Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mont!rich From: jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Subject: Re: Resisting Spying & Attacks on Environmental Groups Message-ID: <1991Jun25.004255.1882@pencil.cs.missouri.edu> Date: 25 Jun 91 01:22:16 GMT Sender: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel) Followup-To: alt.activism.d,talk.environment Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line Lines: 452 Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu =v= The attached documents have appeared on the net before, but before this newsgroup came into existence. They are germane to the topic of harassment of environmental groups. =v= There are three documents attached: (1) A Greenpeace press release about a Clorox public relations "crisis management plan." Part of the plan entails labelling environmentalists "terrorists." (2) A Greenpeace press release about a worker in Greenpeace's toxics campaign whose house was burnt down. (3) A long speech by Earth First!'s Judi Bari, detailing all kinds of incidents of harassment of activists. =v= All of these stories are important and, of course, extremely under-reported. I encourage folks to take this information and spread it far and wide -- on-line and off-line. Publicizing these things is, in my opinion, a critical part of resisting them. <_Jym_> ======================================================================== [Greenpeace Press Release from Environet] CLOROX COMPANY'S PUBLIC RELATIONS "CRISIS MANAGEMENT PLAN" LEAKED TO GREENPEACE Seattle, May 13, 1991 (GP) -- A public relations "Crisis Management Plan" prepared for the Clorox Corporation and leaked to Greenpeace recommends labeling environmental critics as "terrorists," threatening to sue "unalterably green" journalists, and dispatching "independent scientists" on media tours as means to counteract bad news for the chlorine industry. The plan, prepared by the public relations division of Ketchum Communications, was apparently prompted by fears that the environmental group would target household use of chlorine bleach and call for its elimination. Greenpeace has an international program aimed at ending the use of chlorine in the pulp and paper industry. Its slogan "Chlorine-Free by 1993" is cited in the Clorox plan, which outlines numerous "worst case scenarios" in which Greenpeace and "unalterably green" journalists figure prominently. "They failed to anticipate the worst of worst case scenarios," said Shelley Stewart, Greenpeace toxics campaigner. "That some conscientious person would obtain the plan, and leak it to us." Greenpeace verified that Ketchum Communications, a Pittsburgh- based firm which is one of the nation's largest advertising and public relations entities, is under contract to Clorox. One portion of the leaked document is comprised of a fax transmission between two Ketchum offices. "Lying is a growth industry," Stewart said of such PR firms. "The truth is that chlorine is a chemical whose days are numbered. Its use has created some of the most intractable environmental problems in history." DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, CFCs and dioxin all originate from use of chlorine. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the Clorox plan is that while it's clear that the company knows it has a genuine environmental problem on its hands, the document suggests that Clorox feels more threatened by a public interest group like Greenpeace than they do by the federal authorities. The Crisis Plan makes reference to studies linking chlorine use to cancer, and with remarkable candor suggests ways to discredit the findings if they ever became public. Ketchum recommends that Clorox should "cast doubts on the methodology and findings," of potentially damaging scientific reports which haven't yet been written. The PR firm also recommends labeling Greenpeace as violent self- seeking "eco-terrorists;" attempting to sue newspaper columnists who advocate use of non-toxic bleaches and cleaners for the home; "immunizing" government officials; dispatching "independent" scientists on media tours; and recruiting "scientific ambassadors" to tout the Clorox cause and call for further study. While "crisis" public relations specialists have been deployed to effect spin control on virtually every major environmental issue in recent years, the chlorine industry has been a prolific consumer of the type of service outlined in the Ketchum memo. The Clorox PR strategy sounded familiar to Stewart. "We've seen the same kinds of ploys coming from the American Paper Institute and the Chlorine Institute surrounding the toxicity of dioxin," she said. NOTE: Copies of the Clorox Crisis Management Plan are available from Greenpeace's offices in Washington, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, and Toronto, Canada. Contact: Shelley Stewart in Seattle, 206/632-4326 Bill Walker in San Francisco, 415/512-9025 Peter Dykstra in Washington, DC, 202/319-2491 Tamara Stark in Toronto, Canada 416/345-8408 #### ======================================================================== [Greenpeace Press Release from Environet] GREENPEACE CALLS ON FBI TO INVESTIGATE ARSON IN OFFICE WASHINGTON May 3, 1991 (GP) -- Greenpeace today called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch an inquiry into a suspicious fire that destroyed the home of a Greenpeace activist and her library of invaluable documentation of corporate pollution throughout the country. Pat Costner, research director for the Greenpeace USA toxics campaign, left her home in a remote, wooded area near Eureka Springs, Arkansas on the evening of March 2. Returning three hours later, she discovered her house in ashes with some small flames still visible. Local