The Earth Liberation Front has made the news yet again: Four people tied to the radical group have been indicted on arson charges for a 1999 blaze at Michigan State University.

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A federal jury has found 32-year-old Briana Waters guilty of two counts of arson for her role as the lookout in a 2001 blaze at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture. Of more than a dozen people connected with the radical Earth Liberation Front and arrested in connection with various property crimes in the West, Waters was the only one who went to trial rather than plead guilty. She faces five to 20 years in prison. Waters maintained her innocence throughout the trial and her lawyer plans to appeal, saying that the recent Washington development fire linked to radical environmentalists may have affected the jury's decision.

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Four unoccupied multimillion-dollar homes burned in a Seattle suburb Monday in what officials have reason to believe was eco-related arson. Explosives were found in the homes, and a spray-painted sign out front -- "Built green? Nope black! McMansions in RCDs r not green" -- bore the initials of radical environmental group the Earth Liberation Front. The Woodinville, Wash., homes were built with water-pervious sidewalks, efficient insulation, and recycled materials, but critics had raised concerns that the development could have a negative impact on a nearby creek and wetlands. Said the president of the targeted "Street of Dreams" development, "My understanding is that it was an act of terror." Time for everyone to get hot and bothered about "eco-terrorism" again!

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U.S. prosecutors compare "eco-terrorists" to KKK

In its unyielding quest to root out terror at its terror-y roots, the U.S. government is battling to have 10 eco-activists sentenced as terrorists. At a hearing in Eugene, Ore., yesterday, attorneys argued that 10 members of the loosely coalesced Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front deserve the label, which could not only net them longer sentences in scarier prisons, but also redefine how other forms of activism are prosecuted. U.S. attorneys compared the 10 -- who have pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy in connection with 20 fires from 1996 to 2001, including a mega-blaze at a Vail ski resort -- to the Ku Klux Klan. The defense objected, pointing out that the KKK killed people. On purpose. The U.S. attorney's response? The fires are "a classic case of terrorism" because the groups were trying to coerce the feds into changing their policies, and it was "pure luck" that no one was killed or injured. Did we mention no one was killed or injured? A ruling is expected next week.

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Three plead guilty to eco-motivated arson in the West

Three people pleaded guilty yesterday to being part of a group that set fire to ranger stations, wild-horse corrals, a ski resort, and lumber mill offices in the Western U.S. in recent years. The 16 attacks harmed no people, but caused more than $20 million in damage. "This is a substantial step in resolution of this case and successful prosecution of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front in these crimes," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer. ELF and ALF had claimed responsibility for the attacks. The defendants admitted to being part of the two groups, but were not personally involved in all of the fires. Under a plea agreement, the three will likely get shorter jail sentences than if they'd gone to trial, and they will cooperate in the investigation of 10 others who will go on trial in October for a series of firebombings in the Northwest from 1996 to 2001. The Justice Department expects more defendants to plead guilty today.

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"Eco-terrorists" indicted in connection to Vail ski-resort arson

Four people -- dubbed "eco-terrorists" by the authorities, who aren't at all trying to scare you -- were indicted Thursday and face eight counts of arson in connection to fires set at a Vail, Colo., ski resort in 1998. A communiqué apparently released by the arsonists said the fire, which caused $12 million in damage, had been set in the name of the Earth Liberation Front. Suspects Chelsea Gerlach and Stanislas Meyerhoff are already in custody awaiting trial on charges related to another case of arson in Oregon; suspects Josephine Overaker and Rebecca Rubin are on the lam. Reporting in Colorado's mainstream press hewed to strict standards of objectivity, as one reporter wrote that the Vail arson set "a destructive new standard for audaciousness in the shadowy world of eco-terrorism." Each count of arson brings a possible five to 20 years in prison and/or a fine of $250,000, though it would be no surprise if the feds, desperate for new enemies they can actually catch, just went ahead and lynched 'em.

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In 2000, 21-year-old Jeff Luers and an accomplice set fire to three pickup trucks at a dealership in Eugene, Ore., to bring attention to gas-guzzlers' contribution to global warming. They were promptly arrested. Luers, who refused to plea bargain, was sentenced to 22 years, eight months in prison. It is the longest term ever handed down for environmentally motivated sabotage in America -- and far longer than sentences given to arsonists in Oregon who have destroyed more property and endangered peoples' lives.

Jeff "Free" Luers, Oregon State Penitentiary, 2005.

Photos courtesy Freefreenow.org.

But Luers' sentence may be surpassed if any of the upcoming trials of 11 people arrested in January for eco-motivated arson and vandalism yield convictions. Though Luers' crime was minor by comparison, his case serves as a precedent: the fact that one of those arrested, Daniel McGowan, used to run a website for Luers was raised in an attempt to deny McGowan bail.

