FBI investigates new attacks on Calif. scientists

[tannybogus]

Source: WTOP News

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) - The FBI is investigating two bombings that targeted university scientists, the latest in a rash of attacks against biomedical researchers who experiment on animals, authorities say.

Both scientists work at the University of California, Santa Cruz. One of them and his family were forced to escape from a second-story window early Saturday when a firebomb was lit on the home's porch, Santa Cruz police said. An adult was treated at a hospital and released.

Police Capt. Steve Clark called the bombing "an attempted homicide."

Also that morning, a firebomb destroyed a car belonging to another researcher. Clark said authorities were treating the attacks as "domestic terrorism."



Read more: http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=1453060

[Mz Pip]

1. I have zero respect

for the idiots who do this kind of thing. I hope they catch them and lock them up for a very long while.

[TheWraith]

2. The only thing this accomplishes...

...is to prove that sometimes people and animals really are the same. :eyes:

I'm fully against unnecessary animal experimentation, but this is NOT the way to stop it.

[Deja Q]

3. Yup. Apparently, pro-animal/environmental nuts think that exploding big buildings will help...

Did they bother to take out the animals before getting off with their bombs? I doubt it.

Add one vote to 'domestic terrorism'; throw 'em in jail and blow up the key.

[and-justice-for-all]

11. Im one of those pro-animal/environmentalist nuts....

but I have never had any desire to blow shit up...

It could a just a cowinky-dink that animals just happened to be involved, and that the real suspects are religious nuts. We all know how much they hate science and scientist.

[EFerrari]

17. There is a lady in one of the most committed organizations

that has the same name I do. I've been afraid for years now that she's going to haul off and set something on fire and get me put on the remaining lists or in jail or both. :)

[flvegan]

18. You just made a huge mistake

You grouped us all together and made us domestic terrorists.

Thanks. Well done. You'd be well advised to know that folks in certain movements such as the ALF/ELF have NEVER harmed a human being.

You just got used. Hope it sits well with you.

[DBoon]

4. I hope none of these animal rights people becomes insulin-dependent

There are millions od diabetics who own their lives to animal experimentation

http://www.discoveryofinsulin.com/Introduction.htm

[milou]

28. VP at PETA MaryBeth Sweetland...

is a diabetic, she says it's "OK" for her to use insulin derived from animals because...

"I don't see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals."

Do as I say, not as I do.

[superduperfarleft]

29. There's an enormous difference

between taking life-saving medication (and insulin these days is mostly synthetic anyway) and either eating a hamburger because it tastes good or securing a research grant by testing whether or not a baby monkey with his eyes sewed closed from birth will have any psychological difficulties when older (google "Britches").

There's plenty to complain about when it comes to PETA or Sweetland herself without calling her a hypocrite for simply desiring not to die.

[milou]

30. No...

She just wants future recipients of current testing to die. Point me to the part where she says current testing on animals for things like cancer, growing organs, or alzheimer's is OK. She'd sentence future victims of diseases to death, but it's A-OK for her to live off of past "exploitation of animals". She's a hypocrite, it's pretty black and white.

[superduperfarleft]

31. Animal testing is legally required by the FDA...

So it's impossible for any drug currently on the market to have not been tested on animals. This doesn't speak one way or the other about whether or not animal testing is effective. Therefore, your statement that "she just wants future recipients to die" point is really stretching it, and looks more like trollish hyperbole than an attempt to discuss the issue.

[milou]

33. I wasn't talking about legalities

I was bringing up the fact that if PETA was around in the 20s the University of Toronto would have been protested against for their inhumane treatment of dogs. Just like they do today, even if the research can save lives. But they'll gladly reap the benefits of past research. I'll just quote their president to make my point.

"Even if animal research produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it."
—Ingrid Newkirk, PETA President and Founder

But if she had AIDS and a cure grew from animal research, I'm sure she'd take advantage of it. Just like MaryBeth Sweetland. And that is why they are hypocrites.