fire officials said they could not determine the cause of the fire, but Rick Eley, a Tennessee-based arson investigator retained by Greenpeace, determined that the fire was set with gasoline, with Costner's office and library specifically targeted. In another incident three weeks later a telephone line to Costner's temporary residence was severed. After meeting with Costner and learning of the investigator's findings, local and Arkansas State Police officials urged Costner to contact the FBI. On Wednesday, Costner sent via Federal Express a letter requesting an FBI investigation to Don K. Pettus, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau's Little Rock office. (501-221-9100.) Costner has led a high profile campaign on behalf the public's right to know what toxic chemicals companies routinely dump into the environment. Costner, a chemist, had accumulated an enormous amount of data on the health effects of industrial pollutants and the dumping and disposal practices of some of the most powerful companies in America. Her home and possessions were a total loss in the fire, and were not insured. "Given the enormity of the crimes against the environment committed every day, this crime was a small one," said Costner. "However, if the persons responsible for this attack hoped to silence my efforts on behalf of the planet and the public, they were sadly mistaken." NOTES: Arson Investigator Rick Eley can be reached at 901-753-9031. Copies of his report are available from Greenpeace in Washington. Pat Costner is currently travelling and can be reached through Greenpeace in Washington. Contact: Peter Dykstra, or Greenpeace USA Executive Director Peter Bahouth at (202) 462-1177 #### ======================================================================== [From the May 8, 1991 issue of _Anderson_Valley_Advertiser_] Community Under Siege by Judi Bari [Footnotes added by jym@mica.berkeley.edu] [Speech given at the Cinco de Mayo/May 5th gathering in Booneville on Sunday, May 5th, 1991.] I came of age during the Vietnam era, and I've known for a long time that the system is enforced by violence. Some of my earliest political experiences were of 20-year-old national guardsmen beating my 18-year-old non-violent friends senseless and bloody. I didn't think I had any delusions about how thin the veneer of civility is in this country. But I have to admit that I was totally unprepared for the sheer horror of being bombed and maimed while organizing for Redwood Summer last year. The bombing represented the end of innocence for our movement. Sure, we had seen violence before, but this was different. The logger who broke Mem Hill's nose, the log truck driver who ran me off the road -- these people were victims of the timber industry themselves who, in the heat of the moment, took their anger out on us. But whoever put that bomb in my car was a cold and premeditated killer. And the FBI's attempt to frame me and Darryl [Cherney] for the bombing made us realize what we are up against. Not only are they willing to use lethal force to protect their "right" to level whole ecosystems for private profit, they are also backed by the full power of the government's secret police. The man in charge of my and Darryl's case at the FBI is Richard W. Held, chief of the San Francisco office. He went on TV last summer to say that Darryl and I were the _only_ suspects in the bomb attack that nearly took my life. Richard Held became notorious in the 1970's for his active role in COINTELPRO, an outrageous and illegal FBI program to disrupt and destroy any group that challenged the powers-that-be. COINTELPRO's method was to foment internal discord in activist groups, isolate and discredit them, terrorize them, and assassinate their leaders. The best known example of this was Black Panther Fred Hampton, who was murdered by the FBI as he slept in his bed in a Chicago apartment in 1969. And there were many, many others. But back to Richard Held, the man in charge of my bombing case. His personal role in COINTELPRO began in the early 70's in Los Angeles, where he ordered insulting cartoons to be drawn and sent, supposedly from one faction to another, in the L.A. Black Panthers. This heated up antagonisms between the factions so much that, with a little help from FBI infiltrators, they erupted into shooting wars that left two Panthers dead. Held was also on hand in Pine Ridge South Dakota in 1975, to help direct the FBI's reign of terror against the American Indian Movement. In this case the FBI took advantage of existing divisions in the native community to hook up with a vigilante groups called GOONS, or Guardians of the Oglala Nation. These local thugs were armed by the FBI and guaranteed that they would not be prosecuted for crimes against AIM members. They attacked over 300 AIM people and killed 70 of them. Not one of these crimes was solved because, said the FBI, they "didn't have enough manpower." The Pine Ridge campaign ended with a military sweep of the reservation by 200 SWAT trained agents, and with the framing and jailing of Leonard Peltier. Another of Richard Held's accomplishments was in San Diego, where he was assigned to the Minutemen, a right-wing paramilitary group that had gotten so blatant that the FBI decided to make them disband. Richard Held disbanded them, all right, but he re-organized them into the Secret Army Organization (SAO). The SAO bombed the Guild Theater, a black community project, and tried to assassinate Peter Bohmer, a radical professor at San Diego State. They missed and severely wounded his associate, Paula Thorpe. By the way, the assassination symbol of the Minutemen was the rifle scope and cross-hairs. In 1978 Richard Held was transferred to Puerto Rico where he oversaw the