada 142,
g. Hagyshensk, Krasnodarskiy Kray
352680 Russia

Please Note: Vahtang can only read Russian, so if you can't write in
Russian, please send a picture or a drawing instead.

3) In the June 07 edition of Spirit of Freedom we reported the
remanding of three Swedish people for a raid in a rabbit fur farm. 
The three appeared in court yesterday and all three were convicted of
theft (14 rabbits - sadly all of which were discovered by the police
and returned to the farm) and criminal damage (car tyres slashed and
slogans painted on car and on buildings/cages).  Two of the activists
received 100 hours community service, whilst the third was given a
small fine and parole.  They also have to pay damage to the farmer,
which is estimated to be about £1000.  The Swedish ALF.SG has told
ELP that following their trial all released have been released from
prison, they are doing okay and they thank everyone for their support.

=============

British Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network
BM Box 2407
London
WC1N 3XX
England
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Comments from a Palestinian comrade about incarcration conditions

nur wrote:

I read the description of icarcration conditions of people accused with "terrorist activity/intensions" (for exmple: "...At Terre Haute prisoners have all communications monitored. Phone calls are limited and visits are restricted to four hours a month. Terre Haute is also the location of the federal government's death row and execution chamber....")

And I just want to tell you that it's seems much better than the situation in Israeli prisons...

In the Israeli prisons, "security prisoners" are:

1) have the right for 1 hour of visits a month (1/2 an hour once every 2 weeks), through a glass panel (sometimes through plastic panel + a wired net) and only first degree relatives. As 10,500 out of the more than 11,000 political prisoners & POW's are from West Bank & Gaza, their families need special permits to enter & visit, so lot of people (especially if their families are connected in a way to activistm) can't get those permits (men in the ages between 16 - 45 years can't get permits). As a consequence of this, thousands of prisoners can't get visits at all.

exeptional "open visits" are granted, 2 times a year, in speciall request and mainly to under 6 years old kids (and this is also a new settlement that was gained after long leagal battle)

2) No phone calls are allowed even in the most serious circumstances

(for example: the son of our imprisoned comrade had a serious horse exident, and was for 2 days in a hospital between life & death... He knew about it just in the next visit after 10 days... In cases of death in the family, the BOP are telling it to the prisoner, but many times even don't let him to phone his family).

3) People are closed in their cells for 20 - 23 and half hours a day, the only facillity they have access to is the library... (most of the books in the libraries are, also, a result of support groups work and not purchased by the state). All prisoners says that they never see the sky or any plant during their time in prison.(you can see in the photo how it looks).

4) Lot of problems with studying (on the expense of the prisoner), It's allowed to study only in the Hebrew language (Hebrew open university) for the 1st degree. It's not relevant for most of the prisoners that almost don't speak Hebrew. The state also make problems with stydying for high school graduating exams...

5) Problems with commissiary (money to buy suplyments) - a) the amount of money a prisoner can get a month is limmited to 1300 IS (something as 300 $) which are not anough to purchase the things that the BOP don't suply - as shampoo soup, sufficient food etc. Most of the prisoners don't get this money from their famillies, because the famillies don't have so much money (it's more than 1/3 of minnimum wage in Israel, and more than a minnimum wage in West Bank & gaza).

A new law frobid support groups to collect money for prisoners - under the leagal count of "assisting terrorism" (5 people from the Islamic movement were imprisoned to periods of 2 - 3 and half years, for "assisting terrorism" by collecting money for prisoners support [mainly help for commissiary + help for prisoners' kids).

The situation is that prisoners are starving and lack of basic suplyment as soup, tooth-paste etc.

6) People are put in sollitary confinement sometimes for years... For the last months, the political prisoners are fasting for one day every month in solidarity with their comrades in the sollitary confinement...

7) The BOP are confiscating lot of times the radios and TV sets, trying to issolate the prisoners from the outside world... (for example: after an Israeli soldeir failed in the hands of Palestinian forces in Gaza in the middle of June last year, the BOP prevented the whole political prisoners/pow's population from: a) visits of lawyers for 4 weeks, b) radio, newspapers & TV for 3 weeks - after that let people to see only Israeli TV (2 stations). c) family visits untill the and of the war - almost 2 months

8) The situation of "not political prisoners" is also stinking, but better than that.

Bye;

Iris

What is terrorism?

A Register-Guard Editorial

Published: Friday, June 8, 2007

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken's application of a "terrorism
enhancement" to the sentences of numerous defendants in the
Operation Backfire eco-sabotage trial has fueled an
important debate about the definition of terrorism.

Is property damage that causes no physical harm somehow
similar enough to suicide bombings to be labeled terrorism?
The answer to that question depends on whether it's
addressed from a political or a legal perspective.

Aiken correctly applied the law as written. Federal law
includes in its definition of terrorism "acts dangerous to
human life that ... are intended to influence the policy of
a government by intimidation or coercion; or to retaliate
against government conduct."

That leaves little room to argue with Aiken's ruling that
terrorism enhancements could
apply to politically motivated
acts of property destruction regardless of whether those
acts could have caused death or injury.

And yet, precisely as Judge Aiken was crafting her rulings
- which have been, by and large, thoughtful and fair - a
Democratic candidate for president declared during a debate
that the "war on terror" is nothing more than a "bumper
sticker political slogan." John Edwards told the audience
that the "war on terror" has been used by President Bush
"to justify everything he does: the ongoing war in Iraq,
Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture."
Despite his regrettable hyperbole, Edwards is right about
the Bush administration's exploitation of public fear to
demonize
dissent and pass laws that erode civil liberties.
That doesn't necessarily mean that an Edwards
administration Justice Department would come to different
conclusions about the Operation Backfire defendants, but it
does suggest a narrowing of Bush's one-size-fits-all
terrorism test: "Either you are with us, or you are with
the terrorists."

The fundamental problem when it comes to defining what
constitutes terrorism is that political differences create
more confusion than consensus. Call it the "one person's
terrorist is another person's freedom fighter" dichotomy.

A case in point: President Reagan actually referred to
Osama bin Laden and his
mujahideen as "freedom fighters"
when they opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Reagan also committed substantial U.S. resources to efforts
by the Contras to overthrow the democratically elected
government of Nicaragua. Contra units were regularly
charged by human rights groups with war crimes and
terrorism, charges the Reagan administration dismissed as
communist propaganda.

The shifting profile of who is a terrorist is at the heart
of the debate unfolding in Eugene. It's a debate that's
difficult to sustain, because it involves asking hard
questions, including why terrorism is always defined as
something done to "us" by "them" without provocation.
Fortunately, Eugene isn't afraid of tackling tough issues,
and the debate has spawned an excellent forum on a
Register-Guard Internet blog, "Eco-sabotage: Terrorism or
activism?"
(www.registerguard.com/talk).

Notes from Jonathan Paul’s Sentencing Hearing, 6/5/07

June 8 , 2007

Author: flies on the wall Portland Indymedia

Jonathan Paul, 41, is charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of arson for the July 21, 1997 arson at Cavel West Horsemeat Slaughterhouse. His sentence is now in abeyance as lawyers go back and forth on paper one more time.

Assistant US Attorney Stephen Peifer for the government:

Jonathan Paul, 41, is charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of arson for the July 21, 1997 arson at Cavel West Horsemeat Slaughterhouse. The defendant is famous or perhaps infamous within animal rights circles, but he is not, according to Peifer, on trial for his politics. Jonathan Paul, according to the prosecution, is “not unlike anti-abortion extremists” who bomb abortion clinics.

Since 1986, Jonathan Paul has been “dodging bullets.” “Not real bullets, except perhaps those of Joseph Dibee and Stanislas Meyerhoff” (an allusion to the alleged plot against Paul’s life by others) but rather dodging accountability to the law. Jonathan Paul is a very wealthy man, according to Peifer, and he cannot blame his parents or Avalon (Bill Rodgers) for his current situation; “He can only blame himself.”

On October 26, 1986, Jonathan Paul was involved with the theft of animals at a University of Oregon laboratory in Eugene. Paul took part in six months of planning, two “recon” missions and a preparatory break-in before the raid. He was prosecuted for this action but the charges were dismissed.

In 1987, Paul co-founded the Hunt Saboteurs Association, an organization that actively interferes with sport hunting.

On April 16, 1987, Paul took part in the arson at the University of California at Davis veterinary school. This is a public institution with state funding. Paul did reconnaissance on the building and acted as the driver. This was the first arson in the US attributed to the Animal Liberation Front. Paul was a “proto-arsonist” who inspired others to arson by this act.

In 1987, Paul acted as the driver at a raid against a Loma Linda Research Facility in Southern California.

In May 1987, Paul and others visited the Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse Corral in Litchfield, California. Using a saw, Paul cut away sections of the fence thus freeing the horses. There was no arrest; “Jonathan Paul dodged another bullet.”

In 1988, and again in 1990, Paul also lived with Rodney Coronado, an ALF member who was later imprisoned for multiple arsons.

On April 3, 1989, Paul participated in an action at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Paul was the driver for this action. In an earlier bold “recon,” Paul and another person dressed as lab workers and, during the workday entered the building and altered a door lock to provide later access. Over 1,200 animals were stolen and the property was attacked by arson. Again, Paul was not arrested and he “dodged another bullet.”

In 1990, Paul was charged for the 1986 UofO burglary, but charges were dismissed on May 1,1991.

On November 3, 1992, Paul was jailed in Spokane, Washington for civil contempt for refusing to testify in front of a federal grand jury. He was held for five months and became a “hero” and “inspiration” to those who “resist legal prosecution.”

With his family’s wealth, Paul bought property in Williams, Oregon where he lived until moving near Ashland. Paul developed relations with Joseph Dibee, Kevin Tubbs and Darren Thurston. He dug ditches and blockaded roads at the China Left timber sale protest dodging another bullet, “albeit a small one.”

In 1997, Paul met Jennifer Kolar at an animal rights event. Kolar was a student in Colorado at the time. Kolar became enamored with him and a long-distance romance ensued. Paul introduced her to the ALF and recruited her for the Cavel West arson. He and he alone recruited Kolar into “the family.” Kolar subsequently participated in other arsons not involving Paul, but “Kolar is the product of Jonathan Paul.” In 1997, Paul wrote several checks to Kolar, and he paid her way to and from Oregon.

At an Earth First! Rendezvous in 1997, Joseph Dibee recruited Jonathan Paul for the Cavel West arson. His role was to make the fuel for the arson. Peifer asked, “Why attack Cavel West?” It was at the center of an animal rights controversy and was linked by an article in the LA Times and other press to the Bureau of Land Management wild horse project.

Marc Blackman, Paul’s lawyer, objected to this on several grounds. There was no link between Jonathan Paul and the LA Times article. The terrorism enhancement issue was closed for the Cavel West arson (it did not apply) and so such arguments should not be made. Judge Ann Aiken responded that the information in itself was relevant, but that she understood her past rulings.

Returning to Peifer’s presentation, he stated that Dibee was angry that Paul recruited Kolar, someone who was a stranger to Dibee, for the action. Kolar and Paul together made a mixture of glycerin soap and diesel fuel called "vegan jello." Containers were painted black and contained no fingerprints. The team met outside of Redmond and changed into disposable clothing. 30 gallons of fuel were used. According to Kolar, Paul set the device in the shed. After 45 minutes, one of the devices prematurely ignited (Peifer claims that this shows just how dangerous they were.) Returning to the staging site, participants poured acid on the clothes used and buried them. The fire was spotted by a bread delivery van and called 911.

At a nearby residence, two people were sleeping, Pascal Derde and Roberto Rezendez. Derde had walked through the Cavel West property around midnight. The device allegedly placed by Paul in the shed failed to ignite, and was discovered by Rezendez and another individual, Sancher. Several large propane tanks were nearby and this was of great concern to firefighters. Fighting the fire depleted two million gallons of water.

Peifer then displayed several photos of the arson. The residence, propane tanks and a fuel tanker on the rail line were pointed out, as was the shed with the unignited device.

Several newspaper articles were then introduced as evidence. The Bend Bulletin article discussed the 40 firefighters and backup from Sisters, Oregon who responded; it mentioned that the plant employed 22 people. The Redmond Spokesperson quoted a commander for the firefighters as stating that it was lucky there was no loss of life; a sidebar discussed the fire’s impact on water reserves.

Kevin Tubbs wrote the communiqué for the arson. Jonathan Paul was an early suspect, but he “dodged that bullet” until Kolar, Tubbs and Dibee informed on him. Following the arson, Paul was apparently not wanted back by the group. He was too reckless and “frankly, too arrogant.” The arson caused over a million dollars in damage; Paul settled with Cavel West’s insurers over his part. After the fire, Cavel West left Redmond which, Peifer said, Paul regarded as a victory.

After this arson, Paul was a public proponent of sabotage. He described the legal process as unworkable and likened the ALF with the Underground Railroad. At the Environmental Law Conference in Eugene in 1998, Paul likened burning animal labs to burning Nazi death camps. He apparently admitted to lying to the Spokane Grand Jury, and attacked those who cooperate with the government as “traitors.” Kevin Tubbs was also at this conference.

In 1999, Paul was involved with and convicted for the disruption of a court-sanctioned whale hunt by the Makah tribe in Washington State. Peifer likened Paul’s activity to that of “juveniles or drunks.”

In March 2005 Paul again attended the Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Oregon. He met Jacob Ferguson there and the conversation was recorded. Paul urged Ferguson to keep resisting the grand jury there, “It’s the only honorable thing you can do. Fuck them.” Paul also recounted in the recording his mistake of touching an identification card shown to him in 1989 by an FBI investigator, from which the Feds later obtained fingerprints.

Peifer again referred to the UC Davis attack as the “proto-arson” that encouraged another 20 years of arsons. He presented a 57-month suggested sentence to the court. He proposed an equal upward departure even if the terrorism enhancement was not applied. Upon showing how upward and downward departures would lead to a sentence of 57-71 months, he also suggested a truncated version of this process, starting with the federal mandatory minimum of 60 months for arson and then simply agreeing to go down three months for Paul’s plea deal. Paul’s attorney Blackman, Peifer argued, had come very close to asking for less than the 37 months mentioned in the plea agreement. Peifer noted that Paul’s sentence was linked to that of cooperating defendant Darren Thurston within the plea deals, but while Thurston had been thorough in his cooperation and naming of names, Jonathan Paul didn’t come close to this in his cooperation.

Peifer then stated that Jonathan Paul should be compared to Shelly Shannon, who in 1992 torched a doctor’s office merely because he performed abortions there. The doctor ended his practice after this. Shannon also refused to testify against others and refused to name names. She is serving a 20-year sentence; Paul should get at least 57 months.

Peifer closed his presentation saying that, as a leader in animal rights circles, he should renounce the use of fire. Peifer said that Paul has not done this.

Marc Blackman, attorney for Jonathan Paul, began his presentation:

Paul Bains, an attorney licensed in Oregon and elsewhere, was called before the court after a brief dialogue about his appearance (there had been some discussion about the possibility of Bains simply making a statement by telephone, but the timing of communications led to Bains appearing in person although this was not strictly necessary.) Bains stated that a lawsuit for recovery of loss by the insurer had been filed after Paul’s arrest, and that Paul had resolved this with a very fair settlement for the loss, fulfilling his obligation.

After noting the presence of members of Paul’s family in the courtroom, Blackman mentioned the letters they had submitted to the court.

