Revealed: US listed climate activist group as 'extremists' alongside mass killers

[arenean]

From The Guardian:

DHS listed activists engaged in non-violent civil disobedience targeting oil industry alongside white supremacists in documents

A group of US environmental activists engaged in non-violent civil disobedience targeting the oil industry have been listed in internal Department of Homeland Security documents as “extremists” and some of its members listed alongside white nationalists and mass killers, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

Full story: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/13/us-listed-climate-activist-group-extremists

[2naSalit]

1. Escalation

of an already long doctrine of calling conservationists extremists... remember the eco-terrorists of the 1990s/2000s?

[riversedge]

2. Trumps DHS is filled with cruel mean people........

.............But the group’s actions attracted the attention of the DHS.

In a recent intelligence bulletin evaluating domestic terrorism threats between 2018 and 2020, the department included the Valve Turners and described the group as “suspected environmental rights extremists”.
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b]

The document also listed two of the group’s members alongside violent white supremacists and other extremists who have engaged in mass killings, including the man behind the racist 2015 slaying of 9 black church-goers in Charleston, South Carolina.

The document obtained by the non-profit Property of the People through a Foia request defines domestic terrorism as “any act of violence that is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources” and that is intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government body. The assessment is directed at departmental leadership and is based on a review of roughly 80 violent incidents between 2014 and 2017, according to the document.

The document points to an uptick in “sabotage attacks” conducted by anarchist extremists, environmental rights and animal rights extremists against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 at the height of the pipeline protest. Nearly 800 activists have been tried on a variety of North Dakota state charges, in relation to the pipeline protests, according to Water Protector Legal Collective, a legal support organization.

This activity was met with heavy law enforcement presence, FBI and DHS surveillance, and aggressive military style tactics deployed by pipeline security contractors.

In addition to providing an overview of domestic terrorism threats the document includes an appendix summarizing select incidents over the past few years. Two of the Valve Turners are listed alongside violent white supremacists such as Dylann Roof and James Fields who have both been convicted of murdering innocent civilians. Roof killed 9 black churchgoers in a rampage in South Carolina. Fields drove his car into a group of activists protesting a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA killing one and injuring at least 19 others.

The document also states that “racial and environmentally themed ideologies” were among the primary drivers of terrorist attacks in the United States during this time.

Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote in an email that

the DHS framing is “highly misleading because white supremacists are responsible for the bulk of this violence and almost all of the fatalities that result,” German said in an email. “There is little evidence,” he added, “that environmentalists have engaged in the types of deadly violence that would meet the statutory definition of domestic terrorism, as codified by Congress”.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to multiple requests for comment............................

[MosheFeingold]

3. Think about this a bit

The Unibomber, the ELF, ELA, etc

were all very violent people/groups. Supposedly in the name of the environment

Just because they are on "our side" doesn't make them good guys.

For example, the JDL (Jewish Defense League) started off in reaction to attacks on Jews. It didn't turn out so well.

[PandoraAwakened]

4. Just curious...

Who did the Valve Turners murder? I think I must have missed that breaking news.