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<h2><b>The Green Scare: Rod Coronado gave a talk in San Diego and the
feds called his words
‘terrorism.’</b></h2><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070503140519175" eudora="autourl">
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070503140519175<br>
</a> <br>
Thursday, May 03 2007 @ 02:05 PM PDT<br>
Contributed by:
<a href="http://www.infoshop.org/inews/users.php?mode=profile&uid=54">
Collin Sick</a><br><br>
<br>
~ By DEAN KUIPERS ~ <br><br>
It’s only appropriate, perhaps, that the future of the First Amendment
takes shape in a hippie law office in San Francisco’s North Beach
district, surrounded by strippers. A light April rain falls on furtive
patrons of the Lusty Lady and the Roaring 20s on the street below as
legendary radical environmentalist Rodney Coronado sits in a conference
room in the Pier 5 Law Offices, strategizing with some of this country’s
finest civil rights attorneys. <br><br>
Coronado’s no stranger to this scenario, having emerged only days before
from his second stretch in federal prison, this time for eight months. He
listens attentively, his dark Yaqui Indian heritage shining through as he
munches on a veggie burrito. The glow on his fiancée Chrysta’s face says
everything you’d need to know about how good it is to be out. But the joy
may be short-lived. Now Coronado is caught up in a June prosecution he
never could have foreseen and which has the environmentalist community,
in particular, digging in for a long fight with the federal
government.<br><br>
That’s because his alleged crime doesn’t involve something he actually
did. Rather, it only involves something he said. <br><br>
In 2003, Coronado gave a public speech about animal rights in San Diego
attended by about 100 people and hosted by a vegetarian group. It was, he
says, his “standard” speech at the time, talking about his own extreme
efforts to protect wildlife, including a 1991-92 arson campaign against
fur farms as an agent of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), for which he
served 57 months in prison. During a Q&A period after the speech,
someone asked him how he once made his incendiary devices. Having long
retired from that kind of action, and having paid for it with prison
time, he answered the question. <br><br>
U.S. Attorneys now say Coronado’s brief response – the actual speech
itself – is a federal crime. Not only that, it’s terrorism. <br><br>
And that word – terrorism – is new to the environmental movement, with
regard to actual punishment for crimes. The word “eco-terrorist” was
coined by powerhouse PR firm Hill & Knowlton back in 1990, but only
recent laws make ecologically motivated speech a terrorist crime. The
attorneys aren’t even totally certain how it works. I ask the question,
cognizant that Coronado and his fiancée are in the room, and opinions
fly. Ben Rosenfeld, from the offices of famed attorney Dennis Cunningham,
says the government’s plea offer, which they turned down, was 21 months.
Tony Serra, the silver-haired lion who is a resident of these offices and
who has successfully championed everyone from Black Panther Huey Newton
to the Hells Angels to Earth First!er Judi Bari, says he always figures
the judge could go twice the offer, so 42 months. <br><br>
But Jerry Singleton, the attorney who is defending Coronado’s case in
federal district court in San Diego, shakes his head. <br><br>
“The government is holding out that there’s this bogeyman,” says
Singleton. “They’re saying that the guidelines, which would put him at, I
think, 18 years, would be the ones that apply. Those were post-9/11.”
That stuns the room for a minute.<br><br>
“I don’t think those sentencing guidelines are applicable in this case,
not the way it’s been charged,” opines another Pier 5 attorney, Omar
Figueroa.<br><br>
“Well there’s an argument that they are,” says Singleton, shooting a look
at Coronado. “They’re trying to use them.”<br><br>
Eighteen years would be a shocking sentence for a speech even if Coronado
were the only one facing time like this, but he’s got company. Since
2005, the government has brought over 20 cases against environmentalists
that have redefined not only free speech, but also redefined
environmentally motivated property destruction – like torching Hummers or
tree-felling equipment – as being on a par with the murderous assaults of
Al Qaeda. Twenty eco-radicals might not sound like a lot, but it’s almost
as many as had been arrested for major crimes in the 18 years previous,
while 1,200 known attacks by ALF or its younger twin, the Earth
Liberation Front, caused as much as $200 million in damages. It is
important to note that no persons have ever been injured or killed in
these attacks, but industry lobbying groups have forced the government to
make prosecuting them a top priority.<br><br>
Environmentalists are calling it the “green scare,” in reference to the
“red scare” that characterized the hunt for communists during the
McCarthy era. The wave of prosecutions have sent a shock through the part
of the movement that engages in direct action, like activists
bicycle-locking themselves to bulldozers. The terrorism sentencing
enhancements that the government is threatening to use in Coronado’s case
will apparently first be used against 10 animal activists in Oregon being
sentenced in May. In another case in New Jersey, six activists were given
sentences as long as six years for running a website that posted
information about vandalism attacks – without connecting them to the
vandalism in any way. In the meantime, even the Democratic-controlled
Congress keeps ratcheting up the laws, passing in November the Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act, which makes attacks against the profits of
animal-based industries into, once again, terrorism. <br><br>
“You have to look at Rod’s case in conjunction with the whole spate of
vindictive cases that the government has been bringing against radical
environmentalists, who the government carelessly lumps in with
terrorists, and members of ELF or ALF and sometimes just anarchists,”
says Rosenfeld. “The government has been on record as admitting it’s made
a domestic priority out of going after this movement writ
large.”<br><br>
True enough, the U.S. Department of Justice has said in congressional
testimony since at least 1999 that it considered ALF and ELF to be “top
priorities” in the fight against domestic terrorism. But that has never
included people who make animal rights websites. Or widely published
activist leaders like Coronado who make speeches. Until now. Rosenfeld
says he’s started to field concerned calls from other environmental
groups.<br><br>
“It is having a huge chilling impact on people,” he adds. “The government
has shown its willingness to go after people based purely on speech and
ideology. People don’t know anymore what they can safely even say, let
alone what they can safely do. This is at complete variance with what
most people believe is protected activity.”<br><br>
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