FBI's execution of two Independentista leaders who were made to kneel, then shot in the head. Held stayed on until 1985, when he stage-managed an island-wide SWAT assault by 300 agents who busted in doors and rounded up activists. For all his good work, Richard Held was then promoted to be in charge of the San Francisco FBI, where he still works today. And I don't know if the FBI had anything to do with putting that bomb in my car, but I know for certain that they tried to frame me for it and made sure the real bomber wasn't found. They blowtorched out my whole floorboard and front seat and sent it to their "crime lab in D.C.," thereby destroying the evidence that would prove they were lying about the location of the bomb. [1] So with this knowledge of how the FBI operates, when I look at what's going on in our movement I can only conclude that we are under attack by a COINTELPRO-type operation. Earth First! is definitely a target. We know that the FBI has spent at least $3 million to infiltrate and disrupt Earth First! in Arizona and Montana, not even including what they've done in Northern California. In Arizona, admitted FBI agent provocateur Michael Fain infiltrated their group for two years, winning the activists' trust and friendship. Then he led them to try and drop a power line, and got them busted for it by the FBI. This is the supposed "Earth First! plot to destroy nuclear power plants" that you hear about. There was no plot. Just some naive people who were misled by the FBI. And Dave Foreman wasn't even there. They arrested him in his bed at 5 a.m. and led him out in his underwear. [2] In Montana the FBI targeted an environmental studies professor named Ron Erikson, saying he and his Earth First! students were responsible for a tree-spiking incident. They raided people's houses and forced them to give fingerprints, handwriting and hair samples. Yet even after a Grand Jury investigation, they found no evidence at all to link Erickson or his students with any tree-spiking. But they discredited him professionally and terrorized the Earth First!ers. So I would be crazy not to assume that the FBI has had its hand in the events up here, both before and after the bombing. But whether it's the FBI or just the timber industry, I know for sure that the _techniques_ of COINTELPRO have been used here in an attempt to disrupt us, discredit us, create a climate of fear, and derail our attempts to save the redwoods. Here are some examples of standard COINTELPRO practices that have shown up in our community: Black Propaganda -- This term refers to information that appears to come from one source (EF!) but actually comes from another source (FBI or timber). The fake press releases that were distributed before the bombing fit this category. They claimed to be from Earth First! and called for violence against timber workers, but one had no contact name or number at all, and the other spelled Darryl's name wrong. [3] An even scarier example of black propaganda came from the right wing anti-environmental group the Sahara Club. In April 1990 they printed a diagram of how to make a bomb, claiming it was from an Earth First! terrorism manual. Of course there is no such manual printed, distributed by, or legitimately associated with us. Gray Propaganda -- This term refers to damaging information whose source is not clear. Under this category I would place the recent front-page article in the _San_Francisco_Examiner_ in which an "ex-CIA agent" claims, with no evidence or details whatsoever, that Earth First! has "clandestine cells of highly educated scientists" working to develop a virus to wipe out the human race. Intimidation -- This certainly describes the many death threats we activists have gotten, including the Minuteman-style rifle scope and cross-hairs threat that I received a month before I was bombed. Death threats have continued as recently as last night at 3 a.m., when an anonymous caller told Anna Marie "this bomb's for you." Even a 15-year old Willits high school anti- war organizer got a call saying "We know you had Judi Bari speak at your rally. We're not afraid to kill someone, you know." Harassment -- This includes harassment of community people who support us, and is designed to drive those people away. Not only was my house red-tagged by the building dept. following an anonymous complaint after the bombing, but so was my landlord's. A non-activist friend who let me stay at her house had the FBI visit her work and talk to her boss. And my entire neighborhood was threatened with having their houses burned down when I moved back here last August. Surveillance -- The purpose of surveillance is as much to create paranoia as to gain information. And in case I had any doubts that I was still being watched, a few weeks ago an Oakland cop (the FBI's front men) told a reporter that he knew I had just returned from U.C. Santa Barbara, and that he presumed a series of pipe bombs that mysteriously appeared on campus a few days before I got there were connected to me. Vigilantes -- Although certainly on a smaller and less lethal scale, the FBI and local law enforcement have used similar tactics to those used against AIM in Pine Ridge South Dakota. They have encouraged vigilantes by sending a clear message that crimes against Earth First!ers will not be prosecuted, including the bombing of me. At least a dozen Redwood Summer people were assaulted (and I'm not counting incidents at the demonstra- tions), and two were beaten into unconsciousness and left in remote areas. Only one person was arrested for doing anything against us, and that was the man who planted a fake bomb in the Arcata Action Center, who was arrested only because the EF!ers pursued him into a bar to catch him. Local