Media Release: ELF Press Office Condemns FBI Hunt for Environmental Defenders

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 24, 2009

EARTH LIBERATION FRONT PRESS OFFICE CONDEMNS F.B.I. HUNT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS; CALLS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT “OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY”

Washington, D.C. – In response to the F.B.I.’s announcement on Friday strengthening the search for fugitive environmental defenders in Canada, the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO) called the hunt “inexcusable and out of touch with reality.”

“ The U.S. government is out of step with the world leaders of today in failing to recognize and identify the real eco-terrorists,” stated NAELFPO spokeswoman Lisa Nesbitt. “The real criminals are corporate polluters and the governments that enable them, not environmental defenders who take action to stop them.”

The NAELFPO lists the top 20 Ecoterrorists in the United States on its website at http://www.elfpressoffice.org/ecoterrorists.html.

Nesbitt points to the recent statements of both the U.N. Secretary–General Ban Ki-Moon and U.S. President Barack Obama pertaining to the urgency of the environmental crisis.

“Climate change is the defining issue of our era,” stated Mr. Ban in a recent Time magazine interview.

President Obama twice discussed the environment in his January 20 inaugural address: “Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet… Nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed and we must change with it.”

The Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, is an international, underground movement consisting of
autonomous groups of people who engage in direct actions to protect the planet. Formed in 1992 in Brighton, England as an offshoot of the Earth First! organization, the ELF has been active in the United States since 1996. Since that time the group has conducted dozens of actions across the country and North America resulting in over $150 million in damages. Notorious ELF actions have included the $26 million arson attack at Colorado's Vail Ski Resort in 1998 and the $50 million arson attack on a five-story condominium project in San Diego, CA in 2003.

Since the year 2001, the ELF has been considered the top domestic terror threat by the F.B.I.

“Instead of penalizing those who are selflessly working to protect the planet,” Nesbitt continued, “why isn’t the F.B.I. and U.S. government prosecuting eco-terrorists such as General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant, or U.S. Steel CEO John Surma who are all major leaders in environmental pollution?”

The North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO) is the public face of the Earth Liberation Front direct action movement. First established in 2000, the NAELFPO receives anonymous communiqués from the ELF and similar environmental protection groups and forwards the information to news media internationally.

NAELFPO can be found on the web at http://www.elfpressoffice.org

Contact: North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO)

Tel: (202) 521-1482 Email: info [at] elfpressoffice.org

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