Blackman then stated that it was necessary not to “romanticize” Cavel West even though its destruction was unjust. He mentioned the surveillance video of practices there that were in government discovery. This was briefly reviewed during Tubbs’ sentencing but very little of it was played. Blackman noted that it was ironic that the government mentioned the water depletion arising from fighting the fire, as blood from the slaughterhouse was known to be polluting the groundwater in the area. After the arson, the nearest neighbors complained of the foul odors that used to come from the plant. One former employee commented that he was “tired of working with a bunch of illegals,” and Blackman used this to suggest that Cavel West did not provide quality employment at a living wage. In fact, a USDA meat inspector had stated in documents that the operation was a “company run by the Belgian Mafia.” Blackman argued that one shouldn’t justify the arson, but should be careful not to “gild the lily” in the other direction either.

Blackman then addressed Paul’s wealth: Paul was hardly alone in benefiting from the wealth of a parent, but unlike many who used this wealth frivolously, Paul used it to promote his conviction that all life should be protected. It’s interesting to note that others from these cases had complained that Paul was “too visible.” This was because Paul actively funded his belief that all life is precious.

Although most of Paul’s assets were of the sort that those wanting to collect a settlement “could not get at,” this still did not stop Paul from paying his settlement to the insurance company in full. Paul sold real property to do this, “It’s not like he just wrote a check.”

Blackman discussed a 1999 letter that Paul wrote to The Oregonian newspaper. The letter was in response to an article that claimed Paul supported arson. Paul’s letter stated that he never advocated or was involved in arson. Blackman stated that this was the renunciation which Peifer claims he never heard; although the letter’s claim about past involvement was a lie, the rest of it summed up Paul’s true feelings. Paul had spent the last eight years as a firefighter, earning him the deep respect of his community and even awards. Paul had tried to make up for the crime he had committed.

Blackman stated that Paul was the least involved with the crimes in these cases. There is no need to get into the claims made by Kolar, Blackman said, but as a lawyer he would be concerned about putting her on the stand and cross-examination if he was a prosecutor. Blackman said that he made it clear to Paul that if he brought his charges to trail and lost, he would be looking at 60 months. Blackman stated that Paul should be distinguished from the other defendants, both cooperating and non-cooperating. Aiken had stated in past hearings that the non-cooperating defendants “want to have their cake and eat it too,” but in Paul’s cases it is the prosecution that wants this—their suggested sentence is extremely close to what Paul would have received had he lost at trial, but Paul has taken responsibility for what he has done and helped to resolve the Oregon federal cases.

Again returning to statements by Kolar, he stated that they simply were not true. Kolar stated that Paul drove his own van in one of the actions, but Paul has never had a van. At the University of Arizona, Paul was there to release animals, not commit arson.

Blackman stated that this is one of the most difficult cases to rule on. Paul is someone who did something very bad, quite a while ago. After he thought that he had gotten away with it, Paul nevertheless did penance. Paul donned the gear of the firefighter. Blackman stated to Aiken that he didn’t know how Aiken does it, that ruling on this case is extremely difficult. He doesn’t think that the government had properly assessed all the variables in this situation. Blackman does not think that one can impose a sentence over the mandatory minimum in this situation.

Aiken clarified what she meant about having one’s cake and eating it too. Six people have “stepped up” and cooperated with the government. Out in the community, their cooperation will follow them forever and they will receive a different sort of punishment. The non-cooperating defendants want to receive lower sentences but also want to avoid the sort of repercussions faced by the cooperators. Aiken then lectures about “random acts of violence.” Aiken wants to know what sort of message is going out to the young people. She wonders why Jonathan Paul didn’t use his wealth to draw attention to the issues in lawful and non-violent ways. She returns to the non-cooperation issue. Six defendants made the decision to cooperate, and four did not. “That’s just a factor” in her sentencing, she stated. She respects the negotiations, but wonders if people are truly intent on changing or if they are just donning a mask to curry favor. She says that she hopes Paul will say something to “change people’s behavior” away from “random acts of violence.” The young people deserve real leaders. “Change tactics.”

Blackman made a comment about what Paul has to say and that Aiken’s remarks were prescient. He turned to the issue of Paul’s non-cooperation and stated that the government still had the option of subpoenaing Paul before a grand jury. “The irony of all of this,” according to Blackman, is that even if Paul had been willing to trade information for government generosity, Paul had nothing to offer in terms of new information. The prosecution knows this.

Blackman discussed Jacob Ferguson’s first debriefing with the government. It included a long list of crimes, but not Cavel West. In the second debriefing, there it is. Blackman stated that he could have really shoved this fact down the government’s throat if there had been a trial.

Blackman stated that Paul did not name names, as it was a matter of personal integrity to take responsibility for his own actions and not deflect blame onto others.

Aiken stated that she sees this in court every day. There are “the rules” about informing on others. A father sold out his son, but the son didn’t sell out his father because of “the rules.” Money is taken away from education and the community because it has to go into containing “tough behavior.” She respects both sides of the legal arguments and has exercised discretion. She hopes for people to “turn down violence as a means of debate.” “Violence never starts debate, it only ends it.” She realize that the defendants have had to dig deep to figure out how they will portray themselves or reveal themselves at sentencing. She has to strike a balance and adhere to the guidelines and rules. “Regardless, I really hope that Mr. Paul has something profound to say.” At this point, there is a break.

Upon return, Blackman addresses Paul’s pre-sentence report (PSR). He wants “JP” to be removed as an alias for Jonathan Paul, as it is merely a nickname. Purdue, who took the lead in preparing the PSR, consents to this. Blackman wants the argumentative language in the overview of the offense to be removed. The reference to Cavel West as a federal crime of terrorism should also be removed, as should statements by Kevin Tubbs. These issues are taken into advisement. Blackman challenges information taken from Paul’s disclosure to the government being used under Federal Sentencing Guidelines section 1B1.8.

Aiken sings the praises of Mr. Purdue and those working with him. He has an enormous workload and pressing time constraints. Purdue is professional and has a sense of humor. He met other obligations as well, “enormous efforts”… The issues raised won’t impact on this hearing, only the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

Blackman returns to his criticisms of the PSR—more references to the terrorism enhancement, judgmental language in the characterization of victim impact, improper applications of guidelines, and a reference to the University of Oregon incident that shouldn’t be there.

Purdue states that he will make revisions once the court makes its findings. The BOP will look at what is decided by the court and interpret the PSR in light of this. Aiken states that once she rules, revisions will be made. She agrees to write letters to the BOP for defendants.

Jonathan Paul then made a statement. Jonathan Paul admitted that his part in the Cavel West arson was a crime. While it would be dishonest to say that he regrets Cavel West no longer being in business, the ends do not justify the means. He apologizes for the pain and hardship suffered by the victims. The arson was motivated by horror and despair at the horses destined to be slaughtered for human consumption, to spare living beings who suffer unimaginably. When he saw the flames and damage, he knew he could not be part of arson any more.

Paul has been a firefighter since ’99 and knows that arson is dangerous. “I crossed the line.” He has not done so since. Paul will do everything in his power to share this realization. He will continue to act for humans and animals, and against environmental degradation, but with lawful means or with public civil disobedience. He has tried to make amends, serve the community and alleviate suffering.

He thinks of his sister Caroline, who he is “incredibly proud of.” She was one of the first female firefighters in the Bay Area. He thought of her responding to a fire such as Cavel West. He thought of the firefighters who responded in 1997.

In 1999, he was made a lieutenant fire fighter. He declined the promotion at first, but in the end he was made to reluctantly agree. His knowledge of the inherent risks of fire only deepens his regret. His work as a firefighter became a newfound form of activism. He has become an emergency responder and EMT. He is proud of his skills and loved his work. He responded to approximately 2,000 calls. He put his feelings aside and even rescued a bear poacher. He rescued a three-year-old kitten. Both are sentient and equal, he said. Paul regrets that he was unable to keep up with his training following his arrest and his license expired.

A pivotal turning point in Paul’s life was when he met and fell in love with Tamara Drake. She is a paralegal and assists whale conservation litigation. They married in 2002 and built a life together. He did not share his “dark secret” as he was afraid he would lose her and that a cloud would be put over her lawful marine conservation work. They use solar energy and vegetable oil fuel—this is activism at its most basic level, leading by example. Paul apologizes to his family and thanks them for their love and support.

Paul apologizes to the fire service—his past actions were inexcusable, but his own work as a firefighter was always true. He wants to send a sincere message that what he did was “not OK.” He will work for animals and the environment in public and transparent ways, and deeply regrets that prison will cost him his work as a firefighter.

After Paul’s emotional statement, there was a break for lunch.

When court resumed after lunch, Aiken started doing her thing. Aiken stated that initially Paul seemed to “read” like the other non-cooperators, only doing what they had to. But she took a break to consider his words. “Believe me, I’m not trying to drag this out.”

Aiken had listened to Paul’s statement and found it thoughtful. “This is a classic case of good intentions gone wrong.” If humans are going to use animals, it should be humane. But Paul had crossed boundaries, more than once, apparently.

“I’m not convinced that some of your co-defendants get it.” Somewhat ironic that you put firefighters at risk. Congressional five-year mandatory minimum for arson. You meant to intimidate. Watched the surveillance tape of slaughter at Cavel West, “not pretty.” Why not publicize it? Why not work with those whose water supply was affected? That takes real work, “rolling up one’s sleeves” and doing work. But you just decided to destroy the property of business and government. What happened to the horses? They went somewhere else, maybe somewhere worse. “Actions didn’t help animal rights.”

There’s something that hasn’t been understood. “Generally, I honor negotiations.” Block, Zacher, McGowan and Paul decided to limit cooperation. “That was your choice” and “choices have consequences.” Others made their choice and face the detriment of being labeled as a “snitch.” Non-cooperators decided to be hailed as heroes for keeping their integrity “so to speak.” Non-cooperators face detriment of not getting the same sentence as cooperating defendants. Doesn’t know what information Paul could have given. “Right or wrong, that’s the system.” “Don’t put it back on me.” Without the government offer, Aiken could not depart downward from the mandatory minimum. Doesn’t like it when she keeps reading about the government overreaching in these cases. “Everybody could have rolled the dice at trial.”

Aiken begins her sentencing calculations. One charge each of conspiracy and arson, conspiracy grouped with arson. Starts with offense level 6, goes upward 13 for amount of loss, 2 for more than minimal role in planning. Cavel West not an attempt to influence, coerce or retaliate against government, so no terrorism enhancement. Down 3 levels for accepting responsibility. Criminal history of 1. Upward departure for attempting to frighten and intimidate others. Won’t do some complex up 30, down 25 levels calculation. Arrives at 57-71 months. Mandatory minimum of 60 months removed.

Further downward departures: circumstances different for each individual defendant. Aiken didn’t go down more than two levels for any defendant, even cooperators. Not inclined to do so here. No basis for going downward with Block and Zacher. Gave McGowan the “benefit of the doubt” and went down one level. Giving Paul the same benefit. Down one level, 51-63 months. Goals of sentencing to punish, rehabilitate and community safety.

Aiken wants to take a moment because this is the last sentencing. Bemoans immaturity, lack of mentoring. “So many of you have much to give.” “What’s the message to young people?” The planet is worth fighting for, but don’t break the law. “Walk the walk. [Note: abbreviated as WTW hereon] Practice what you preach. […] Do the little things.” “Why is it that we make heroes out of bad people?” Don’t live lavishly. Defendants “at a real crossroads.” They will be haunted by their words if they don’t WTW; we’ll see if these were just words, or the final layer of a mask.

Paul’s family stuck by him, love him. According to some psychologists, anger reflects an unmet need, “Let’s meet needs.” Lots of people hear what you have to say. Appreciated Paul standing up in court and renouncing arson. In the final analysis, it’s all in your head, so be true to yourself.

Aiken talks about her experience doing drug court, talks about somebody who “finally got it.” Volunteered to go into school and talk with children about his drug experiences. “I know when people WTW.” It’s these little successes that are important. “What role modeling.”

Sentence given as 51 months for conspiracy and same for arson, concurrently. The usual conditions, but no restitution due to settlement. No contact with groups involved with illegal action, other environmental and animal rights groups okay, with approval. Aiken will write a letter recommending FCI Sheridan.

Blackman appears confused about Aiken’s sentencing calculations. “How did we go up?” Aiken: “Then I’m not done.” Break as Aiken tries to crunch numbers, return.

Aiken: “Calculations are important,” begins again. States that she applied the upward departure for Cavel West frightening and intimidating others as with Kevin Tubbs. More sentencing grid stuff, 51 months in the end again.

Blackman: Refers to plea agreement, paragraph 9. He has right to appeal. Court had previously entered findings in Tubbs case and the upward departure was not for Cavel West. You can’t ex post facto (after the fact) apply a justification for the sentence. After mandatory minimum has been overcome, should be by the sentencing grid: 27-33 months. The court’s findings are binding; there is no authority to do this. Blackman urges the court to reflect and select an appropriate mechanism for sentencing. Assistant US Attorney claims that there is “nothing political” about these sentencings. Then why is there not truth in sentencing? Under United States v. Booker, the court has no justification for imposing this sentence. Aiken has made a fundamental error.

Aiken: “We’re going to leave this open.” Wants Blackman’s best argument in writing. Blackman has until the 15^th for his submission to the court, government has one week after to respond. Aiken insists that she referenced Cavel West when she departed upwards with Tubbs, regardless of how she referenced it. Reminds everyone that Paul entered into a plea agreement. Thanks Blackman for raising the issue. No date set for reconvening the sentencing.

Finally, a note of interest: Recently retired FBI agent John Ferreira showed up in court for Jonathan's sentencing. He was the lead investigator as early as the Detroit Ranger Station fire, and received many congratulatory handshakes from US Attorneys and others at their table when he walked into the courtroom. The government had sent out a press release and planned to hold a press conference at the courthouse after Jonathan's sentencing, crowing about their “job well done” in apprehending and sending to prison these members of the country’s “number one domestic terrorist threat.” Regardless of whether or not Marc Blackman’s legal jiu-jitsu gets Jonathan a better sentence, the disgruntled look on Ferreira’s face after the cancellation of his precious press conference was almost reward enough.

FBI tries to prosecute Rod Coronado for not being a "legal" Native American

Green Scare update: Rod Coronado goes back to trial

Thursday, June 07 2007

When the FBI raided our home in February of 2006, they confiscated several items that were not on the list of what they were looking for. (I don’t think they found anything they were looking for, anyhow….) But, when they saw predatory bird feathers, they took the opportunity to attack Rod on a spiritual level by challenging his right to possess the protected feathers. The basis of the argument is that Rod is illegally possessing feathers because he is not a registered native american. For what it is worth, every government document classifies him as native american, which testifies to the fact that they are using whatever avenue they can to keep him busy.

Fortunately for us, we see that it is a strong case. Rod is a participating member of the Pasqua Yaqui nation, and was gifted the feathers from elders during ceremony. The feathers were used strictly for ceremony, and we taught our children to respect them and never treat them as a toy. I hope to see Rod standing on the other end of this with an eagle feather in his hand fanning sage, without fear of repose.

The case begins on June 5, 2007 with the preliminary hearing. Please send out some strong energy, this struggle is deeply spiritual and prayers do help.

We have been enraptured in our daily lives, so full and rich. Even what might appear the doldrum of everyday life is set in a different hue as every moment is tinged in colors that come with knowing our time may be limited. We try not to let it take away from our experience, but add to it. We are doing a lot of strong work on our family relationships, building healthier ways of communicating, and continuing to develop committed relationships within our community. If you truly reap what you sow, I see a bountiful harvest in store for us. Please know we are so appreciative of everyone who continues to work with us, love us, and smile those warm smiles that reach us where we need it. We are feeling blessed, and I feel like we are in a pivotal place for the truth to be revealed.