Because Luers is already in prison and knows he is under total surveillance, he is willing to speak his mind on eco-sabotage as few others are. He regularly issues communiqués from prison through a website maintained by outside supporters, and co-published Heartcheck in 2005, a prison zine that sounds a call for unflinchingly hands-on eco-revolution.

But Luers' ability to communicate more widely with the outside world has been hampered by the authorities. He has been classified as a member of a "security threat group" -- a measure designed to disrupt gangs, but applied in Luers' case to his anarchist and environmental affiliations. Restrictions on his communications have frustrated many reporters, but Grist was able to interview Luers over the phone from Oregon State Penitentiary -- the first interview he's given in nearly a year.

How do the latest arrests change the landscape for radical action?

This is pretty much the make-or-break point for the radical ecological movement in this country. A lot of people are scared and intimidated right now. They're either going to fall apart, or they're going to come together and show that, no matter how many arrests are made or how hard the government tries to crack down on dissent, the people aren't going to be quiet. That's what people need to do: whether or not they support radical action, they can't be intimidated into silence.

Did your conviction serve as the deterrent it was apparently intended to be?

Unfortunately, yeah, I think it has -- particularly in the local community that I got arrested out of. There's been a noticeable decline in underground activities, and part of that is the harsh sentence I received. But I think part of that is also the fact that we had a lot of people who put their hopes into easy solutions. It looked like it was going to work for a while: there was a huge galvanization of the public after [the WTO protests] in Seattle in '99. But the actions stopped. There was a lot of pressure from the police forces on separating unions and radical activists, and everything just kind of collapsed.

Coming out of that period, "eco-terrorism" was identified by the federal government as one of the biggest threats to the nation, right alongside things like al Qaeda. Did you consider yourself engaged in terrorism when you burned those trucks?

If someone believes I'm a terrorist, I don't think there's anything I'm going to say that's going to change their mind. When you look at the use of the word today, "terrorism" is basically a way to define armed struggles you disagree with.

What is it that you are struggling for?

The biggest thing I'm trying to achieve is a change in social conscience. Our society operates under an extreme capitalist system that is completely unsustainable. You can't take a limited amount of resources and exploit it infinitely and expect it to continue to yield the same results year after year.

I think we're finally starting to realize that: we've got climate change, our oil's starting to run out, our forests are disappearing. But the thing that bothers me is that technologies exist to create a greener lifestyle and they're not being implemented. In part it's because big companies don't see a profit in them, but it's also because consumers don't demand it.

When I think about the people who are out there sitting in their SUVs and sitting in front of their TVs and just consuming, consuming, consuming, it seems to me that most of them aren't doing it because they are evil and trying to consciously destroy the earth. It's just that they're not thinking about how they're living.

Though they may share some of your goals, a lot of environmentalists are committed to nonviolent change, and would certainly disagree with your tactics. What do you think of their tactics?

We need groups like the Sierra Club; we need people who believe in support and reform. But at the same time, I think that we need people like me who are willing and able to get our hands dirty.

Free in a tree, pre-OSP.

Any individual that cares enough to act knows whether or not they can take that extra step. Everyone has a level of commitment they can make, whether that's taking more mass transit, or riding your bike one day a week, or not using a vehicle at all. You can organize a boycott of the biggest local polluter. If you're already an activist, you can up the scale of what you're doing and get more involved in civil disobedience. Or you can go with other, extralegal activities.

And that, of course, is the route that landed you in prison.

That is the route that landed me in prison. So I advise people to use caution.

Was the truck-burning action you were convicted for the most extreme thing you'd done?

Yeah, I'd say it was. I was trying to move into the realm of more radical actions. This was one that I felt was not only symbolic in nature but allowed me to take that baby step. I was working toward being more of an underground guerilla activist.

Did you consider yourself a member of the Earth Liberation Front?

No. It might just be my political ideology, but I have a hard time identifying with any organization. While I strongly support what the ELF does, and I definitely can identify with their tactics and reasons why they use them, any person in the United States who claims ELF in any action automatically opens themselves up to investigation by the FBI.

As we've seen recently, the bar isn't even that high: people are being investigated based on what they eat or drive, for example. Because a lot of mainstream environmentalists share overarching goals with people like you, isn't there a danger that these acts of eco-sabotage are just giving mainstream environmentalism a bad name?

No. When you've got groups like ELF out there burning things down, it makes aboveground activism look tame. Because of that, the general public knows it's asinine when Greenpeace gets charged with piracy for boarding a ship and hanging a banner.

In Heartcheck, you write things like, "Smash it. Break it. Block it. Lock it down. I don't care why you do it or how you do it but stop it. Get out there and stop it." It sounds like you're not repentant.

