TOP STORIES News reports on ecoterrorist crimes.

ECOTERROR RESPONSE NETWORK Database of environmentalist crimes.

EARTH LIBERATION FRONT Profile of the domestic terrorists.

ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT: ALF website is at www.animalliberationfront.com/

FBI Statement on Terrorism The Domestic Terrorism Threat for description of ecoterrorist crimes.

What is ecoterrorism?
    Ecoterrorism is a crime committed to save nature. The crime must have the characteristics of terrorism as defined by the FBI. To begin with, ecoterrorism had no separate definition and crimes were investigated and prosecuted under the general definition of terrorism:

Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
FBI Terrorist Research and Analytical Center, Terrorism in the United States: 1994, Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Justice, 1995, p. 24.

By 2002, ecoterrorism crimes were recognized as a specific criminal violation. The FBI adopted this definition, which stands unmodified in 2005:

ECOTERRORISM: "The FBI defines eco-terrorism as the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature."
James F. Jarboe, Domestic Terrorism Section Chief, Counterterrorism Division, FBI; , Feb. 12, 2002.

For comparison, in the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001, the term 'domestic terrorism' means activities that--

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended--

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Thus the acts of Earth Liberation Front (ELF), Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and other extremist nature-saving networks, are clearly terrorism and ecoterrorism under the law. Contrary to claims of their partisans that they are not terrorists because they have not killed or injured any living being (and thus their acts are mere vandalism and not terrorism), the murder of Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn by an animal rights extremist, and their use of arson and pipe bombs, contradicts claims of innocence, and their intent is to influence policy by intimidation and coercion.

Read the Testimony of Ron Arnold at the Hearing on Ecoterrorism before the House Subcommittee on Crime held on June 9, 1998.

Read the Report to Congress on the Extent and Effects of Domestic and International Terrorism on Animal Enterprises from the U.S. Department of Justice as mandated by the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992.

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