Thank you to those who have offered support in unusual ways, it shows that people are incredibly capable of giving whatever they can. Who could doubt that there is hope for the world? We believe, and thanks for letting us be in that place!

Chrysta
http://www.supportrod.org

Eugene Weekly article about solidarity events for "ECO-WARRIOR JEFFREY LUERS"

ECO-WARRIOR JEFFREY LUERS

Jeffrey "Free" Luers, August 2005

from the Eugene Weekly, 6-7-07

www.eugeneweekly.com

The case of environmental activist Jeffrey "Free" Luers has drawn the attention of activists both locally and worldwide since he was imprisoned in 2000, and every year protests and other events mark the anniversary of his imprisonment. This year's Day of Solidarity with Luers, the "Jeff Luers 7th Anniversary Event," includes music, a showing of the documentary How I Became an Eco-Warrior and presentations on "green scare" sentencing hearings and Luers' appeal. The event is at 7 pm Wednesday, June 13 at Cozmic Pizza. $5 suggested donation.

Earlier this year the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed Luers' 22-year, eight-month sentence for setting fire to three SUVs at the Joe Romania Chevrolet dealership and attempted arson at the Tyree Oil depot. The court upheld the 2001 charges, but overruled the merger of some of his arson convictions. Luers will get a new sentence with a possible 10-12 year reduction.

Jeffrey Luers' supporters at www.freefreenow.org find his original sentence harsh, pointing out that no people were harmed and damages were moderate – less than $50,000. Supporters claim his political views and not his actions were on trial. "We believe that Jeff received such a drastic sentence because of the political nature of the action he took," reads a statement on the Jeff Luers Support Group webpage. They point out that more severe crimes result in shorter sentences.

Prosecutors viewed Luers as an eco-terrorist who lacks remorse and whose crimes could have led to more severe damage and even loss of life.

Luers' co-defendant, Craig "Critter" Marshall, pleaded guilty to charges related to the Romania fire and was released on parole after serving four and a half years. — Erin Rokita

IRSCNA ENDORSES RÓISÍN MCALISKEY CAMPAIGN

6 - 4 - 07 http://irsm. org/firsca/ irscna/

DEFEND RÓISÍN MCALISKEY!

The Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America call on all our supporters and members to actively back the campaign to defend Róisín McAliskey from extradition to Germany. Róisín has been accused of attacking the British military despite having been cleared several times over by the British authorities. The Irish Freedom Committee and
Coalition of Irish Republican Women are coordinating an international day of action for Róisín, and the details of this event are forwarded below with this statement.

This unjust action attack on Róisín McAliskey's democratic rights is yet another example of the farcical nature of the "peace" in Ireland; a peace for the ruling class to wage a one sided war on those who won't obey the imperialists and those who continue to defend the working class from neoliberal predatory attacks. It should come as no surprise that the daughter of the outspoken and still active socialist republican campaigner Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey is targeted for repression.

Is Muidne,

IRSCNA CC
http://irsm. org/firsca/ irscna/

Oregon Eco-Sabotage Cases Unjust and Incomplete

For Immediate Release: June 6, 2007

Civil Rights Outreach Committee

Contact:

Lauren Regan, Civil Liberties Defense Center, Eugene, OR, 541-687-9180

Oregon Eco-Sabotage Cases Unjust and Incomplete

Green Scare Investigations Continue in Other States

Eugene, OR--The last two of ten environmental and animal rights activists charged with crimes of property destruction in January 2006 were in federal court Monday and Tuesday for sentencing. The sentencing of one defendant, Jonathan Paul of Ashland, Oregon, was delayed while his attorney files an additional brief in response to Judge Aiken’s questionable use of the federal sentencing guidelines. Daniel McGowan of New York was sentenced on Monday to 84 months in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of arson and one of conspiracy.

Sentencing in the Department of Justice’s “Operation Backfire” cases began in federal court May 22 after a hearing May 15 to determine whether the government’s arguments for applying a “terrorism enhancement” on some of the crimes of property damage would be taken into account. Judge Aiken made that determination separately for each individual crime for each defendant. The judge ruled that terrorism enhancements applied to four out of 20 incidents involving seven of the ten defendants. The enhancement could send the young activists to maximum-security prisons that house the country’s most violent offenders.

Sentences ranged from three years for Darren Thurston to 13 years for Stan Meyerhoff. Jonathan Paul’s sentence will be determined later this month. Information about all the sentences, charges and legal documents can be found on the Civil Liberties Defense Center website at www.cldc.org.

Civil rights attorneys monitoring the cases are alarmed by the vilification of environmentalists by government prosecutors and the overreaching use of the terrorism enhancement. Federal law indicates that destructive actions designed “to influence or retaliate against the government” meet the criteria. Prosecutors have complete discretion to utilize this enhancement, choosing to label environmental defendants as “terrorists” while right-wing crimes, including numerous murders against doctors who perform abortions, have not been labeled thusly by the Department of Justice. Judge Aiken interpreted the enhancement broadly, cobbling together connections among government agencies and the targets of the vandalism, primarily private businesses. None of the acts of property damage injured anyone.

“The rulings in these cases set a dangerous precedent for activists engaged in civil disobedience like those engaged in the historic Underground Railroad or lunch counter sit-ins,” said Lauren Regan, attorney and director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Eugene. “Many activists engage in lawful activities that seek to influence or affect the conduct of business or government—that’s how change occurs in this country. When government is corrupted by corporate greed, the people and their attempts to save the environment and end senseless cruelty are often completely ignored.

“The government and the court both repeatedly tried to convince the public that the use of the terrorism enhancement was not ‘political’ nor intended to label these defendants as ‘terrorists.’ Neither statement could be farther from reality. Alberto Gonzalez and the FBI falsely accused a group of people that have never harmed a living thing as the ‘number one domestic terrorist threat’ to this country. That is laughable at this time in history and is simply being said for political gain. Whether you burn a building for insurance money or to save wild horses from horrific slaughter, the crime of arson should be prosecuted and punished equally. That is not the case with regard to these defendants. Anyone concerned with civil liberties should be scrutinizing the government’s motivations in this case.”

Though the Oregon cases have been mostly resolved, there are other cases in other states pending in what has become known as the “Green Scare” for its similarity to the “Red Scare” of the 1950s. The similarity being the government’s use of secret grand juries and inflammatory rhetoric, and its apparent political motivation in targeting activists who oppose government conduct. Briana Waters will go to trial in Washington State in September, as will animal rights activist Rod Coronado of Arizona, who faces charges for a speech he gave in San Diego. Investigations into the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front continue across the country but will not deter the incredibly successful work of millions of environmental and animal rights activists who continue to work in the public’s interest.

Update on Anti Fascist Toledo Rebel lasandra Burwell

We received 2 letters from locked down Toledo Rebel Lasandra Burwell in
the past month. For those that dont know Lasandra is doing 5 years in
state prison for throwing bricks at police and smashing a police cars wind
shield at a Nazi rally on 10/15/05.

She is thankful for the letters and support and goes on to say in part
"Keep writing cuz letters are like fresh air, when I hear was goin on in
the outside world... Its like a dark cloud hanging over this place. But I
try not to let it get me down, if its nothing positive I stay away ....
I'm missing my husband and kids dearly. I spend the days I'm not working
reading and trying to stay out of the way."

She made a couple requests for support. Keep in mind all books sent to Ohio
prisoners MUST come from a bookstore or the publisher. The Books 4
Prisoners Crew is an approved distributor of books to Ohio prisoners and
is happy to forward on any books to Lasandra you may have. All books
should be paperback and in new or like new condition. Contact us for more
info.

1. Any books by Jerome Dicky
2. Dutch by Nikki Turner (I got the impression from her letter that this
might be a series)
3. Any books by E. Lynn Harris

She also says her husband cannot afford to send her care packages. Care
packages from friends and family were banned in Ohio a couple years ago
under the guise of security and now must come directly from a third party
for profit vendor at inflated prices. She says "This places food is no
good." and requests if anyone can afford it to send her coffee and creamer
but mentions she would be grateful for anything. Check out
www.ohiopackages.com

Lasandra can also get up to 3 embossed envelopes per letter (NO loose
stamps!). With collect calls from prisoners running as high as $3.30 - $7
for 15 min (with phone company's giving kickbacks to the state to prey on
prisoners family's with these outrageous charges). Letters are one of the
only ways for her to keep in contact with her family. Please show Lasandra
she is not forgotten and support her in one of the above mentioned ways.
Even a letter will help keep her spirits up.

In The Struggle,
Steve
The Books 4 Prisoners Crew
P.O. Box 19065
Cincinnati, OH 45219

Lasandra Burwell #63658
Ohio Reformatory For Women
1479 Collins Ave.
> Marysville, OH 43040

Support the Eco-Prisoners (June 2007)

Spirit of Freedom
(June 2007)
Produced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

"I thank you all dearly for writing”
(Jon Ablewhite, Animal Rights Prisoner)

Welcome to the June 2007 edition of Spirit of Freedom.  I know we
normally publish a May newsletter, rather than a June newsletter. 
But ELP has been waiting for the results of the Oregon sentences.  As
everyone who has been following these sentences will be aware, all
but one of the defendants has now been sentenced.  Jonathan Paul was
due to be sentenced on on the 5th of June 2007, but his sentencing
has been delayed over a dispute around the actual length the Judge
wants to sentence him to.  It is unclear how long the delay will be,
so ELP decided to go ahead and publish our next newsletter whilst
waiting.  Obviously, one of the big news stories is the Oregon
sentences in America.  But as you all know, there are people jailed
around the world for their actions and we urge people not to forget
any of the prisoners as they all need our support.  Remember, no
matter where you are in the world, support the real eco-prisoners and
no compromise in defence of Mother Earth!

COURT REPORTS & LEGAL UPDATES

OREGON UPDATE
Since December 2005 ELP has been regularly reporting the events
around a series of raids/arrests in connection with a series of
direct actions that occurred in Oregon during the late 1990s and into
2001.

Between the end of May to the beginning of June 07, ten people were
sentenced for their involvement in those actions.  The sentences were
as follows:

Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block, both of whom refused to cooperate
with the authorities were sentenced to 7 years and 8 months each. 
Both are currently imprisoned and are expected to be moved soon.  ELP
is fully supporting Joy and Nathan and will bring you their new
addresses just as soon as we have them.

Daniel McGowan received 7 years.  Daniel is due to start this
sentence in early July.  ELP is fully supporting Daniel and will
publish his address just as soon as we have it.

Jonathan Paul, still to be sentenced.  ELP is fully supporting
Jonathan and will circulate his details just as soon as we have them.

Stanislas Meyerhoff (police informant) 13 years.

Kevin Tubbs (police informant) 12 years.

Chelsea Gerlach (police informant) 9 years.

Suzanne Savoie (police informant) 4 years.

Kendall Tankersley also known as Sarah Harvey (police informant) just
under four years.

Darren Thurston (police informant) 3 years.

Please note, ELP does not support any police informant and we will
not be offering support to any of these informants.

Also, we would like to remind people of ELP’s policy of other people
supporting police informants.
If anyone is identified as supporting a police informant and that
person later ends up in prison themself, they will be listed by ELP
as a “Friend of a Police Informant”.  ELP does not wish to see police
informants attacked or targeted in anyway.  But we do expect people
to isolate them from the movement and refuse to have any dealings
with them.

Also ELP is sad to report yet another police informant in this case. 
In the court papers it was revealed that Tubb’s fiancé, Michelle
Pace, who used to work for the Earth First! Journal, told the
authorities that she and Tubbs had received threats.  Pace claimed
that a British ELP volunteer had threatened her and she & Tubbs both
claimed a former American Animal Rights prisoner had also made
threats.  The lies that Pace & Tubbs told have not resulted in any
police action, but Pace’s lies are totally unacceptable and ELP is
naming Michelle Pace as a police informant.

ITS NOT OVER YET!
Despite the sentencing of the Oregon Defendants, ELP would like to
remind everyone that this case is not over yet.

Briana Waters is also accused of involvement in an ELF action which
has been associated with the Oregon case.  Briana has stated her
innocence.  Two of other police informants from the Oregon case,
Jennifer Kolar and Lacey Phillabaum, are due to testify against
Briana at her trial.  After they have testified these Kolar and
Phillabaum will both be issued with prison sentences.
ELP is supporting Briana Waters and we will bring you the results of
her trial as soon as we hear them.  The trial is due to start later
on this year.

MICHIGAN EF! ACTIVIST RAIDED
On 10/04/07 the FBI raided the house of a well known American Earth
First! activist based in Detroit, MI, USA.  Ten FBI agents searched
the activists home on the pretext of looking for ELF incendiary
devices.  They said they were investigating an attempted arson three
years ago against the Ice Mountain (Nestle bottled water plant in
Michigan).  Despite the raid no charges have been bought against the
activist.

This is not the first time this particular activist has been targeted
by the FBI.  Seven years ago the activist was raided, arrested and
charged with involvement in an ELF tree spiking action in Indiana,
USA.  The charges in that case were eventually dropped due to a lack
of evidence.

IL SILVESTRE UPDATE
On 11/05/07 the Court of Appeal ruled that Il Silvestre defendants,
Costantino Ragusa, Benedetta Galante, Leonardo Landi and Francesco
Gioia, who had all been found Guilty of participating in COR actions
were innocent and they were cleared of the charge of participating in
a terrorist conspiracy.
Unfortunately the same court ruled that Alessio Perondi and William
Frediani were guilty of forming the COR conspiracy and of carrying
out some actions.  However both men had their sentences reduced by
four months.  Both men are appealing this decision and are under
house arrest whilst they do so.

Following this latest Court appearance only Costantino Ragusa remains
imprisoned.

EUROPEAN RAIDS
At the end of April 2007 the police carried out a series of raids in
Britain, Holland and Belgium resulting in 32 people being arrested. 
Most of those arrests occurred in Britain.

The raids appear to have been aimed at SHAC activists and as a result
of those raids a number of people have been charged with “conspiracy
to blackmail”, with four of those arrested being remanded into
custody.

One of the people who was remanded has subsequently been released on
bail.  However three people, Greg Avery, Natasha Avery and Heather
Nicholson remain on remand.

ELP supporters will be aware that Greg, Natasha and Heather are well
known British activists who were founding members of the
international SHAC campaign.  Their remandings can be regarded as yet
another attempt by the police to silence these three highly dedicated
activists.

WAYNE BUNCH
On 11/04/07 British animal rights activist, Wayne Bunch, was
sentenced to 12 months imprisonment having been found guilty of
"blackmail" after sending what the police described as two abusive
and threatening letters to employees of the Hall family who were the
farmers who bred guinea pigs for torture & death at the hands of
vivisectors.  The Hall family ceased their involvement in this trade
after a successful campaign against their business by animal rights
activists.

BELARUS ANIMAL RIGHTS PRISONER
At the beginning of April 2007, Zhenya Shimanskiy, a vegetarian
activist from Minsk was arrested for non payment of a $1400 fine
imposed after he was found guilty of spray painting animal rights
slogans.  It is also alleged by the authorities that after the fine
was imposed on him he bricked the windows of a McDonalds in Minsk.

The authorities have declared Zhenya to be a dangerous extremist and
will not allow anyone to visit him.  His supporters have told ELP
that Zhenya may face several years imprisonment for his alleged
crimes unless money is raised to pay his fine.