[superduperfarleft]

34. From an ethical perspective, I'd have a problem with it too.

My concern over animal research is not related to whether or not its effective, but because I believe the entire practice is unethical. (It would probably be even more effective to use human subjects, but its effectiveness would not cancel out the ethical problems with doing that) Taking a lifesaving medication (which as I stated, most likely contains no animal products) while agitating to change the practice of animal experimentation seems pretty consistent and reasonable to me and much more practical than letting yourself die.

Hell, even water, sand, and electricity has been tested on animals. My opposition to animal research shouldn't mean that I can't take a shower, go to the beach, or enjoy my AC.

[milou]

35. Except water, sand, electricity, etc...

exists no mater what we do, we didn't create it. On the other hand, the production of insulin would never have happened without pigs, cows, sheep, and dogs being used. And synthetic insulin is a recent advancement. We're not even talking about testing for safety here. If it wasn't for removing the pancreas from a living dog, we wouldn't have even known insulin existed until much later. Insulin in an injectable would never have existed had it not been for animal research and using animals for production is my point. So how, with a clear conscience, can they use the product of what to them is an animal holocaust?

[superduperfarleft]

37. "So how, with a clear conscience, can they use the product of what to them is an animal holocaust?"

I guess because they like being alive.

Would you really demand that someone who is diabetic and opposed to animal testing not take the medication that keeps them alive? If so, that's a pretty severe way to deal with people with whom you disagree.

[milou]

38. I prefer

that they stick to their guns and not save their own lives while trying stop research that will possibly save people in the same predicament in the future. I disapprove of people who say "I don't care if it cures AIDS it needs to be stopped! But hey, since this stuff is already here, why not, after all I deserve it". I'm sorry that you disapprove of pointing out hypocrisy.

[Wizard777]

5. Has PETA gone terrorist organization?

[Zhade]

6. To be fair, is there any evidence PETA was involved?

NT!

[Wizard777]

13. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out how Green Peace became a terrorist organization.

Who ever it is targets scientists that experiment upon animals. So your not going look for this person in the animal rights community why? Everytime someone blows up an abortion clinic. We screem for Randal Terry to be arrested. With the church shooting we screamed for Limbaugh, O'Reily and Coulter to be arrested. So why not PETA too? I guess the right isn't the only ones that suffer from hypocracy. We want to apply our ideals to everyone but us? We might as well be republicans.

[EFerrari]

16. No. Tagging an organization without good evidence

is much more Republican-like.

[flvegan]

21. No, but the DU PETA douchebag hatemongers have to get in quickly!

Fucking idiots.

[mike_c]

7. before getting all moral and indignant, remember...

...that the folks doing the bombing are, for the most part, thoroughly disenfranchised by the industry-government-academic alliance they're seeking a voice in. This is an old story-- people don't usually resort to violence unless they're on the zealot fringe that STARTS with violent responses or unless they have relatively few other options for influencing policy.

Fair disclosure-- I'm a biologist who has killed plenty of animals during my career-- but not a biomed researcher-- and I know a number of people who are adamantly opposed to animal experimentation/exploitation, including some serving prison terms for their activism/"terrorism." One or two are among my closest friends. The point I'm trying to make is that they're not rabid, wild eyed zealots-- they're passionate and committed people who have been denied their voice by self-serving industrial interests.

I'm not trying to defend firebombing researchers or labs, but rather trying to cast some understanding on the situation that leads people from concern, to passion, to direct action. There but for the grace of god....

[kestrel91316]

8. With all due respect, mike-c, IMHO the ones who resort to murder and

attempted murder haven't the slightest interest in having "a voice" in the use of animals - they completely and unequivocally oppose all use of animals by humans for ANY purpose.

These are the people who gleefully seek a complete end to the existence of my profession. Makes me wonder when vets in private practice are gonna start getting targeted. Pet ownership IS animal exploitation, like it or not.

[Ian David]

10. It's only exploitation if you make them wear sweaters.

[mike_c]

12. I hear you....

I know some folks of that stripe too, and they're just butt ignorant.