Police Complicity -- This includes Mendocino County D.A. Susan Massini, who wouldn't prosecute for Mem Hill's broken nose or for me being rammed by the log truck. And Sheriff Shea, who tried to whip up fear and hatred of Earth First! by calling for an emergency ordinance to restrict the size of our picket signs, using a video of a Palestinian student demonstration in Beverly Hills 10 years ago to "prove" how we would use our signs as weapons. And Sgt. Satterswhite who, like the FBI in Pine Ridge, told me he "didn't have the manpower to investigate" the death threats against me. And the Ukiah police who, just one month ago, refused to apprehend a man who came to the Mendocino Environmental Center and threatened Gary Ball with physical violence, said he was going to burn down the MEC, and raged in biblical terms saying I deserved to be bombed and should be bombed again. Local Government Complicity -- This includes Mendo Co. Super- visor Marilyn Butcher, who promoted the lynch-mob mentality last year when she publicly responded to the death threats against me by saying "You brought it on yourself, Judi." And it includes Humboldt Co. Supervisor Harry Pritchard who, just a few weeks ago, called us terrorists and said one of us would get killed if we didn't stop "taking food out of people's mouths." And it includes the city governments of both Ukiah and Willits, who recently bypassed all public channels to allow the apparently permanent installation of yellow ribbons on our public streets, a not-so-subtle message of intimidation to anyone who would oppose the timber industry or the New World Order. There are many more examples, but the pattern is clear. John Muir once said, "Tug on anything in nature and you will find it connected to everything else." I would say that the same is true of the corporate state. Because wall we ever tried to do here is save a few trees and protect our communities from the ravages of a few out-of-town corporations. And we have found this incredible array of forces lined up against us with the timber industry. So as the new logging season gets underway, with tensions rising again, we had better figure out how to deal with this COINTELPRO-style assault we are under. Of course one of the first things we should do is to educate ourselves, and that's why I'm saying all this. But we also have to counter their attempts to marginalize, isolate and intimidate us. It's important to remember why Earth First! is targeted, and that is because we are effective. In spite of our shock and horror at the bombing last May, we didn't back down. 3000 people from all over the country came to Redwood Summer and chained themselves to logging equipment, hugged trees, blocked logging roads and marched through timber towns. Sure we made mistakes. But in spite of incredible provocation we maintained our presence and non-violence throughout the summer. Forests Forever made a state-wide issue of redwood slaughter, but Redwood Summer made it national and international. Together we are the cause of the current political push to save Headwaters Forest and reform logging practices. People in the environmental movement who are not Earth First!ers should remember that we are all affected. If you allow us to be isolated, if it's not okay to be an Earth First!er this year, then next year it won't be okay to be in the Sierra Club. Don't believe the incendiary stuff you read and here about us in the corporate press. You know us. We are your neighbors, and we are ready to work with you and talk to you any time. You can reach us at the MEC at 486-1660. The entire community is under siege, and that includes the forest itself, not just the people who defend it. If we back down to timber and police terror, they will continue to destroy the redwood forest and its life support system. We are already seeing the climate changes that go with deforestation, including the 5-year drought and killing forests. How much longer can they cut like this before the ecosystem collapses? If we stand together, I think we can make the difference. In Humboldt County, Maxxam is on the verge of financial collapse from its own junk bonds. And L-P and G-P are almost done in Mendo County. They've cut the good stuff, and now they're fighting to take 20-year old baby third-growth trees in a last mop-up operation before they leave. How much is this chip-cut worth to them? Economically those trees barely pay their way out of the woods. But biologically they mean the difference between whether the forest can ever recover, or whether it will end up converted to vineyards, subdivisions, or desert. That's why we're not backing down. We're tired and we're scared, but the timber industry is tired too. And the darkest hour is just before the dawn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Shortly after the bombing, the FBI was telling reporters that the bomb was located on the back seat of Bari's car. This would support the claim that Bari and Cherney were knowingly transporting a bomb. However, Bari's injuries leave no doubt that the bomb was in fact located under the driver's seat. [2] Foreman's actual complicity is probably best expressed by Fain himself, who was musing into his tape recorder: "I don't really look for them to be doing a lot of hurting people. [Foreman] isn't really the guy we need to pop -- I mean in terms of an actual perpetrator. This is the guy we need to pop to send a message. And that's all we're really doing. . . . Uh-oh. We don't need that on tape. Hoo boy." [3] One timber firm, PALCO, distributed copies of this phony press release to its employees, even though it is indicated in one of their memos that they themselves were unsure that it was produced by EF!, given the misspelling of Cherney's name.