SWEDISH ARSON TRIAL NEWS
At the start of May 2007 a 16-year old Swedish girl from Linkoping
was sentenced to 70 hours community service after she admitted
throwing two Molotov cocktails into a McDonalds in October 2006.

BELGIUM ANIMAL RIGHTS TRIAL
In June 2005 there was a demonstration in Belgium in support of two
ALF activists who were accused of smashing both some McDonalds and
some fur shops windows.

During that demo the police decided to try and arrest one of the
demonstrators, former ALF prisoner Geert Waegemans.  The crowd tried
to protect Geert and the police ended up arresting 17 people, three
of whom where remanded into custody.

At the end of April 2007, Geert, along with the other two activists
who were remanded, Joppe Anthonissen, and Olivier Van Moen were found
guilty of assaulting the police during that demonstration.  Joppe and
Olivier were both given 18-month sentences whilst Geert received 12
months.

All three are appealing their sentences and all three are on bail
pending the appeals.

SWEDISH REMAND PRISONERS
In May 07, three Swedish people were arrested accused of raiding and
rescuing rabbits, from a rabbit farm.  All three have been remanded
into custody.

For legal reasons the three do not wish to be identified but they
would welcome messages of support.  Therefore an e-mail address has
been set up where e-mailed messages of support can be sent to.  The
e-mail address is: brevtillknivsta@yahoo.se

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Fadalla Idris Alajaimy (address unknown).  Sudan anti-dam protester
on remand accused of Waging War against the State for protesting
against the construction of a dam.

Mohamed Ahmed Alajaimy (address unknown).  Sudan anti-dam protester
on remand accused of Waging War against the State for protesting
against the construction of a dam.

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Vancouver Island Regional Correction Center,
4216 Wilkinson Rd., Victoria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Canada.  On remand accused
of involvement with an arson on logging trucks and an arson on
vehicles owned by a sand & gravel company.  Both arsons occurred in
the USA.  Tre is fighting his extradition to the USA.

Grant Barnes #1533241, PO Box 1108, Denver, CO 80201, USA.  On remand
accused of setting fire to a number of SUV vehicles.  On one of the
vehicles the letters ELF was spray-painted.
Nathan Block, #1663667, Lane County Jail, 101 W 5th Ave., Eugene, OR
97401, USA.   Serving 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a
Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV dealership.   Also
admitted his role in an ELF/ALF conspiracy.

Marco Camenisch, Postfach 3143, CH-8105 Regensdorf, Switzerland. 
Serving 18 years.  1) Ten years for using explosives to destroy
electricity pylons leading from nuclear power stations.  2) Eight
years for the murder of a Swiss Boarder Guard whilst on the run.  In
‘02 Marco completed a 12-year sentence in Italy for destroying
electricity pylons in Italy.

Ibai Ederra, Carcel de Pamplona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 -
Iruñez – Pamplona, Navarra (España), Spain.  Serving just under 5
years for sabotaging machinery at the controversial Itoiz dam
construction site.

Jeffrey Luers, #13797671, OSP, 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310, USA.
Serving 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV dealership & the
attempted arson of an oil truck.

Ali Mohamed Alhassen Massad (address unknown).  Sudan anti-dam
protester on remand accused of Waging War against the State for
protesting against the construction of a dam.

Eric McDavid X-2972521 4E 231A, Sacramento County Main Jail, 651 "I"
Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, USA.  On Remand accused of planning to
destroy the property of the U.S. Forestry Service, mobile phone masts
and power plants.

Costantino Ragusa, Casa Circondariale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058
Voghera (PV), Italy.  Il Silvestre activist serving 2½ years.  1) 
18-months for burgling and firebombing a multinational company. 2)
12-months for organising an anti-GM protest.  Costanino is also
awaiting trial accused of using explosives to damage an electricity
pylon in protest at nuclear energy.

Joyanna Zacher #1662550, Lane County Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR
97401, USA.  Serving 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a
Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV dealership.  Also
admitted her role in an ELF/ALF conspiracy.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Ablewhite TB4885, HMP Lowdham Grange, Lowdham, Nottingham, NG14
7DA, England.  Serving 12 years for attempting to blackmail a farmer
who supplied guinea pigs for vivisection.

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Winchester, Romsey Road, Winchester SO22 5DF,
England.  On remand accused of conspiracy to blackmail, in relation
to his involvement with the SHAC campaign.

Natasha Avery VM4846, HMP Bronzefield, Woodthorpe Road, Ashford,
Middx. TW15 3JZ, England.  On remand accused of conspiracy to
blackmail, in relation to her involvement with the SHAC campaign.

Nathan Block – See details in Eco Defence Prisoners.

Wayne Bunch  VB7189, HMP Brockhill, Hewell Lane, Redditch,
Worcestershire, B97 6RD, England.  Serving 12 months for blackmail
having been found guilty of sending abusive letters to an animal
abuser.

Jacob Conroy #93501-011, FCI Victorville Medium I Federal
Correctional Institution, P.O. Box 5300, Adelanto, CA 92301, USA.
Serving 48 months imprisonment for helping organise the SHAC-USA
campaign.

Donald Currie TN4593, HMP Whitemoor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs,
PE15 OPR, England.  Serving an Indeterminate Sentence, of not less
than six actual years, for carrying out arsons against targets
associated the vivisection industry including HLS.

Josh Demmitt 12314-081, FCI Safford, Federal Correctional
Institution, P.O. Box 9000, Safford, AZ 85548, USA.  Serving 30
months for an ALF arson on a University animal testing facility.

Darius Fullmer #26397-050, FCI Fort Dix Satellite Camp, P.O. Box
1000, Fort Dix, NJ 08640 USA.  Serving 12 months for helping organise
the SHAC-USA campaign.

Lauren Gazzola #93497-011, FCI Danbury, Federal Correctional
Institution, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serving 54 months
imprisonment for helping organise the SHAC-USA campaign.

Sarah Gisborne, LT5393, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU,
England.  Serving 5½ years for conspiracy to cause criminal damage
following the damaging of 8 vehicles owned by people linked to
Huntingdon Life Science.

Joshua Harper #29429-086, FCI Sheridan Federal Correctional
Institution, P.O. Box 5000, Sheridan, OR 97378 USA.  Serving 36
months imprisonment for helping organise the SHAC-USA campaign.

Joseph Harris TN5728, HMP Bullingdon, Patrick Haugh Road, Arncott,
Nr. Bicester, Oxon, OX25 1WD, England.   Serving 2 years for damaging
the property of people associated with Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Kevin Kjonaas #93502-011, FCI Sandstone, PO Box 1000, Sandstone, MN
55072 USA.  Serving 72 months imprisonment for helping organise the
SHAC-USA campaign.

Josephine Mayo PR6508, HMP Drake Hall, Eccleshall, Staffs, ST21 6LQ,
England.  Serving 4 years for attempting to blackmail a farmer who
supplied guinea pigs for vivisection.

Heather Nicholson VM4859, HMP Bronzefield, Woodthorpe Road, Ashford,
Middx. TW15 3JZ, England.  On remand accused of conspiracy to
blackmail, in relation to her involvement with the SHAC campaign.

Trish Portwine, TM7153, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU,
England.  Serving fifteen months for her role in loud demonstrations
outside the offices of companies with links to HLS.

Zhenya Shimanskiy, Evgeniy Dmitrievich Shimanskiy, Volodarskogo str.
2, room 35, 220050 Minsk Belarus. On remand for non-payment of a fine
imposed for spray painting animal rights slogans.  Also accused of
smashing the windows of a McDonalds.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowdham Grange, Lowdham, Nottingham, NG14 7DA,
England.  Serving 12 years for attempting to blackmail a farmer who
supplied guinea pigs for vivisection.

Andrew Stepanian #26399-050, FCI Butner Medium II Federal
Correctional Institution, PO Box 1500, Butner, NC 27509 USA. Serving
36 months for helping organise the SHAC-USA campaign.
Mark Taylor TT6636, HMP YOI Onley, Rugby, Warkwickshire, CV23 8AP,
England.  Serving four years for organising loud demonstrations
outside the offices of companies with links to HLS.

Suzanne Taylor, TM7154, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU,
England.  Serving two and a half years for helping organise loud
demonstrations outside the offices of companies with links to HLS.

Kerry Whitburn TB4886, HMP Lowdham Grange, Lowdham, Nottingham, NG14
7DA, England.  Serving 12 years for attempting to blackmail a farmer
who supplied guinea pigs for vivisection.

Joyanna Zacher – See details in Eco Defence Prisoners.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Woodson, 03231-045, FMC Carswell - Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137,
Ft. Worth, TX  76127, USA.  Serving 8 years 10 months for actions
that focused on the interrelationship of war & the destruction of the
natural world.  The actions included pouring red paint over the
security desk of a federal court and making threatening
communications.  Previously Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using
a hammer to disarm a nuclear missile silo.  2) Burning $25,000 on the
floor of a bank whilst denouncing war, environmental destruction &
economic injustice.  3) Mailing warning letters with bullets attached
to Government & corporate officials.

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Brendan Walsh 12473-052, FCI/FSL Elkton, PO Box 10, Lisbon, OH 44432
USA.  Serving 5 years for an arson on an army recruitment office in
protest at the War on Iraq.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lecce Five have been charged with “subversive association”
accused of damaging Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq;
sabotaging the cash machines of a bank which funds an immigration
centre; and targeting the multinational company Benetton in support
of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile.  All of the defendants are
currently either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasandra Burwell W063658, Ohio Reformatory for Women, 1479 Collins
Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA.  Serving 5 years for taking part in
an anti-fascist demonstration which turned into a riot.

Vahtang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedova 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, brigada
142, g. Hagyshensk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Russia.  Serving 2½
years for stabbing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defending himself
from attack.

Augustin Kraus, Vazebni veznice, PP-1, Litomerice, 41 201, Czech
Republic.  Serving 14 months for his participation in attacks against
local neo-nazis. His charge was "bodily harm". He speaks Czech,
Slovak and Polish.  You can also write him short postcards in English.

Tomasz Wiloszewski, Zaklad Karny, Orzechowa 5, 98-200 Sieradz,
Poland.  Serving 15 years for accidentally killing a neo-nazi whilst
defending himself.

PARTY & PROTEST
Around the world there have been several massive protests against
global capitalism and its environmental impact.  The following have
all been jailed in connection with the protests.

Jonathan Philip Robert, Crisp County Detention Center, 197 Ga. Hwy.
300 South, Cordele, GA 31015, USA  (12 months)

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar Santa Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahuatlan de Porfirio Diaz, Oaxaca
en Hall B, Cell 5., Mexico.  On remand.  The exact charges against
Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a member of RATA, a known animal
rights group.

Sacramento Delfino Cano Hernandez, CERESO, Miahuatlan de Porfirio
Diaz, Oaxaca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mexico.  On remand.  Co-defendant of
Oscar Santa Maria Caro.

Olga Aleksandrovna Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhinskiy,
Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Russia. Eco-activist serving 6
years for arson, criminal damage and causing explosions in protest at
the war in Chechnya.  Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thompson, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Vandalia, MO
63382, USA.  Serving Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalker who
had broken into her home. Before her imprisonment Fran was an eco,
animal & anti-nuke campaigner.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-revolutionary group who carried out protests in
defence of all life. There are currently eight MOVE activists in
prison each serving 100 years after been framed for the murder of a
cop in 1979.  9th defendant, Merle Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Debbie Simms Africa  (006307), Janet Holloway Africa  (006308) and
Janine Philips Africa (006309)  all at: SCI Cambridge Springs, 451
Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both
at SCI Grateford, PO Box 244, Grateford, PA 19426-0244, USA.

Edward Goodman Africa  (AM4974), 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.
William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Delbert Orr Africa (AM4985) both
at SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg
PA 15370, USA.  In 1981 Mumia, former Black Panther and vocal
supporter of MOVE, was framed for the murder of a cop.  He was
originally sentenced to death but is currently awaiting re-sentencing
following a court hearing in 2001.

MAPUCHE PRISONERS & OTHER LAND RIGHTS PRISONERS
Due to space limitation we cannot publish the names & addresses of
the Mapuche & Land Rights prisoners in this edition of Spirit of
Freedom, however if you would like a list please contact Spirit of
Freedom.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some people listed in this newsletter have carried out violent
actions.  ‘Spirit of Freedom’ does not condone violence.  But we are
also against censorship & believe people can decide for themselves
who they wish to support.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an international eco-prisoner support network founded, in
Britain, in 1993 to support jailed eco-activists.  We support the
prisoners by producing various regular prisoner lists:
Spirit of Freedom is ELP’s international bimonthly publication
(available via e-mail or in a paper version).  If you would like to
receive a copy contact Spirit of Freedom, BM Box 2407, London, WC1N
3XX, England.  Or e-mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

Urgent ELP! Bulletin is an e-mail service that distributes the names
of any new eco-prisoner as soon as ELP gets their details.  For more
info e-mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newsletters – ELP has a number of websites that provide news,
prisoner lists and additional info about ELP & the prisoners.

English language ELP Website
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North American ELP Website
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turkish language ELP Website
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e-mail group that circulates the details of political
prisoners, ELP learns about, who do not fall within the remit for
support by ELP.  To subscribe to the list e-mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Belgium ELP.SN is our Belgium contact.  For more info e-mail
elp_bel@hotmail.com

German ELP.SN is a prisoner led initiative run by eco-prisoner Marco
Camenisch.  For more info contact Marco Camenisch, Postfach 3143,
CH-8105 Regensdorf, Switzerland.

North American ELP is our North American contact.  For more
information e-mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turkish contact.  For more info e-mail
yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

North American ELP Prisoner Fund.  The North American ELP group has
set up a fund where people can pay money, for North American
Eco-Defence and Animal Rights prisoners, which will then be
distributed to the North American prisoners.  For information about
the Fund and how to make a donation please contact
naelpsn@mutualaid.org

DEDICATION
This Edition of Spirit of Freedom is dedicated to Bill ‘Avalon’
Rodgers, the American ‘Oregon Defendant’ who ended his own life in
December 2005 whilst on Remand.

SF 8 Court Hearing Moved to Monday, June 18

Due to a conflict in Judge Philip Moscone's schedule, the next

hearing for the SF 8 will now be on Monday, June 18, Department 21 -

850 Bryant Street in San Francisco. The court session will be at 9

a.m. with a rally in front of 850 Bryant Street at 8 a.m.

_______________________________________________

Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:

http://www.cdhrsupport.org/what_to_do.html#donate

Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)

PO Box 90221

Pasadena, CA 91109

(415) 226-1120

FreetheSF8@riseup.net

Daniel sentenced to 7 years

Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan

Daniel was sentenced to a 7 year (84 month) sentence on Monday June 4th in Eugene Federal Court for his participation in arsons at Superior Lumber Company and Jefferson Poplar Farms. The government was asking for 7 years, 8 months.

Judge Aiken also gave Daniel the "terrorism enhancement" for the arson at Jefferson Poplar Farms because of particular language in the communique for that incident. We do not know what impact this will have on Daniel's classification in the Bureau of Prisons.

As you can imagine, we are completely overwhelmed by the last two days in court and only want to extend our thanks to everyone for the constant emails, phone calls and check ins over the last couple of weeks.

Daniel will be reporting to prison on July 2nd and will be finishing his first quarter of his masters degree program and spending time with his friends and family until he goes in. We will be sending out updates shortly.

Thank you,
Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan

This weekend! - Days of Solidarity with Jeffrey Free Luers

The 2007 International Day of Solidarity with Jeffrey Free Luers takes place this coming weekend, June 9th. Below is a list of events we have been informed about. If you know of additional events or want to organize one, please let us know the details and we will post them.