[EFerrari]

15. Pet "ownership" can be exploitation but it isn't necessarily so.

I have three rescues that would be ashes without being exploited by me in this home. They were too homely or behavioral to adopt out. I prefer to think of it as co-habitation. lol

[Name removed]

20. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MicaelS]

25. When it comes to sacrificng people

For animals, I don't give a shit for these people having a voice or influencing policy.

[mike_c]

26. well, that's why they have relatively few ways to get our attention....

Because people like you "don't give a shit" about their convictions. That's a pretty universal prescription for violence, no matter what the cause.

[MicaelS]

32. OK, in a calmer tone

We give them a hearing, and most people completely reject their ideology, believing human beings come first. What then? Are they still "allowed" to commit their violent acts to get our attention and to effect change? Are you seriously suggesting that the biomedical field actually accommodate these people by allowing them to serve on ethical panels that determine the future course of research?

The real question is how far must society go in accommodating those with extreme points of view which the majority of society roundly rejects. Because as far as I'm concerned these people fall into the category of people who equate abortion with murder and who use violence against clinics and abortion providers. Are you telling me, that you as a professional in the biological research field think that anti-choice zealots who commit acts like Eric Rudolph are worth of our time and consideration? Are we supposed to give their viewpoint serious attention?

What's your serious answer? Just what exactly do propose society should do?

[mike_c]

36. in fact I do think that some folks from that community should be sitting...

...on ethics panels. Look, at present their views are simply rejected out of hand. Mostly, I'm just as guilty of that as many of my colleagues, but at least we reject anti-animal-experimentation arguments out of what we consider a rational position (as opposed to simple greed). HOWEVER, not everyone accepts that world view, no matter how rational it sounds to me, and their views deserve a hearing too-- and they deserve a hearing in a setting where they can effect change, i.e. on review boards and ethics panels.

Remember who REALLY sets most of the biomedical research agenda-- the U.S. government via the NIH, National Cancer Institutes, NSF, etc, and industrial for-profit interests like big pharma (and the lines between them get awfully blurry at times). Notwithstanding that at least some of those agencies support my research as well, I'll be the first to admit that they have an agenda too-- one that's antithetical to many in the animal rights movement. Again, I think it's worthwhile to be honest with ourselves about how we let our professional and intellectual biases determine whose agenda we're willing to allow to the table.

Finally, one of the best strategies I know for dealing with recalcitrant idealogues is to bring them into the decision making process. If they become invested they often begin to understand the need for constructive dialog and compromise-- AND their views often moderate the "tyranny of the majority" at the same time.

Eric Rudolph has no bearing on this conversation, IMO, except to the extent that I also believe that partisan anti-abortionists have valuable insights to bring to the table when we discuss social responsibility and reproductive options, just like everyone else. Rudolph illustrates the sort of zealot who likely wouldn't ever be a genuine participant in that debate though-- by removing himself from the process, he would choose violence over compromise. Some in the animal rights movement are just as immovably partisan, but like the anti-reproductive-rights movement, many are genuinely interested in contributing to solutions that improve society for everyone.

[Ian David]

9. False-flag operation. Navy SEALS dressed as Iranians or something.

Or maybe Air Force jets painted to look like United Nations planes.

Do we have evidence that PeTA is trying to buy yellow cake Uranium from a Nigerian diplomat who is already dead?

[MinM]

23. Agent provocateurs?

Not that it mitigates any responsibility here, at least in my mind, but it would be interesting to know if this went down like the case just documented in Mother Jones:

Mother Jones: There's Something About Mary: Unmasking a Gun Lobby Mole

Outside the gun control world, Mary Lou Sapone was, as Mother Jones has previously reported, a for-hire operative who spied on citizens' groups for corporate clients. Property and phone records indicate that the two names belong to the same person. Last week, a reporter for Mother Jones called the Sarasota phone number that McFate had given her gun control allies and asked the woman who answered if she was Mary Lou Sapone. "Yes," she responded. But Sapone then refused to answer any questions about Mary McFate or her work for gun control. She quickly hung up—and did not respond to subsequent calls and emails.

