Reply #3: The FBI considers Greenpeace (and PETA, and the Quakers) terrorist groups.

[Dunvegan]

FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A11

FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S. advocacy groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes, the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as it released new FBI records that it said detail the extent of the activity.

The documents, disclosed as part of a lawsuit that challenges FBI treatment of groups that planned demonstrations at last year's political conventions, show the bureau has opened a preliminary terrorism investigation into People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the well-known animal rights group based in Norfolk.

The papers offer no proof of PETA's involvement in illegal activity. But more than 100 pages of heavily censored FBI files show the agency used secret informants and tracked the group's events for years, including an animal rights conference in Washington in July 2000, a community meeting at an Indiana college in spring 2003 and a planned August 2004 protest of a celebrity fur endorser.

The documents show the FBI cultivated sources such as a "well insulated" PETA insider, who attended the 2000 meeting to gain credibility "within the animal rights/Ruckus movements." The FBI also kept information on Greenpeace and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the papers show.

And it goes quite a ways back...

Creating the Conditions for Surveillance Abuse

But several conversations indicated a troubling trend among a few hard-line outfits. Over breakfast a Navy security staffer said he had attended a Naval intelligence briefing where Greenpeace was described as a "terrorist" group with ties to "international communist groups." At three security firm display booths I was told archly that their intelligence staff knew what really was behind Greenpeace and that clients who hired them would not have any problems with Greenpeace. Several people including the head of one New York firm that uses aerial photography to help companies improve plant site security said they had picked up accounts from corporations that feared politically motivated attacks from the environmentalist or animal rights movements.

The boldest statement came from an account executive from Vance Security who leaned forward and said "We expect Greenpeace to move in the direction of violence soon." Vance has been accused of using obtrusive surveillance and physical intimidation in a number of strikebreaking and union-busting episodes over the past few years, and is among a handful of security firms frequently referred to derogatorily as "The Cowboys" by others at the ASIS conference. The view of Greenpeace held by Vance and other hard-liners in the security field is an important indicator of future problems, because the "labelling" of a group as violent, terrorist or pro-communist is often a first step toward the delegitimizating the group. Labelling undermines public support and thus sanctions the use of aggressive surveillance and harassment by government agencies or private security firms. There is also a self-fulfilling prophecy with labelling, as police are likely to respond with unjustified force when you think you are peaceful protestors and they have been trained that you are violent potential terrorists.