This is a very critical time in Jeff’s case as he awaits resentencing. It is also a trying time for the activist community in general with the recent bogus terrorism enhancement to the defendants in the Green Scare cases sentenced these past 2 weeks. See http://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/greenscare/

To support legal efforts on behalf of both Jeff and the Green Scare defense, please go to http://www.cldc.org. As always, direct donations can be made to Jeff at http://www.freefreenow.org/donate.html

I hope you join us in this Day of Solidarity and help spread the word about Jeff’s case and others. For the original statement about this event and other details, go to http://freefreenow.org/june2007.html or see the end of this email.

Thank you for your support! And don’t forget to check out the events below.
-Friends of Jeffrey Free Luers

-----------

June 9, 2007 International Day of Solidarity with Jeffrey Free Luers
Events

Eugene, Oregon:

Wednesday June 13th, 7pm at Cozmic Pizza, 199 W 8th Ave. Music by Inkwell Rhythm Makers and Blair Street Mugawumps. Film Premiere of "How I Became an Eco-warrior" - a new documentary about Jeff. $5 donation. Contact: breakthechains02@yahoo.com
**The Eugene event will be broadcast LIVE on the Indra's Internet Lounge website: http://www.indras.org

New York, New York:

Saturday June 9th, 4pm; Backyard Vegan BBQ Bonanza! 239 Himrod St Apt. 1 b/t Knickerbocker and Irving, Brooklyn, NY Included in the festivities will be: Vegan burgers, wings, shish-kebabs! Sweet vegan treats! Music! Beer! Movies-The Spook Who Sat by the Door, and a new documentary about Jeff! A piñata! Info about current activist projects in NYC! $8-12 suggested donation. Contact: pafproductions@yahoo.com.

Norfolk & Virginia Beach, Virginia:

Sunday June 10th, 11am critical mass bike ride to bring attention to Jeff's case and global warming, coinciding with the “International Day of Action Against Climate Change and the G8” followed by a 5pm screening of documentary and vegan treats.

Long Island, New York:

Friday June 8th, 2pm, Vegan potluck and letter-writing party: vegan treats, post stamps, pens, paper, music, and more! $5 suggested donation, or bring food/stamps. 390 Beebe Rd, Mineola, NY Contact: anarchyriotqueen@yahoo.com

Albuquerque, New Mexico:

June 8th at 10 pm; Public access TV channel 27 airing of 22/8: The Jeffrey Free Luers Story and live streaming at http://quote-unquote.org

Melbourne, Australia:

Saturday June 9th, filmscreening of 22/8 documentary Contact: abcmelb@yahoo.com.au
--------

Announcement of the June 9, 2007 Day of Solidarity with Jeffrey "Free" Luers

June marks the seventh year that our friend and comrade, Jeffrey "Free" Luers has been imprisoned and held captive by the state. Sentenced to an outrageous 22 years and 8 months for burning three Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) at Romania Chevrolet in Eugene, Jeff has continued to be active in prison and fight back with his words and inspiration. Although Jeff recently won his appeal and is expecting a reduced sentence, this case is not over:

"I have spoken with my attorney and there are still many battles ahead. Hard choices will have to be made. I am by no means close to walking out of prison, just one step closer. This is a victory, and while my own personal struggle is making headway others are just beginning."

We encourage people to organize events for Jeff and other political prisoners, uniting struggles for human, earth, and animal liberation. In Jeff's own words:

"This June, show your solidarity with me, and all those who have struggled, past and present, to make this world a better place. Struggle with us. Hold demonstrations or gatherings at federal buildings or US embassies and demand change. It doesn’t matter what cause or issue you
fight for - we are all connected. What does matter is that we stand united and make our voices heard."

For more information on how to get involved, contact Jeff's support network at PO Box 3, Eugene, Oregon 97440 USA. Email freefreenow@mutualaid.org and visit www.freefreenow.org Donations for Jeff's re-sentencing attorney are urgently needed, please help via www.freefreenow.org/donate.html
Write to Jeff at Jeffrey Luers, #13797671, Oregon State Penitentiary, Salem, OR 97310

Donate to Jeff's Legal Defense:
1-Online through the 'make a donation' button at http://www.freefreenow.org
2-Send a check or money order to: "Free's Defense Fund" and mail to
PO Box 3, Eugene, OR 97440

to join this list or manage your subscription go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/freejeffluers

http://www.freefreenow.org

Bill Ayers on ELF

June 5th, 2007 billayers.wordpress.com

Earth Liberation Front members convicted of arson in Oregon have had their sentences “enhanced” because the government decided to charge them under the overbroad terrorism laws. According to the government, any activity that attempts to influence the conduct of government through “force or violence” is an act of terrorism. Imagine10 people burning their draft cards in the public square as a protest to war, or five priests and nuns illegally entering a missile base and pouring blood on a nuclear warhead, or a small group of militants tearing up the railroad tracks leading from a munitions factory. Each group committed a crime, each destroyed property,and if arrested, every member would be charged, tried, and punished. But calling any of that terrorism distorts the meaning of the word and is a slippery slope towards authoritarian rule.

A useful definition of terrorism might be something like this: terrorism is warfare deliberately waged against noncombatants — or innocents or civilians — for the purpose of intimidation or provocation in a political struggle. Terrorists intend to effect change through violence and bullying, and in that way, to undermine policies they oppose.

Acts of terrorism can be inflicted on people by an individual or group, a party or faction or religious order, a gathering of insurgents, or an established state. No one — individual, group, sect, or state — has a monopoly on terror as a form of combat. Even a casual nod at history reveals just how pervasive a tool it has been: the Roman legions, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks all used massacres, pillaging, burning of homes and farms, and mass rape in the service of empire, as did the Incas and the Aztecs, and later the Spanish who overwhelmed them both. In modern times, the founders of Israel used terrorism against the British and the Palestinians; the Palestinians use terrorism against Israel; and Israel currently employs terror in the service of settlement and occupation. In our own national story, terror is a defining signature of the Indian wars, Sherman’s “March to the Sea,” and the bloody war in Vietnam. If we use a stable and consistent definition, then it is a fact that the overwhelming number of terrorist events in the world today are caused by established governments, notably our own.

Members of the Earth Liberation Front were convicted of arson, a serious crime. If what they did was terrorism, then terrorism has come to mean any act in opposition to the rulers.

Audio of 2006 GreenScare Events

provided by Jim Lockhart  
jglockhart@comcast.net  

This was a three part event which took place in March and
April of 2006, sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild and
Northwest Constitutional Rights Center.

Audio files of all three events:
PhilosopherSeed Features Page

The first two are up on Google video as well.

Terrorism Creep, the Terrorization of Criminal and Free
Speech Acts.

Greenscare, But is this Really Terrorism? Environmental
Crimes and the War on Terror

A third video is also on Google, being the presentation
given at the second event by Barbara Dudley, professor of
Political Science at Portland State University. Barbara, a
past director of Greenpeace USA as well as a former
president of the National Lawyers Guild, brings a broad and
deep perspective to the issue.

Barbara Dudley

A video of the third event, narrated by Alan Graf, founder
of the Northwest Constitutioonal Rights Center is now
complete and will soon be playing on Public Access
television.
For schedules of this and other programs:
PhilosopherSeed Public Access Schedules

And last, the Public Access program, "A Growing Concern"
for Friday, June 1 featured a video on this issue produced
by local videographer and producer Steve the Green as well
as about a 1/2 hour of live phone calls on the subject.
This program replays this evening, 6/5/07 at 10:30 on
channel 23

http://www.philosopherseed.org/features.htm

Report from Daniel McGowan's Sentencing

6/4/07

Asst. U.S. Atty. Stephen Peifer for the government:

Daniel McGowan has plead guilty to one count of conspiracy,
and arson charges related to actions at Superior Lumber in
Glendale, Oregon and Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie,
Oregon. His aliases have included Dylan Kay, Jamie Moran,
Sorrel, Djenni, Rabid, Agent Tart Classique, and Agent Key
Lime. Peifer said he has had lengthy involvement with many
underground groups, including the Biotic Baking Brigade
(BBB), California Croppers, Cropatistas, Reclaim the Seeds,
Washington Tree Improvement Association, and Anarchist
Golfers' Association. Although many co-defendants in this
case have said in court that they had never used the name
"The Family", McGowan used it often and repeatedly.

Daniel, he said, was two different people; the one his
family and friends knew, and his underground persona. He
characterized Daniel as having a "Jeckyll and Hyde"
personality. He said that, like Tubbs who committed his
first arson solo, in 1997 Daniel "acted alone", breaking
windows and spray painting "ALF" at a Macy's in Brooklyn
for selling furs, Zamir Furs in Brooklyn, and a business
called "Evolution" that sold parts of endangered animals.

In 1998, Daniel moved to San Francisco where he met Suzanne
Savoie. In November of that year, he threw a pie in the
face of the Sierra Club president. Peifer said this was
"more than a symbolic act", and that by this time, Daniel
had given up on mainstream environmentalism. Also that
month, Daniel pied The CEO of Novartis Seeds and the Dean
of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. The communiqués
attributed the acts to the Biotic Baking Brigade. Peifer
said that Daniel was associated with the group as late as
2004. The same year, Daniel targeted Fidelity Investments
(for their investment in Occidental Petroleum) by throwing
etching solution on their windows. In December, there was a
power outage in San Francisco, and Peifer stated that
Daniel took advantage of the opportunity to target the Bank
of America with paint-filled balloons "apparently just
because it was a financial institution".

In July 1999, Daniel performed reconnaissance at a
UC-Berkeley plant research facility. He drew a diagram of
the genetically engineered corn crop, which was then used
by others to tear the crops up. Daniel was not there,
Peifer said, because he was busy in Lodi, California (with
a group calling themselves the Lodi Loppers) destroying GE
corn owned by Eureka Seeds. The communiqué, was written by
Daniel. The same year, Daniel was involved in another
action against genetic engineering with a group called
Reclaim the Seeds. At the end of 1999, Daniel moved to
Seattle to begin preparing for the WTO ministerial, but,
according to Peifer, "his work lived on" in a 'zine called
The Nighttime Gardener, posted on the Bioengineering Action
Network's website. Peifer said it was similar to the how-to
guides written by Bill Rodgers, with instructions on how to
attack research facilities and "destroy years of
researchers' work". While living in Seattle, Daniel and
Suzanne Savoie travelled to Pullman, Washington to target a
potato research facility [I'd like to note here, that
Peifer never once said the words "genetic engineering" in
describing all these "facilities" and "research"], but the
action was called off due to a vehicle breakdown. In
November, three days before the WTO battle, there were
attacks at two GE crop sites, in Puyallup, Washington and
at the University of Washington (which Peifer called
"prophetic"). Daniel wasn't there because he was sick and
denied writing the communiqué, but said that parts of it
appeared to be based on his research. The communiqué makes
reference to Toby Bradshaw, whose office was later targeted
during the "Double Whammy" arson at the University of
Washington.

From November 30 through December 2, the WTO met [or tried
to] in Seattle. Peifer said Daniel was an "integral part"
of the black bloc actions of property destruction. He said
Seattle was "understaffed by police" who " had their hands
full" dealing with non-violent "legal protesters". He
referred again to the planned action at Cargill that he
said was called off because the team didn't want to "tangle
with Longshoremen" at the site. "McGowan changed his plans
and rampaged through the streets instead," Peifer said,
"using a tire iron to smash windows. McGowan favored the
use of a slingshot with ball bearings, which sounds as
dangerous as it is."

In 2000, Daniel moved to Eugene, where he was invited to
attend his first "book club" meeting, but he didn't go to
that one. "By that time, he was a trusted member of the
Family, otherwise he would not have been invited," said
Peifer. Daniel committed acts of vandalism around Eugene --
at Umpqua Bank, and at a "health food store", according to
Peifer. For a short time, Daniel worked for the Earth
First! Journal, which was not "radical or extreme enough"
for him, says Peifer, who quoted a line from a letter to
the Journal from “Rabid” that read, "If Earth First! won't
support the ELF, who will?" In June of 2000 with Savoie,
Daniel targeted the Pure Seed Testing Company in Canby,
Oregon, destroying their greenhouses and test plots, and
causing half a million in damage. The communiqué released
by the Anarchist Golfers' Association was "full of
McGowan's well-known humor and ridicule," according to
Peifer. The communiqué blamed the US Forest Service and
APHIS for their role in biological destruction, which
Peifer said was another example of how Daniel has targeted
government agencies and private facilities "over and over
again" to intimidate, coerce and retaliate.

The following month, Daniel travelled to the Midwest to
work with an entirely different cell. Peifer said that the
plea agreement does not require Daniel to name names, but
that the Midwest group is an entirely different cell of
people and that Daniel is protecting them and thwarting
their investigation by refusing to name them -- "not that
there haven't been leads," he said. While in the Midwest,
Daniel researched and carried out an attack on the a US
Forest Service Biotechnology Laboratory in Rheinlander,
Wisconsin, which Peifer said was "looking for alternative
ways to create wood pulp to save trees". Over one million
dollars in damage was done, and Daniel wrote the
communiqué. In September, Daniel attended the "book club"
meeting in Santa Cruz, where he "lectured" to the others
about actions against genetic engineering. That December,
Daniel performed a recon mission at Jefferson Poplar, which
was a large and challenging target, so the action was put
off, and instead, Superior Lumber was targeted. Daniel
reconnoitered the site a week before the arson, and moved
into a nearby house "solely to prepare". He "lived with the
devices and fuel" and on the night of the action, helped
load the vehicle and rode with the crew, changed into dark
clothing, checked the radios, and acted as lookout while
the others set the devices that caused over a million
dollars damage. After the action, Daniel and Savoie went to
Portland and used a public computer to write the
communiqué. Peifer said Daniel went into the bathroom at
Powell's Books to assemble the communiqué, "almost like
Mission Impossible".

In January of 2001, Daniel attended his second "book club"
meeting in Olympia, prior to the "Double Whammy" and
Romania fires. In March, Daniel played a "major role" in
the tree spiking of the Judie timber sale. Peifer said
Daniel researched tree spiking, so he "knew about the
danger to loggers and millworkersmill workers", that he
purchased the nails and spikes, and that he personally
recruited others. They worked for two and a half hours,
"wearing headlamps like miners" and spiked the trees high
and low, cutting off the ends of some so that loggers would
not see the nails. Daniel wrote the communiqué, which
stated that, "All responsibility for worker safety now lies
with the owner of the sale, Seneca Jones Corporation and
their accomplices, the Forest Service. Cancel thise sale
immediately." Peifer said that Daniel's actions were
"callous and reckless", and that tree spiking was renounced
by Judi Bari before Redwood Summer.

Daniel was not involved in the Romania arson, but Meyerhoff
came to Daniel to approve the communiqué. Daniel was
concerned that the communiqué mentioned Free and Critter,
but was unable to sway the group to change it.

Originally, the action at Jefferson Poplar was supposed to
be "simply destroying the trees" as with other GE actions
Daniel had participated in, but this was "ratcheted up to
arson". Daniel knew about the "Double Whammy" (simultaneous
arsons planned for the University of Washington
Horticulture Center and Jefferson Poplar in Oregon). Peifer
called it a "well-planned and coordinated crime". Daniel
helped purchase the needed supplies and took part in the
construction of the devices wearing a Tyvek "clean suit"
and gloves. He set the devices in the office and garage
using "trailers” of bedsheets soaked in fuel to link the
vehicles together, and spray painted "ELF" on the unburned
building. Regarding the placement of a device near a
propane tank, Peifer said Daniel and Meyerhoff had a brief
discussion about it and that Daniel expressed concern, but
ultimately it was still left there. Gerlach and Daniel
wrote the communiqué, which was out to get the government,
according to Peifer.