Gristmill

I'm not. Social change is never a strictly peaceful thing. I simply don't think that you're going to see any type of true social change in this country without a show of force from the people, whether that comes in the form of millions of people marching in the streets or in the form of a few thousand out there committing acts of sabotage.

Political direct action today is following in the footsteps of the noble acts of social rebellion for human liberation that have always occurred in this country: things like the Boston Tea Party, the Underground Railroad, the Suffragettes, and the civil-rights movement.

You write that many activists are "stuck in a stagnant cycle," and can't get "outside the box of activism." What are you referring to?

In this country, protest is basically a relief valve for public stress. Great examples of that now are the designated protest zones miles away from the actual thing that people are protesting. It's built into the social equation now that if you give people an outlet, they won't take things further and actually threaten the status quo. So when I say, "thinking outside the box," I mean exactly that: if you're doing something that the group you're protesting is actually allowing you to do, then it's probably not very effective.

In the same zine, you also wrote "it's a beautiful thing to see the financial district of a major city smashed to pieces." Of course we saw that in New York -- was that a beautiful thing?

That's a tough one. From a militant standpoint it's sad, but I'm not going to say that it was entirely wrong. I have friends who witnessed 9/11 and I have friends that lost family. I hate to see loss of life, period. And yet, I can understand how the World Trade Center is a legitimate target in this country. The U.S. economy is a trade economy, and when you're striking out and trying to cripple a country, you go after what it is that makes that country operate.

Some eco-tage actions have been pretty major, and could conceivably kill people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In your view, would that be justifiable collateral damage?

If you're looking at actions like burning cars, then no, injuring someone is not justifiable collateral damage. People are taking a lot of caution. We've seen relatively few injuries in any of these types of actions, and those that have occurred are generally the people committing the actions themselves. I don't think that it's just a matter of time before a bystander is injured through property destruction -- those groups have a track record of nearly four decades of underground illegal direct action that's involved all kinds of sabotage, and we haven't seen a single injury.

But then again, I wouldn't be opposed to physical violence against a human being if it was necessary.

You're advocating violent social change, but your ultimate goal is to have a peaceful, sustainable society. How can a violent path lead to peace?

It's hard. You know, I ain't gonna deny that. But I don't think that an entirely passive resistance in this country could be successful. I don't think the government would allow it, frankly -- it would be quashed through force of arms.

But if people are too dispirited to even keep doing the level of actions that you mentioned in Eugene, how are they going to do something like band together and rise up in armed struggle?

I don't know. That's why I write about it. If I had solutions, believe me, I would have them all over the place whether people wanted to hear them or not. I don't. All I know is that things are very, very wrong and I'm willing to work in a myriad of ways to try to fix them.

My greatest success is in simply trying to inspire people. Out of all the people that have read anything I've written or heard any interview I've done, maybe .001 percent have actually gotten involved in illegal direct action. But I've gotten a lot of people to start recycling, or to write their representatives. And to me that's huge. If I can get just a handful of people that never cared about anything to suddenly care and want to do something no matter how small, then maybe they'll get a handful of people to do the same thing. It has to start somewhere.

But couldn't you have accomplished just as much above ground instead of going to jail? Do you think you would have had the same impact?

I don't really know, to be honest. I'm a militant, flat out. When I was 16, I aspired to be a militant, as strange as that sounds. I enjoyed being a militant. I enjoyed the civil disobedience that I did, probably in much the same way that people who become soldiers enjoy what they do. I obviously didn't fill that niche very well because I ended up in prison doing it, so perhaps there were better alternatives for me.

When I did this I was a young kid, just turned 21. I went out, did a pretty small little action and got hammered with 22 years. But I have continued to be passionate about why I did what I did, and I think that resonates with people. People want to root for the underdog, and I'm the underdog: the things that I'm struggling for are so utopian they seem almost ridiculous. Yet people want a fraction of that idealism in their lives.

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Feds indict 11 people for alleged eco-crime conspiracy

On Friday, 11 alleged "eco-terrorists" were indicted on a total of 65 counts in connection with a five-year string of arsons and vandalism. The indictments were announced at a press conference attended by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, FBI Director Robert Mueller, ATF Director Carl J. Truscott, U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut, a marching band, and a squadron of F16 fighter jets (OK, we made up the last two). Labeling the crimes part of a "vast eco-terrorism conspiracy" centered in Eugene, Ore., federal prosecutors described nine years of investigating two groups, the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. The 17 incidents described in the indictments -- including arson at Colorado's Vail ski resort, a lumber-company office in Oregon, and a horticultural center in Seattle -- damaged or destroyed about $23 million in property, but caused no deaths. Still, the FBI says that stopping "eco-terrorism" remains its top domestic terror priority.