During Sapone's ascent through the ranks of the gun control movement, she worked for the NRA, according to a business associate. In a 2003 deposition, Tim Ward, who had been president of the Maryland-based security firm Beckett Brown International, said that the NRA had been "a client" of Sapone's. (As a subcontractor for BBI, Sapone had planted an operative within an environmental group in Lake Charles, Louisiana.) According to Ward, at his request Sapone had introduced BBI to the NRA in early 1999. And that introduction quickly paid off. Billing records obtained by Mother Jones indicate that between May 1999 and April 2000, the NRA paid BBI nearly $80,000 for various services...

Sapone's earliest known private intelligence operation occurred in the mid-1980s, when she served as an operative for Perceptions International, a Connecticut-based security firm. Working for Perceptions, which has since been shuttered, she infiltrated the animal rights community for US Surgical Corporation, a target of activists who objected to its testing on dogs. According to a 1989 article in New England Business, Sapone appeared on the animal rights scene in 1986 and quickly became "involved in at least a half dozen animal rights groups." She "made a point of getting to know all of the key people in the movement," and "traveled around the country to most protests, meetings and conferences." At meetings, activists would later say, Sapone advocated taking illegal or violent action to advance the movement. She befriended a 33-year-old activist named Fran Trutt, who in November 1988 would be arrested for planting a remote-controlled pipe bomb near the parking space of US Surgical chairman Leon Hirsch. According to Trutt, on her way to carry out the bombing she lost her nerve and placed a call to Sapone, who convinced her to follow through with the plan—a fact that prompted activists to accuse Sapone of acting as an agent provocateur. (Another Perceptions International operative, Marcus Mead, drove Trutt to US Surgical on the day of the attempted bombing.)

In the 1990s—while working within the gun control community as McFate—Sapone formed her own intelligence-gathering business. And she enlisted family members for its operations. "In our business, it's my daughter-in-law, Montgomery Sapone does all the analytic reports, forecasting, and white papers," Sapone wrote to a client in an August 1999 email obtained by Mother Jones. "She produces a very professional product." Sapone continued, "We are warning our clients that activist groups are moving towards ballot initiatives…And it's easy for groups like Greenpeace to emotionally shape a looming crisis in a 10 second TV spot 2 days before a referenda election. My daughter Shelley specializes in that aspect of our business. We are doing a lot of work now to help clients in the 2000 election."...
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/mary-mcfate-sapone-gun-lobby-nra-spy.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3702535
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/4/leading_gun_control_activist_exposed_as

[Peace Patriot]

14. Lord, you folks are gullible! How quickly you forget Iraq WMDs and the Anthrax

attacks. We need to learn SKEPTICISM as a rule of thumb on all corporate 'news' monopoly reports, but most especially when they involve claims of "domestic terrorism."

The FBI, under Bush, is not to be trusted, and has reason to want a distraction just now, given their colossal botching of the Anthrax investigation (if botching it was, and not deliberate mishandling to cover up the real perpetrators of that outrage).

We are suffering under a lawless government--fully capable of, and in considerable need of, manufacturing "terrorist" incidents.

BE SKEPTICAL. Please.

[flvegan]

19. Less than 20 responses in, and the stupid is almost incredible.

Jesus folks. You DO know that other people read this site, right?

[Zynx]

22. The trend of aggression toward scientists is disturbing.

Extremists may get their way if this continues as scientists refuse to live in this country.

[slackmaster]

24. They're getting it from both extremes of the left/right political spectrum

:argh:

[The Stranger]

27. What were they doing to the animals? I guess they're not going to tell us?

Someone on another thread gave me a link that didn't say jack fucking shit about it.

If indeed this isn't black ops or a false flag operation meant to demonize and justify rounding up eco- and animal rights "terrorists," then the question is what motivated them to act in this way (if they actually did something like this).

I guess no one knows?