Peifer spoke again about how there had been a disagreement,
involving Craig Rosebraugh, about alterations made to the
communiqué, and that Rosebraugh "lost his job over it.",
which illustrates Daniel's "depth of involvement" in the
movement. Peifer showed an overhead projection of the
Spirit of Freedom newsletter from June/July of '01, which
Daniel published (as part of the North American Earth
Liberation Prisoner Support Network he established and ran)
that contained an article entitled "Fascist Legislation in
the Works" about laws being passed in Oregon and Washington
targeting direct action activists. Peifer used the exhibit
to show that Daniel had an interest in influencing
government and should have the terrorism enhancement
applied in the Jefferson Poplar fire. He said, "For years,
McGowan has been targeting government and private
facilities."

At Daniel's third "book club" meeting, held in Sisters,
Oregon, the altered communiqué was discussed, as wasnd the
possible dissolution of "The Family". On June 18th of 2001,
Daniel damaged logging equipment totaling $22,000, and in
July he, dug up and damaged culverts at a timber sale in
Oregon. Following that action, he went to Canada, and
"tries to make it look innocent", says Peifer, but Grand
Juries were being convened in Eugene and people subpoenaed,
so Daniel left to "avoid getting arrested". He returned to
Eugene briefly before moving back to New York. Peifer made
the "Jeckyll and Hyde" allusion again, saying that during
his time back in New York, Daniel engaged in "legitimate"
activism while remaining sympathetic to direct action
tactics. As for Daniel's prisoner support work, Peifer said
he was only willing to support those who had not cooperated
with law enforcement and that his current support is filled
with "like-minded people".

On January 20, 2004, Daniel stood by while someone tossed a
pie into the face of Randall Terry, founder of
right-wingnut pro-life wackos Operation Rescue [my words,
not Peifer's. But the following are Peifer's words:]
"Apparently free speech and lawful protest only go so far
with Mr. McGowan." Daniel wrote the communiqué, which was
signed, Agent Key Lime. Also in 2004, Daniel was a key
organizer for RNC Not Welcome website designed "to make
conventioneers feel unwelcome in his hometown." He Peifer
showed articles from the New York Times and Salon.com in
which Daniel, going by the name Jamie Moran, disavows
violence against people, but not property. Peifer said
Daniel was "directing his cadre of anarchists, dogging
delegates, and trying to make Republicans' lives as
miserable as possible."

Peifer then played excerpts of the recorded conversations
Daniel had with the wired [double entendre] Jake Ferguson.
In the recordings, captured when Ferguson visited Daniel in
New York in April of 2005 and again when Daniel visited
Eugene in August that year, they discuss whether the
actions had any lasting effect. Daniel said he felt the
actions had been a powerful symbol, even though most of the
targets had been rebuilt. He referred to Vail as a
"recruitment drive", and expressed that he felt the actions
had been successful in changing public perception. Daniel
also expressed concern about others in the cell turning on
each other, and said that if any of them were ever
captured, he would find the money to hire the best lawyer
available for that person. He said the only reasons he felt
anyone would talk were if they "found Jesus", went insane
or if they wanted money, to which Jake jumped in and said,
"Money? What do you mean?" and to which  Daniel replied,
"That's some Judas shit, man." Daniel spoke about Free's
case, and talked about hiring a private investigator to
reveal a personal friendship between (the judge from Free's
case), Lyle Velure, and the Steve Romania family (owners of
the SUV lot Free targeted.) He also spoke about putting
Velure's address and phone number on a website (although he
never did it).

Then Daniel talked about finding a copy of Bill Rodgers'
"Setting Fires with Electronic Timers", making "clean"
copies, and sending them to some distributors in hopes they
would be circulated. While Ferguson drove Daniel to the
airport that "visit", they passed a Seneca Sawmill (owners
of a company Daniel remembered as linked to the Superior
Lumber Company but that was actually connected to the Judie
sale), laughed and said "Happy fuckin' New Year, " (i.e.
referring to the New Year arson at Superior Lumber.)

Peifer said the comment showed Daniel's attitude. He said
that, if Nathan and Joyanna plead out because they "had
to", that Daniel's "goose was cooked" by those tapes. In
them, he recounts all his major criminal acts and reveals
his attitude toward the law. Peifer then quoted Emerson,
"'Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.' Right
now, your Honor, Daniel McGowan's world is made of glass."
He said the government is seeking 92 months' sentence.

Defense Arguments

Amanda Lee presented arguments for Daniel McGowan. She
began by quoting Gandhi, "You must be the change you wish
to see in the world." Daniel McGowan lives by this
principle in his daily practices more than anyone she's
every represented, Ms. Lee said, stating that it was "truly
a tragedy that he, for a brief time, did not follow that
principle, and engaged in the 'militant extremism of
arson.'" She said that Daniel's regret is enormous, and
that he wishes to apologize to the people he has harmed by
those actions, his family, and the court. She said she had
attended sentencing for Meyerhoff, Tubbs and Gerlach, and
said that Daniel had acted of his own free will; that he
was not coerced or pressured, by friends or loved ones to
commit acts of arson, and that he and he alone takes full
responsibility for his choices. She displayed photos and
spoke of his closeness to his family, and of his love for
his wife, Jenny. Daniel's family was in attendance, and was
introduced to the court.

Lee then addressed issues argued by the government. She
said that the government had characterized Daniel's
disagreement with Meyerhoff over the placement of the
incendiary device near the propane tank as "brief", and
today, the government is blaming Daniel for its placement.
Daniel strongly voiced his opposition to placing it there,
as he knew nothing about propane tanks and believed it to
be dangerous. He regrets not standing his ground on the
issue, but now the government wishes to place the blame on
him. She said Daniel deeply regrets the actions of that
day, and wishes he could take it back, but that faulting
him for not having the influence to change the decision is
going too far.

The government describes Daniel as a two-dimensional
criminal in the '90's, with nothing more on his mind than
reckless destruction. Lee said, "The government could not
be more wrong." They equated Daniel's non-violent civil
disobedience actions and minor property destruction with
Kevin Tubbs' solo act of arson at Dutch Girl Dairy, but Lee
said Daniel's prior minor criminal behavior was very
similar to Savoie's. At this point, Judge Aiken
interjected, "I know the difference and I've read your
memo. The government has the right to argue as they wish,"
to which Lee responded, "It's hard not to respond to
certain types of comparisons." Lee continued her arguments,
saying that Daniel had been very much focused on
researching genetic engineering, especially the development
of Round-up Ready corn. She read from a communiqué the
government had used to show that Daniel had intended to
target the government, which said that Roundup is the
largest selling pesticide in the world, and is "the largest
cause of illness in farmworkers" and violates the human
rights of agricultural workers. These were his motivations.

She went on to say that, yes, Daniel had broken windows at
the WTO in Seattle. She said, "I was there," saying that
she worked only a few blocks from where the black bloc had
damaged property, and that she and other workers downtown
had many conversations about the goings-on during the
ministerial, but that no one she spoke to felt intimidated.
Indeed, she said, "We were more annoyed with the police
checkpoints." Lee said the government had made a big deal
about the aborted Cargill action, saying that it had been
called off because the activists "didn't want to tangle
with Longshoremen", when in fact, they called it off
because there were still workers in the office, it was a
bad idea, and that they decided not to because of this. Lee
said that there were massive peaceful demonstrations, and
that police -- of which there was an abundance --
overreacted, cases were dismissed and judgements were made
against the city as a result. She said, "We that live there
think the riots were just a bunch of media hype."

Lee talked about Daniel's attendance at three of the "book
club" meetings and described the length of his involvement
with the cell as similar to Savoie's, at which point Aiken,
clearly annoyed, interrupted again, "I already know all
this stuff." Lee responded, "Then you know their roles are
very similar."

Regarding the taped conversations with scumbag Jake
Ferguson, Lee said it was important to note that Ferguson
sought Daniel out. She said that the bulk of what we had
heard on the tapes from August 15th occurred right after
Daniel had visited Jeff "Free" Luers in prison, and that he
was very emotional. She said the comments about Judge
Velure were deeply embarrassing to Daniel, but that he did
not DO anything, like post personal information about
Velure online. When Daniel found out that the US Attorneys
in this case had passed that information to Velure and
scared his wife, Daniel wrote a personal letter of apology.
Aiken, annoyed, interrupted again, "I know this. I've seen
it." [At this point, all in the courtroom were baffled by
Aiken's continuous interruptions and visible annoyance, and
were struggling to figure out what she DID want.] Lee went
on, "What the government didn't show is what's NOT on the
tapes... no planning of future arsons, no talk of guns or
explosives. In fact, the vast majority of these recordings
show Daniel speaking about his prisoner support work, the
time and effort he puts into it. There's no talk of
enjoying the arsons. He does talk of not wanting to get
arrested. He didn't run, go underground, use a false name,
store false identification. He had a job, went to school,
and paid his school loans."

Regarding the terrorism enhancement the government had
requested for the Jefferson Poplar fire, Lee asked if the
government had really supplied clear and convincing
evidence that the action targeted the government. She
pointed out that Jefferson Poplar was a privately owned
company, and that the communiqué had been altered, and
according to Gerlach was "entirely different" than the one
they had written. Lee said the government bears the burden
of proof in establishing clear and convincing evidence of
motive, and that they had not.

Daniel did not commit the arsons for fun or adventure,
argued Lee, but out of a profound love of nature and a
sense of desperation. She said that his trip to Thailand
after college affected him deeply, seeing the struggles of
indigenous people trying to defend their natural resources.
She said that in high school and college, Daniel's heroes
had been figures like Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela,
powerful leaders who had accepted violence in their
struggles for justice as younger men, but had moved away
from violence with age. Daniel, also, has matured and
evolved, and was more likely now to speak about role models
like Mother Jones and Utah Phillips. She cited Daniel's
extraordinary volunteerism and activism after leaving
Eugene, his employment at WomensLaw.org, organizing of
Really Really Free Markets, prisoner support work, and
computer recycling program, as examples. She said that his
evolution occurred not as an "epiphany or single moment",
but was more gradual.

Lee began to speak about Daniel's work at Women's Law, and
to read a letter from a co-worker, when Aiken interrupted
again, saying, "I've read it all. I met her." When Lee
started to speak then about Daniel's prisoner support work,
Aiken interjected, asking if Daniel's support group only
supports people who don't "name names". Aiken said, "That's
what is on the table here." Lee spoke about Daniel's
support of Turkish prisoner Mehmet Tarhan, a gay
conscientious objector. She read a letter a supporter of
Mehmet Tarhan had submitted to the court,  which spoke of
the immense help Daniel was, and spoke of his "deep
commitment to helping prisoners in need". Aiken said, "The
letter still did not answer my question." Lee countered
that Mehmet was in jail for refusing to serve in the army,
and that Daniel's work was compassionate. She told the
judge about the families of three prisoners he met on a
plane flying out to one of the court proceedings, to whom
he offered information and resources, and Aiken said, "I'm
not asking fringe questions. It was a simple question to
answer." Lee apologized. She went on to describe Daniel's
involvement organizing Really Really Free Markets in New
York, and helping to open a Free Store, which, Lee said,
paints a very different picture of Anarchists than the news
coverage from Seattle.

Lee said that Daniel's media interviews during the RNC did
not advocate violence, but rather bluntly stated, "Fight
back if provoked." Daniel said that trying to keep protests
in a one square block corral was wrong, and that permits
for marches had not been forthcoming.

Lee mentioned the many letters that had been sent to the
court on Daniel's behalf, and said that you don't get
letters from professors, law students, and policemen if
you're not out there doing the work. Daniel demonstrated
through action what most people only talk about. Lee said,
"He IS being the change," and said he had grown from a
person doing damage to being a person who did everything he
could to reduce suffering and improve the lives of people
in his community. She said, "Hard work is not glamorous,
and not fun all the time, but Daniel does it every single
day."

Jeff Robinson, co-counsel for Daniel said a few words, as
well. Robinson said that he and Amanda Lee had had no
illusions about the seriousness of the allegations against
their client, and had never been more afraid for a client.
He knew that if they went to trial and lost, Daniel would
spend the rest of his life in prison. Daniel had the choice
to name names or get life in prison. "This was never a
choice for him," said Robinson. Daniel had no "misplaced
loyalty, gang mentality, or desire to stay involved in
criminal activity" which guided his choice not to name
names. He had promised himself that he would not try to
mitigate his own punishment by hurting someone else, and
said that "Mr. McGowan is a man of his word." Robinson said
that Daniel had no desire to be a martyr for anyone, only
to keep a promise to himself. Daniel had said, "I was
involved, I will plead guilty, but I will not hurt others
to make it easier for myself." Robinson said that doing the
humble work Daniel does, helping victims of domestic
violence and the homeless, is inconsistent with a "hero"
mentality. He said that Daniel has no control over what is
written on websites. Yes, he asked for support. His legal
bills are staggering, and he knows he is going to spend
years in prison. There was nothing wrong with him asking
for support. Aiken interjected, "He was given the
opportunity for court-appointed counsel, wasn't he?" To
which Robinson replied, "Yes, absolutely. But the fact that
he has asked for financial or emotional support should not
get him..."

Judge Aiken: "There are people in this courtroom who are
not here every day. Taxpayers pay for qualified legal
representation, so they need to hear that court-appointed
counsel is an option. Not one dollar of Mr. McGowan's
assessment has been paid. I don't see money set up for
restitution. I don't see anything for the victims, for
THEIR homelessness, THEIR hardships."

"If his fee hasn't been paid, that's the obligation of our
firm, not his," countered Robinson.

Robinson then spoke about how the global non-cooperation
agreement came about. He said that Daniel had lead the
movement to reach a plea deal. The government agreed not to
ask for more than 92 months, and Daniel agreed that his
sentence should be whatever Suzanne Savoie received, plus
eighteen months. When the parents of one of the fugitives
contacted Daniel's attorneys, Daniel gave permission for
his attorneys to share anything that would help them.

He then spoke about the impact Daniel's refusal to name
names had had on the government's case. Robinson said the
government already had Jonathan Paul, and had attendance
lists from the "book club" meetings. He said that any names
Daniel would have given would have been "very familiar" to
investigators, thus he didn't believe Daniel's decision had
inhibited the government in any way. He also said that
Daniel's refusal to meet with Chelsea Gerlach was not out
of some sense of false loyalty, "There was no loyalty left
at that point!" said Robinson. Daniel felt that Chelsea's
decision was personal. Daniel felt that he also must make
his own decision, and that the choice to name names was
impossible to him. Daniel's acceptance of responsibility
for his own actions had assisted the government in closing
cases that would never have been closed. "He made the
promise to tell what he did, and kept it -- just like he
kept the promise to himself. He is a man of his word."
Robinson argued that Daniel’s refusal to name names about
the Wisconsin case had not impeded the government, as the
statute of limitations had run out, and there would be no
prosecution anyway. Daniel kept his promise to tell of his
actions, and saved the court hundreds to thousands of hours
of administration time, security concerns for a month-long
trial, psychological trauma to victims and witnesses to
testify at trial, cost and expense. Daniel took
responsibility for himself while putting no pressure on
others so that they could decide how to deal with the
government on their own.

