The AETA made Project Censored: Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008.

[yewberry]

It's #20. They actually put together a smart write-up about it.

http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2008/index.htm

The term “terrorism” has been dangerously expanded to include acts that interfere, or promote interference, with the operations of animal enterprises. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), signed into law on November 27, 2006, broadens punishment present under the Animal Enterprises Protection Act (AEPA) of 1992. One hundred and sixty groups, including the National Lawyers’ Guild, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Humane Voters, Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, and the New York City Bar Association, oppose this Act on grounds that its terminology is dangerously vague and poses a major conflict to the US Constitution.
The broad definition of an “animal enterprise,” for example, may encompass most US businesses: “any enterprise that uses or sells animals or animal products.” The phrase “loss of any real or personal property,” is elastic enough to include loss of projected profit. Concerns deepen as protections against “interference” extend to any “person or entity having a connection to, relationship with, or transactions with an animal enterprise.”

Lots more there.

:hi:

edit: link, duh.

[LeftyMom]

1. They have great links too.

I did a paper on the AETA back in November and I got some great sources by looking at their links and then their sources' sources. Which unfortunately meant I quoted most of the printed matter on the AETA, because outside of the AR and radical environmentalist subcultures, nobody even knows what it is. :(

[yewberry]

2. It's amazing how little attention it's gotten.

I guess it's true that if you insert the word 'terrorism' into anything, people will swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

After all, it's just the whackos and kooks that'll be prosecuted, right?

[flvegan]

3. The AETA effectively stifles such things as greyhound track protests

puppy store protests, Fur-Free Friday...

Technically, and you didn't hear it from me, the AETA could hinder future legislation such as the California Humane initiative.

The AETA is a crippling measure. I'd ask that every one of us look to which of our congresspeople allowed this to happen.

[LeftyMom]

4. It's woefully unconstitutional, but somebody will have to get convicted

before anybody looks at that. And how many people will be intimidated into silence before that happens?

The funny thing is, that shit backfires. Look at the ridiculous restrictions they have on above-board AR protest in the UK, and their movement is soooooooo much more badass and militant (and successful) than ours. When legal protest options are few, some people shut up and some go with illegal options.