FRSC: Peacetalks, Green Scare Interview with Marco Rossi

On June 18th 2006, George Cadman, (host of "Peace Talks" on Free Radio Santa Cruz 101.1 fm), interviewed Marco Rossi of the Olympia Civil Liberties Resource about the "Green Scare" and the government crackdown on the ELF and ALF. The Olympia Civil Liberties Resource is an organization working to defend the civil liberties of all citizens, particularly activists exercising their constitutional rights. They seek to educate the public regarding current threats to civil liberties, and to act as a general resource for activists. The FBI is engaged in an orchestrated campaign of issuing subpoenas to environmental activists, conducting large scale roundups of activists, and levying unprecedented penalties for property destruction. In 2004, the federal government launched Operation Backfire, a wide-scale investigation of environmental and animal rights activists. It used paid informants and conducted warrantless spying on a range of organizations. Since then, numerous individuals around the country have been arrested and charged with arson, destruction of property and conspiracy in the government's attempts to target the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). No one was injured in any of these events, yet the defendants are being called “eco-terrorists” in the media. Others were subpoenaed to testify before grand juries. The government is over-charging people with offenses that carry severe sanctions to force them to accept guilty pleas for a lower sentence or to intimidate them into turning state's evidence. The tactics that the US government is using to attack the ELF/ALF (Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front) and those who publicly support them has become widely known as "The Green Scare", alluding to the Red Scare of the 1940's and 50's. URLS: For the Olympia Civil Liberties Resource: www.olycivlib.org other good sites are: www.portland.indymedia.org ; www.greenscare.org ; www.ecoprisoners.org ; www.nocompromise.org Tune into Peacetalks every Sunday 3pm on FRSC 101fm