Robinson said the court wants to know who Daniel McGowan is
and where he's headed. He plans on pursuing his Master's
degree from prison. Judge Aiken then asked, "How much do
the classes cost?" in a rhetorical way. Robinson went on.
The court might think that his refusal to name names is an
indication that he plans to return to his life of crime,
but Daniel has kept his word from the detention hearing and
followed the court's wishes to the letter. He promises that
those days are over.

Jenny Synan, Daniel's wife then read her statement to the
court.  She finished it by saying,

"Your honor, I kindly yet desperately ask for your fairness
in Daniel's case. I am about to lose my partner and lose
the life that I know, for more years than I can bear to
think about. Please consider my words and understand that
Daniel is not just a good person, he is an exceptional
human being who has contributed positively to so many
people's lives. He made some terrible choices in his past
and he and I both know there is a price to pay. He has
moved on to making the kind of choices that reflect his
true character. I beg you to please consider all of these
things."

His Daniel’s lawyers then spoke to the judge about issues
in the presentencing report that needed to be resolved.
Peifer was allowed to counter. Peifer said that Mr.
Robinson had said the statute of limitations had run out,
but that he had been referring to info from the Midwest
cell, involved in an arson November 5th of 2001, which the
statute would run out on in 2011. Peifer said that Ian
Wallace [who may or may not be under indictment, but is
clearly offering assistance to the government] had told the
government that McGowan introduced him to Stan Meyerhoff.
Peifer said that it is an ongoing investigation. Peifer
said the introduction occurred in July of 2001, and
mentioned that EPD Detective Harvey had been assisting the
investigation. Robinson said that Daniel could be called
before a grand jury, according to his plea agreement, and
that Daniel may have to do that time on top of his
sentence, but that shouldn't impact the court's decision.

Then Daniel read his statement to the court:

"Your Honor,

"Thank you for letting me address the court today.

"A lot of horrible things have been said about me today and
I would like to offer some additional information. I do not
blame anyone else for my actions or words. It is not anyone
else's fault that I engaged in burning Superior Lumber and
Jefferson Poplar Farms. Not my codefendants, either living
or dead, nor my parents. No one forced me into it and I was
fully cognizant of what I was doing at the time.

"However, this does not mean I am ok with what I did. I am
not. I feel deep regret for the actions because they have
frightened people. Although I now know it is hard for
people to believe, my intention at the time was to be
provocative and make a statement, not to put individual
people in fear. It pains me now to think that I did not see
at the time that these arsons would obviously cause fear. I
have read in the newspaper and heard from my lawyers about
the victims who testified and talked about how scared they
were. This was very upsetting and it made me quite ashamed
of myself. I thought of my sister Lisa and how she would
feel if someone burned down her place of employment-how
pictures of my niece and family would be destroyed, and it
stung. To the workers at Jefferson Poplar and Superior
Lumber, I am truly sorry for the damage I did and the fear
I caused you.

"I was a lookout for the arson at Superior Lumber and while
I am as responsible as anyone else, I was insulated in some
ways from the incident. While I saw the actual building, I
did not set the devices nor was I involved in their
creation. It made it seem less real to me. Even when I
heard the alarm over the radio, it still did not seem real.
My participation at Jefferson Poplar, a few months later
was completely different - it freaked me out badly. I
remember standing there in the middle of the vehicle shop
feeling dizzy from the fumes emanating from the gasoline
and wondering, "how did I get to be standing here right
now"? My decision to leave the Earth Liberation Front was
crystallizing in that moment. I attended a meeting weeks
later but I was so disenchanted by my involvement in that
action, by the real world ramifications of the arson at
Romania and how it affected my friend and discussions about
violence.

"It is hard to hear tapes of conversations I had with Jacob
Ferguson, where I speak with false bravado about our past
together. There are no tapes of some of my most private
thoughts, about how I got sick to my stomach before these
acts, about the fear and discomfort I hid from my friends
and family. None of it is an excuse, but I want you to
know, Judge Aiken, that when I became involved in the
arsons, it was after being involved in environmental
activism for a few years, and at a time when I felt utterly
desperate as my attempts to change anything failed almost
always. Moving to Oregon changed my life as it is so
beautiful and the forests are amazing. There is nothing
like it on the planet and it caused me great pain to see
the old growth forests being logged. I wish I had the
answers for how to fix this problem but I didn't and I took
the easy way out. I allowed myself to choose extreme
tactics because I felt the environmental situation in the
world was getting more and more dire by the day. Things I
spoke about and thought about how to fix 7 years ago are
being discussed on television and online now and it gives
me some hope. At the time though, I was feeling quite
hopeless. This seems now to be a hollow excuse for my
actions. But it is the truth.

"When I got back from a trip to Canada, I made a resolution
to myself. I wanted to settle down in a community and do
above-groundaboveground and community based activism. I had
been already been engaged in this sort of activism while I
was destroying property. I now wanted to stop the illegal
actions and concentrate on positive, solution-based
activism. I am lucky to have met my wife Jenny when I was
visiting home. I decided to move back home to NYC, I
quickly found employment at a rainforest and indigenous
rights foundation, organized computer recycling events and
open air free markets. Since 2005, I have worked as a
website assistant for a domestic violence organization that
helps women escape from horrible situations.

"My life since my arrest has been tumultuous and I have
been trying to make the best of a bad situation. Although I
had to abandon my acupuncture program, I recently was
accepted to Antioch University McGregor's distance learning
masters program and I will be finishing my first quarter on
June 15th. I hope to apply my education in ways that will
further my goals of environmental preservation and
protection of human rights. I also intend to make the best
of my incarceration and utilize my education to help my
fellow prisoners with legal, educational and translation
issues.

"Your honor, I hope you can see that I have turned away
from a path of destruction a long time ago. I accept the
fact I will be imprisoned and will do in prison what I do
out here-try to make the lives of those around me better.
After all this is done, I hope to be released and continue
positive activism in my community once again and be a good
role model and uncle to my two nieces and a good husband to
my wife Jenny.

"I want to thank my family, friends and community for
standing with me through this very difficult time."

Judge Aiken said that this was a very interesting
sentencing in her court. She said that her impression of
Daniel is of two faces: the one face -- that if he doesn't
agree with something, he'll burn it down -- and the "Janus
face" -- "Poor me. I'm a victim. I'm in pain." She said, "I
Googled you at the noon hour. You're a cause celebre. I
can't help but notice that nowhere on your website does it
say what you plead guilty to. [*Daniel's plea agreement was
posted on the site within a day of the hearing.] I'm sure
your lawyers told you not to. It minimizes what you did; it
says you are being victimized by the government because you
will receive a greater sentence for not cooperating. You're
not some political prisoner for speaking out. You committed
arson. You destroyed peoples' property by fire. Based on
their views. You do nothing on your website to end support
of property destruction. You are not a poster child, you
are an arsonist. You wanted to have your cake and eat it,
too. You want to be a martyr or a hero... It is a choice to
have private counsel... you trumpeted your cause... no
remorse... no regret... I generally commend furthering
education, but here it seems to be further evidence of your
self-absorption... sister put finances on the line...
accepting money for your defense... while you should be
paying back your debt, you're getting your Master's... Why
wasn't your special assessment paid? I have gotten no
check. Other defendants are indigent because they are
feeding their families, but they do it... I've been doing
this job for 19 years... people try their very best to make
amends... why no money raised for restitution? You've
received enormous gifts from your community, but other than
today's apology, what have you given back to Oregon? What
about the employees of Jefferson Poplar? Destroyed...
immature... self-righteous... misguided young adults... Did
you talk to these victims? Get a grant? Get funded to make
a difference? Or did you just Google it? You know better.
You are not a typical defendant; your father is a police
officer, a public servant. You targeted public servants...
collateral damage... You were just afraid of getting
caught. I understand you've extended yourself, taken
positive actions. I commend it and I will consider it. I
find it ironic that you support victimized women, yet in
your communiqués you verbally victimize those with whom you
disagree. I wonder if you ever called scholars in the
Northwest about how to be effective and take positive
action. Like the professors who wrote letters to the court
on your behalf, most professors are incredibly generous
with their ideas. I've learned a lot in my years on the
bench... seen it all... it's called the human experience...
How do you choose to respond? I question whether your
newfound remorse is genuine. But you are not Block or
Zacher. [!] Decide to lead an authentic and genuine life...
take off the masks until the real Daniel McGowan is
revealed... be the change you truly want to be. Don't use
Gandhi just when it's convenient. I hope you'll go back to
your website and tell who you were, what you did. You may
not be as popular, but... change your website. Denounce,
renounce and condemn. If you really mean it, it shouldn't
be hard. To the young people, send the message that
violence doesn't work. If you want to make a difference,
have the courage to say how the life you lived was the life
of a coward... It is a tragedy to watch these extremely
talented and bright young people come in and do damage to
industries. It's not okay to put people in fear doing what
they need to do to survive. Take off the hoods,
sweatshirts, and masks and have a real dialogue."

Judge Aiken sentenced Daniel McGowan to 84 months (7 years)
in a federal detention facility, followed by three years of
supervised probation. She applied the terrorism enhancement
to the Jefferson Poplar Farm arson. She departed downward
of the lowest end of the government's recommended sentence
for the positive works Daniel is doing in the community.

Sentence delayed for animal rights leader in slaughterhouse arson

6/5/2007, 4:50 p.m. PDT By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Sentencing was postponed Tuesday for a leading figure in the animal rights movement who admitted to setting fire to a horse slaughterhouse in 1997 after his defense lawyer objected to the way the judge applied federal sentencing guidelines.

A volunteer firefighter in the rural Oregon community of Greensprings at the time of his arrest in January 2006, Jonathan Mark Christopher Paul had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson for mixing the fuel and serving as a lookout in the July, 27, 1997 fire that destroyed the Cavel West Co. horsemeat packing plant in Redmond, Ore.

Paul, 41, is the last of 10 people in Oregon to be sentenced after pleading guilty to charges they were part of a Eugene-based call known as The Family that set more than 20 fires in five Western states from 1996 through 2001 that were claimed by the shadowy radical groups Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front. Three others from the group are to be sentenced in Seattle later this year.

The Animal Liberation and Earth Liberation Front have been described by the FBI as the top domestic terrorist threats in the nation.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken calculated a sentence of four years three months for Paul, six months less than the prosecution's recommendation under a plea deal, but withdrew it after defense attorney Marc Blackman objected. She ordered attorneys for both sides to file briefs. No date was set to complete the sentencing.

Blackman argued that based on the judge's finding that the slaughterhouse fire was not an act of terrorism and her application of sentencing guidelines in related cases, the sentence should have fallen in the range of 27 months to 33 months.

During the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer described Paul as the "proto-arsonist of the Animal Liberation Front," for helping set fire to the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine in 1987, the first fire in the United States attributed to the Animal Liberation Front.

Paul went on to join in several raids on research labs to free animals, harassed members of the Makah tribe hunting whales off Washington, lived with animal rights activist Rod Coronado, and went to jail rather than testify against other activists, Peifer said.

Based on his reputation, Paul was recruited into The Family at an Earth First! rendezvous in Oregon in 1997 by Joseph Dibee, who remains at large after taking a leading role in the slaughterhouse fire, Peifer said.

After Paul recruited his girlfriend, Jennifer Kolar, and paid her way to the fire, he was spurned by The Family for being arrogant and bringing in an outsider, Peifer said.

Paul was arrested last year after others involved in the slaughterhouse fire named him to authorities.

Kolar and two others face sentencing in Seattle later this year.

In a tearful statement, Paul, who lives off an inheritance from his father, renounced arson as a means of saving animals, saying a change of heart upon seeing the flames at the horse slaughterhouse led him to devote his life to work as a firefighter and EMT.

Paul said he was horrified to think that his sister, Caroline Paul, the first female firefighter in the city of San Francisco, could be put in danger from arson, and vowed never to do it again.

Paul added that he did not look forward to going to prison, but it paled in comparison to the loss he felt at never again being able to work as a firefighter and EMT.

Blackman argued that Cavel West, a Belgian company that exports horsemeat to Europe, should not be "romanticized," because there is evidence it employed illegal aliens, paid low wages, engaged in inhumane treatment of animals, and polluted the local water system with blood.

The plant has not reopened.

Blackman added that Paul, after his arrest, sold a house and paid the insurance company $250,000 to settle their lawsuit against him, despite the fact his assets were largely immune from litigation.

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS "TERRORISM ENHANCEMENTS" UNNECCESSARY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 5, 2007

Contact:
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, 212-679-5100, ext. 11
Lauren Regan, Civil Liberties Defense Center, Eugene, OR, 541-687-9180

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS "TERRORISM ENHANCEMENTS" UNNECCESSARY, EXCESSIVE, AND CHILLING TO FREE SPEECH

New York. The National Lawyers Guild calls the terrorism sentencing enhancement issued to Daniel McGowan yesterday an unnecessary and excessive government tactic to discourage the exercise of free speech. U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken sentenced McGowan to seven years in prison, calling one of the fires an act of terrorism because of a communication issued after the first that referred to potential legislation aimed at activists
(which would indicate an attempt to influence the government). McGowan was one of four defendants who plead guilty with the understanding that they would not implicate others who took part in similar actions.

Ten activists plead guilty to committing property crimes-most of which were arsons-that carry average sentences ranging from 5-8 years in prison. The terrorism enhancement, Section 3A1.4 of federal Sentencing Guidelines, can add 20 years to each of the sentences laid out in the plea agreements. Formal sentencing began on May 22 and continued through today.

National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi Boghosian says, "Is this what a terrorist is? Applying terrorism enhancement to property crimes where the perpetrators went out of their way to minimize the risk to human life makes little sense as a matter of law or common sense. Americans know the different between Daniel McGowan and Osama bin Laden, and this effort to subvert the fairness of the judicial system is an affront to the values they hold dear."

In January the Guild wrote to Judge Aiken urging her to not apply the enhancement for McGowan's property crimes:

"As an organization that has frequently defended the First Amendment rights of individuals and causes disfavored by the government, in the past 70 years, the National Lawyers Guild is deeply troubled by the government's application of terrorism sentencing enhancements to environmental activists. Many of our members are criminal defense attorneys, and many
have seen firsthand the chilling effect the government has on unpopular views, from the House Un-American Activities Committee to the present-day labeling by the FBI of environmental and animal rights activists as a top "domestic terrorism" priority. The use of a terrorism enhancement in this case effectively punishes an act of arson more harshly on the basis of the viewpoint that motivates it; as such, we believe that it is intended to crack down on environmental activism more generally, by raising the fear that any misstep could lead to prosecution as a terrorist."

If the enhanced penalties suggest discrimination based on a particular viewpoint or ideology, it should be noted that they are not necessary: even without them the crimes to which many environmental activists have plead guilty carry significant prison time. The National Lawyers Guild believes that criminal acts must be punished according to the penal law, and that the law as applied to this case carries sufficient penalties.

Founded in 1937 as the first racially integrated national bar association, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States, with more than 200 chapters. The Guild has a long history of representing individuals whose rights have been violated by governments in the U.S. and abroad.