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FBI arrests six from around the country for green-themed crimes

It's one of the biggest-ever busts for "ecoterrorism" (we'll take the scare quotes off when someone gets hurt, thank you very much): On Wednesday, federal agents arrested six people in five states and indicted them on charges related to a string of property crimes in Washington and Oregon from 1998 to 2001. Included in the crimes are the destruction of a Bonneville Power Administration power-transmission tower near Bend, Ore., in December 1999, along with a string of arsons. The FBI claims the four men and two women are associated with each other and with the Earth Liberation Front, an amorphous group that along with the Animal Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for eco-inspired vandalism around the country for years. Federal officials are trumpeting the get-tough message, but Arizonian Ron Coronado, self-described unofficial spokesflack for ELF and ALF, says the charges won't stick.

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FBI calls "eco-terrorists" top domestic threat; Inhofe licks his chops

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee convened a hearing on "eco-terrorism" yesterday, anxious to warn the nation of a rising danger that has already killed ... well, nobody. Despite the unimpressive body count, a growing number of property crimes make fringe ecological and animal-rights groups the single greatest domestic terror threat facing the U.S., according to the FBI's John Lewis, who testified before the committee. He acknowledged that groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front have not caused bodily harm, per se, but cited "troubling signs that this is changing," like "violent rhetoric." After the testimony, committee chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.) got to the real agenda: Smearing the larger environmental movement. "Just like al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, ELF and ALF cannot accomplish their goals without money, membership, and the media," he said darkly, vowing to look more closely for ways that radical groups get assistance from "mainstream activists." That's you, folks.

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Feds using terrorism excuse to crack down on eco-activists

The U.S. government is using the Patriot Act to go after radical environmental activists -- and some unfortunate folks who just happen to look like them -- by branding them as "terrorists." Despite the fact that the Earth Liberation Front has caused no injuries during its acts of sabotage and arson over the years, the FBI told U.S. senators that the group and others like it are "a domestic terrorism investigative priority." One FBI agent says President Bush himself called to inquire about a 2003 incident in Southern California in which Hummers were torched or defaced at a dealership, acts for which ELF claimed responsibility. Thanks to the Patriot Act, groups or individuals deemed terrorists lose several constitutional protections and can be surveilled without a warrant. "It's a ludicrous extension of the word terrorist," says professor Steven Best of the University of Texas at El Paso, who has written about the animal-rights movement. "It drains it of any meaning."

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FBI suspects eco-terrorism in latest case of something bad happening

Two months ago, eco-terrorists were suspected of starting fires that destroyed or damaged 26 homes under construction near sensitive wetlands in Maryland. Turns out there were no eco-terrorists involved. But those same non-involved eco-terrorists may have struck again! The latest victims are apartment complexes under construction in subdivisions outside of Sacramento, Calif., in which several homemade explosive devices have been found. The hypothetico-eco-terrorists have carried out three dastardly attacks in just the past month, killing ... well, nobody, but starting one brief fire. At two of the sites, graffiti was found, reading "leave" and in one case "ELF," secret code known only to members of the Earth Liberation Front, an organization of, you guessed it, eco-terrorists! "This is terrorism, plain and simple," said the FBI's Keith Slotter. "And even if someone's target is property, not people, there is always the possibility of someone getting injured or killed." Are your children safe?

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Hummers Destroyed by ELF in Southern California

Dozens of Hummer H2s and other large SUVs were burned and defaced on Friday, the result of arson and vandalism at four car dealerships in Southern California. The Earth Liberation Front, a loosely knit association of militant activists, claimed responsibility for the actions, saying they were intended to "take the profit motive" away from those who sell gas-guzzling, polluting vehicles. SUVs were spray-painted with such slogans as "fat, lazy Americans" and "I (heart) pollution." One dealership suffered an estimated $1 million in damage. Hummer enthusiasts staged a rally outside the dealership on Sunday to show their support for the purveyors of SUVs. ELF has previously claimed responsibility for a number of other acts of arson and vandalism, most recently a fire that caused $50 million in damage at a construction site for a large, new apartment complex in San Diego. Mainstream environmental groups, and even some radicals in organizations such as Earth First!, condemn ELF's tactics.

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Radical Environmental Group Claims Responsibility for San Diego Fire

Saying it was trying to send a message about "rampant urban development," the Earth Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for a $50 million fire that destroyed an apartment complex in San Diego two weeks ago. No one was injured in the fire. The destruction of the apartment complex, which was being built on the city's rapidly growing northern boundary, marks the costliest attack ever by ELF, an underground organization that since 1996 has been deliberately setting fire to commercial developments that threaten the environment. A banner left at the scene of the Aug. 3 San Diego arson read, "If you build it, we will burn it," with the initials E.L.F.

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