Arson defendant gets seven years

By Bill Bishop

The Register-Guard

www.theregisterguard.com

Published: Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Saying she is unsure of the sincerity of his remorse, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on Monday sentenced Daniel Gerard McGowan to seven years in federal prison for his role in a string of arsons by underground radical environmentalists. McGowan, 33, cited his work in community and social justice groups since leaving the underground in 2001 as evidence that he has rejected violence as a tactic to create change. His lawyers presented almost 500 pages of letters extolling his character and supporting his community activities on behalf of abused women, the poor, the imprisoned and the environment. However, prosecutors played tapes secretly recorded by an informant in 2005, in which McGowan seems to revel in past illegal deeds by extremists. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer documented McGowan's escalating pattern of illegal actions between 1997 and 2001, saying McGowan showed one side of his personality to family and friends but had another "that came out at night." McGowan primarily went after genetic engineering experiments, causing an incalculable loss of scientific data, Peifer said. In some cases, McGowan destroyed decades of scientific work, Peifer said. After moving from Eugene back to his native New York City, McGowan coordinated a project to harass delegates to the Republican National Convention in 2004, Peifer said. In a seven-minute statement to the judge, McGowan expressed regret and shame for frightening people and for causing job losses. He said he turned away from property destruction after moving to New York City after his second and final arson in 2001. McGowan pleaded guilty to conspiracy, 13 counts of arson and one of attempted arson for fires at a lumber company in Glendale and a tree farm in Clatskanie in 2001. As she did in earlier cases, Aiken ruled the tree farm attack an act of terrorism under federal law because it targeted government activity. She then recited the potential penalties under federal law, including a steep increase for the act of terrorism. Using her judicial power, Aiken also increased the penalty for the lumber company fire because she said it was meant to intimidate people. McGowan's potential sentence ranged from 17 1/2 years to more than 21 years. Aiken accepted the plea deal between the parties and then, using her authority, granted a further reduction. The sentence ends up being eight months less than what McGowan bargained for. He pleaded guilty only after prosecutors agreed not to require him to name other co-conspirators while confessing to his illegal actions. The unusual agreement helped to persuade three other defendants to settle their cases under identical terms to avoid lengthy trials. Aiken said her eight-month reduction is a reward for that effort. But Aiken was otherwise harsh in her assessment of McGowan, saying his supporters have built him into a hero, a political prisoner, someone persecuted by the government for his activism. "You are not a poster child for environmental or other causes. You are an arsonist," Aiken told him. "You are not a political prisoner, getting prosecuted for true activism. You committed arson. You created danger for other people and intended to intimidate and frighten others." After the hearing, McGowan's lawyers fired back, calling Aiken's terrorism ruling factually and legally flawed. Defense attorney Amanda Lee of Seattle said only Aiken and the prosecutors believe McGowan is a terrorist. McGowan said that, as a New Yorker, he is "deeply offended" by having the terrorism label applied to him. Defense lawyer Jeffery Robinson of Seattle reproached Aiken for failing to publicly repudiate Peifer's opening statement in the case last month in which Peifer compared the cell of environmental extremists with the Ku Klux Klan.

Robinson, who is black, was born in Memphis, Tenn., in 1956. "Mr. Peifer lacks knowledge about things he discussed in that courtroom," Robinson said. "I know something of the Ku Klux Klan. I expect more from a United States judge."

New York man sentenced to 7 years for ecoterrorism fires

6/4/2007 By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge, declaring that a fire set at a tree farm was terrorism because it was intended to influence legislation, sentenced a New York man on Monday to seven years in prison for his part in arsons claimed by the Earth Liberation Front.

Daniel McGowan was the ninth of 10 people to be sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy and arson for their parts in a string of 20 arsons from 1996 through 2001. He also was ordered to pay his share of $1.9 million in restitution.

Responsibility was claimed by a Eugene-based cell of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front called The Family. Damage totaled $40 million.

Judge Ann Aiken told McGowan, the son of a New York transit police officer, that he was a coward for donning a mask and setting fires to scare people rather than working positively to protect the environment.

She said she doubted the sincerity of his remorse when a Web site raising money for his legal defense carried nothing from him denouncing his crimes.

"You are not a poster child for the environment," the judge said. "You are an arsonist."

McGowan had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson in fires set at the Superior Lumber Co. office in Glendale in January 2001 and the Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie in May 2001.

The judge declared the tree farm fire to be terrorism because the communique issued afterward made reference to potential legislation to curb radicals, but she cut one year from the eight-year sentence recommended by prosecutors in recognition of McGowan's help getting other defendants to plead guilty.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said McGowan joined The Family in 2000 after taking part in anarchist riots in Seattle to protest World Trade Organization meetings.

McGowan, primarily interested in stopping genetic engineering, helped a Midwest cell of the Earth Liberation Front attack a U.S. Forest Service laboratory in Wisconsin in 2000 but has not been charged in that case, Peifer said. McGowan also spiked trees on a timber sale in Oregon but was not charged, he said.

Defense attorney Amanda Lee argued that McGowan had put radicalism behind him, retiring from The Family in 2002, returning to New York, where he was born, working for a women's advocacy law firm and doing volunteer work for the homeless.

Peifer questioned whether McGowan had left radicalism behind, citing news stories in which McGowan was quoted as the leader of a group trying to disrupt the Republican National Convention in 2004 by posting on the Internet hotels where delegates were staying and restaurants where they were eating.

McGowan also found an old copy of a manual for building timers for incendiary devices written by William "Avalon" Rodgers, the leader of The Family, and planned to send it to distributors of radical materials, Peifer said.

McGowan was tripped up by Jacob Ferguson, a fellow arsonist who had agreed to wear a wire for investigators and seek out his old friends. Ferguson has yet to be charged but is expected in court this month.

In excepts of those recordings played in court, McGowan said he checked news accounts on Google on the anniversaries of major fires set by The Family and was encouraged that they reported no hard evidence against them.

He told Ferguson that as long as everyone kept his mouth shut and no one turned Judas for money they could all lead normal lives.

Asked by Ferguson if he ever thought the fires were for nothing, because nearly everything was rebuilt, McGowan disagreed.

"That should never be the barometer of the victory, man," McGowan said. "The victory is like the (expletive) publicity. That's what it is. It's the putting it on the map, man."

McGowan added that an arson at a Vail, Colo., ski resort, which was done by others in The Family, had spurred recruitment for the ELF and raised their activities to a new level.

"It got people's attention, man," McGowan said. "It totally changed the extreme of eco-resistance. It made tree-sits look calm, you know."

McGowan's wife, who married him after his arrest, made a tearful plea for mercy, saying she was shocked to learn of his past, which was so different from the man she loved.

McGowan added his own statement, saying he got sick to his stomach before the arsons but took full responsibility for his actions and regretted them. At the same time, he said, he felt threats to the environment were dire.

Outside the courtroom, McGowan, who is free on bail, was given a round of applause by supporters after saying former Vice President Al Gore's efforts to stop global warming were ineffective, old growth forests were still being cut down and genetic engineering was still going on.

Daniel McGowan given 84 months

June 4, 2007 Portland Indymedia
author: sore butt e-mail: civilrightsoutreach@gmail.com

The government wanted 92 months; he got 84.

Aiken gave Daniel one level of downward departure for the positive work he has been doing for the past 5 years. He was given the terrorism enhancement for Jefferson Poplar. He also has to pay the huge restitution bill with the others. After release, he has to do the same 3 years of supervised probation that others were given, plus alcohol and drug counseling.

The full notes from the hearing should be up on this site before tomorrow.

Operation Backfire defendant gets 7 years

June 4, 2007 Register-Guard

Saying she is unsure of the sincerity of his remorse, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on Monday sentenced Daniel Gerard McGowan to seven years in federal prison for his role in a string of arsons by underground radical environmentalists.

McGowan, 33, cited his work in community and social justice groups since leaving the underground in 2001. However, prosecutors played tapes, secretly recorded by an informant, in which McGowan seems to revel in past illegal deeds by extremists.

The final of 10 defendants in the Operation Backfire case is scheduled for sentencing Tuesday.

Herman Bell Court Hearing June 4

Attend Herman Bell's Court Hearing

SF - 9am Monday, June 4 (SF-8 case)

Herman Bell is the last of the SF-8 to make it to the Bay Area. He finally arrived late afternoon yesterday after an 18-day, very difficult and grueling extradition experience coming from New York via Oklahoma City. He is in good health and good spirits. He has a court appearance Monday morning, 9:00 a.m., June 4, 2007, in Department 12, 1st floor at 850 Bryant, in front of Judge Little. He will appear with his attorney, Stuart Hanlon.

Nancy Jacot-Bell

www.freethesf8.org

Daniel McGowan to be sentenced Monday, June 4th

After a very long wait and almost 18 months since his arrest, Daniel's sentencing is here. We want to thank everyone for all the emails, phone calls and letters this past week. It has been tremendously difficult to experience from across the country all of Daniel's codefendants' sentencings.

Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block were sentenced to the governmental recommended sentence of 7 years and 8 months yesterday in Eugene, Oregon. We wish them the best in the years ahead. We are not sure how long Nathan and Joyanna will be in Lane County awaiting their final prison destination but I'm sure they can use a letter of support and encouragement.

You can reach them at:

Nathan Block #1663667
Lane County Jail
101 W 5th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401

Joyanna Zacher #1662550
Lane County Jail
101 W 5th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401

You can reach their support crew at supportersofnathanandjoyanna@gmail.com

Daniel will be sentenced Monday at 9AM in Eugene Federal Court. We will be sending out an update at the end of the day. We have no idea what sentence Daniel will get but his lawyers will be arguing for a fair one.

If you are in NYC, there will be a gathering to await the sentence:

Monday, June 4th @ 12 noon-?, Free
Awaiting Daniel McGowan's prison sentence

Local activist Daniel McGowan will be sentenced today in Oregon Federal Court in Eugene, Oregon for two arsons claimed by the Earth Liberation Front that hurt no one. Come out and await the phone call from Daniel's family about what sentence Daniel gets and have some coffee and snacks. Supporters will be discussing what is next with Daniel's support campaign and prisoner support in NYC.

Bluestockings Books172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington.

As always, thank you so much for the support you have shown us through this past difficult time. We very much look forward for this episode of our lives to be over and for Daniel to serve his time and get out one day.

In solidarity,
Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan

Ps_We are still fundraising pretty hard to make sure we can pay for Daniel's tuition. If you can, please make a donation. You can do so online on our website at http://www.supportdaniel.org

Nathan & Joyanna sentenced

ELP Information Bulletin (2nd June 2007)

Dear friends

Yesterday, the first of the two non-cooperating Oregon defendants,
Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block were sentenced to 7 years and 8
months imprisonment each.

ELP congratulates Nathan and Joy for standing by their principles and
refusing to cooperate with the authorities, despite being threatened
to Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Joy and Nathan are currently both being held at Lane County Jail but
are expected to move soon.  So its vital you get your letters of
support off to them today!

Please send urgent letters of support to:

Nathan Block #1663667
Lane County Jail
101 W 5th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401
USA

Joyanna Zacher #1662550
Lane County Jail
101 W 5th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401
USA

ELP will support Nathan and Joy for the full duration of their prison
sentences and we will keep you updated with any prison moves that
they have.

For more information on Joy and Nathan please contact their support
campaign supportersofnathanandjoyanna@gmail.com

=============

British Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network
BM Box 2407
London
WC1N 3XX
England
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North American ELP Support Network
www.ecoprisoners.org

Two women sentenced to prison in 'Operation Backfire' arson cases

By Bill Bishop

The Register-Guard

Published: Friday, June 1, 2007

Sternly warning that future acts of arson for political causes - whether "terrorism" or not - can carry heavy penalties, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on Thursday sentenced two more Operation Backfire defendants to prison.

In the case of Suzanne Nicole Savoie, Aiken ruled that one of Savoie's two arsons fell under the federal sentencing law for terrorism that provides a stiffer sentence for arson.

In the case of Kendall Tankersley, Aiken found that her single arson against a private company in Medford did not fit the federal definition for terrorism because it was not aimed at the government. However, Aiken invoked her judicial authority to increase the penalty the same as if it were a crime of terrorism.

"Using violence and intimidation against individuals really isn't much different," Aiken told Tankersley.

However, as required by law, Aiken also weighed a number of other factors - including their crime-free lives since leaving the secretive conspiracy, and their willingness to help prosecutors understand the case - before lowering each woman's sentence.

After separate hearings, Savoie, 29, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. She could have received at least 11 years. Tankersley, 30, was sentenced to three years and 10 months. She could have received more than eight years. She was not prosecuted for participating in two relatively minor arsons at trucking companies in Northern California.

Each sentence was slightly less than recommended by prosecutors in their plea deals. Savoie was spared one year; Tankersley five months. Aiken indicated that the extra reductions are a reward for the women's cooperation.

Thursday's sentences - the fifth and sixth among the 10 Backfire defendants - set the stage for the four who pleaded guilty but declined to name others as part of their plea deals. Two of them are scheduled today and one each on Monday and Tuesday. The remaining three defendants are fugitives.

Savoie admitted being a lookout at the Jan. 2, 2001, fire at Superior Lumber Co. in Glendale - causing $1 million in damage; and with being a planner, driver and lookout for the May 21, 2001, fire at Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie - causing $994,000 in damage.

Aiken ruled the tree farm arson a crime of terrorism because the arsonists' communique about the event ridiculed proposed legislation aimed at such crimes, making the government a target of the act.

Steve Swanson, the head of Superior Lumber, testified Thursday that fear of violent attack still lingers years after the arson at his company.

But he also said it was one of the company's proudest moments, as the small family-owned firm worked around the clock to meet payroll, pay bills, serve customers and survive the loss.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Ray told Aiken that Savoie's criminal conduct began with disrupting fox hunts in Wales and more than $1 million worth of genetic engineering projects in the United States, for which she was not charged. She also participated in the 1999 World Trade Organization protest in Seattle that "placed Eugene on the map as a hotbed of activism," Ray said.

Savoie left the conspiracy in 2001, moved to Southern Oregon and took up a law-abiding lifestyle homesteading in the mountains with

her husband. She worked with developmentally delayed adults in Ashland, according to court records.

After her arrest, Savoie helped prosecutors understand some of the inner workings of the secretive cell called "The Family," Ray said. Savoie also has been free of any drug, firearms or other crimes since she left the conspiracy, he said. Prosecutors took that, and other factors, into account to offer her a plea deal much lower than allowed by law, he told Aiken.

"This is not a political case. This district has not received any pressure from Washington, D.C., to make this a political case," Ray told the judge. "We have a responsibility, as the government, to adhere to the (sentencing) guidelines. We believed ... the terrorism enhancement applied. We looked at the resulting sentences and we thought they were unfair."

Tankersley admitted serving as a lookout for an arson at U.S. Forest Industries in Medford on Dec. 26, 1998. When the incendiary devices failed, she returned with another conspirator who touched them off.

Jerry Bramwell, head of the company, said the fire's effect rippled through the company of 600 employees, but the community pitched in to help.

"Everybody offered to do anything necessary to help us; competitors, customers, employees. It was pretty gratifying," he testified. "We adopted the attitude if we let this get us down then they - whoever they are - have won and we have lost."

Tankersley had "dramatic self-rehabilitation and growth" after leaving the conspiracy, Ray said. Evidence shows that Tankersley's activism flared and faded quickly. She was about to enter medical school when she was arrested in late 2005. Two of her professors and others testified about her achievements and character.

In statements to the judge, each woman renounced her crimes and apologized to the victims.

Aiken urged both to use their time in prison to reflect on who they want to be when they are released, and to help other inmates do the same.

She imposed restitution of $1.9 million for Savoie and $990,000 for Tankersley, but said both also owe a debt to society that could be offset if they help children understand how to make better decisions than they did.

Report from Sentencing for Kendall Tankersley, 5/31/07

original post: Portland Indymedia

author: sore butt

For extarordinary cooperation and for being the least involved with the least crimes, she got 46 months in jail plus full restitution and 3 years supervised probation.