(This is Josh's full chapter from the book, "Igniting a Revolution, Voices in Defense of the Earth." It can be ordered through AK Press and other radical distro's.)
I have been asked to write this article about the repression and brutality I have experienced as an activist. My goal is not to play the outraged protestor, naively shocked when State and Industry respond to a threat. These entities will not even react within the confines of their own laws when their power is compromised, and I see as inevitable some of the consequences my community has faced for being sincere in their desire to change the world. So, instead of a woe-is-me tale of jail cells and grand juries, I hope to present my experiences alongside an explanation of how I have endured and my hopes for the future. To give readers the full story, I have to take us back to October 26th, 1986.
I was eleven years old that day. My father was driving me to school in his rusted out Ford truck. It was early, and cold, and I was busy dreading another day of compulsory education when a story on the radio caught my attention. The University of Oregon had been broken into by a group of masked terrorists. They had ransacked and vandalized the place, "stole" animals, and spraypainted the words "Animal Liberation Front" on the walls. The authorities were looking for them, and the announcer assured his audience that these scofflaws would be brought to justice. Quotes from school officials and law enforcement followed. The motivation of the criminals was hardly discussed but I gathered that they were opposed to animal research.
That night I turned on the television news and watched stock footage of the ALF flickering across the screen. I stared at the people in masks and thought of the good guys and bad guys from the pages of comic books. I knew that these so called "terrorists" didn't fit the mold of evil-doers. They had acted selflessly on someone else's behalf despite the possible consequences to their own well being. Seeing them juxtaposed against armed FBI agents, a team of angry faculty, and the mad doctors from the vivisection labs made everything clear to me. I wasn't an animal liberationist, I was just a kid, but I knew right from wrong, and I knew I was on the ALF's side. To me they were real-life superheroes and in a sick reversal of the timeless pulp fiction cliché they were being hunted by the bad guys.
Five years had passed when George Bush Sr. started his pet war in Iraq. Protests sprang up across the state and I followed the corporate news stories about the anti-war anarchists being handily defeated by the long arm of the law. One day at school a kid I knew handed me a newspaper called, "The Student Insurgent." I took it home and read an analysis of the war I had not previously been exposed to. My first exposure to alternative media brought tears to my eyes and anger to my heart. I would never trust my television again. One page had several pictures of victims of the US bombings alongside an announcement for a rally against the war that very night. Soon I found myself down at the Federal Building for my first protest, and my first confrontation with law enforcement.
The demonstration that night was sickeningly peaceful, at least on the protestors' part. Considering the number of people being killed so that US Oil companies could see greater profits, pacifism seemed a comfortable form of non-resistance. We were all chanting slogans and waving banners when a group of people near the doors began a sit-in. Everything suddenly went into a frenzy. I heard screams well up in front of me, and "Clear the area!" barked over and over again into a megaphone. People began fleeing, and in every direction I ran I encountered a cop. Police seemed to be raining from the sky and coming up from the cracks in the sidewalk. As I neared a set of stairs one hit me sharply in the ribs with a billy club. I crumpled and fell down the stairs but didn't dare remain there; the officer was still coming at me. My legs were carrying me away as fast as they could when I had my first introduction to tear gas. Someone grabbed my arm and implored me to come with them.
My mystery friend took me and a group of other young activists to Skinners Butte, a nearby hill covered with trees. We all began speaking of what we had seen, who had gotten arrested, and what should be done next. One group of people argued passionately for a campaign of non-violent resistance. A young anarchist interrupted them and opined that this war was being fought for profit, and as such, we had to insure that money was being lost by corporations and the government every day the war continued. I went back and forth for days as to what course of action I should take. In the end I decided to go out and break windows of banks and other institutions profiting from the war.
Eventually, (and allegedly,) that war came to an end, but my knowledge of other injustices was growing. My sister, who I love more than anyone in the world, was sexually assaulted by one of her teachers. The lawyers, judges, and jurors in her case treated her as inferior not just because she was a young woman, but also because she was born disabled. They let her attacker got off with a slap on the wrist. I visited her right after the case ended, and her despair was palpable. Every moment I spent in her presence was a reminder of my own deeply sexist attitudes, the same attitudes which had allowed the man who molested her to go free. Face to face with my own prejudices, I began confronting all my assumptions about the hierarchies that surrounded me. Eventually this process led me to a rejection of anthropocentrism.
My newfound ethics prompted me to go vegan and join the newly formed Liberation Collective in Portland. Soon we started traveling to demonstrations, making food for tree sitters, and distributing copies of Earth First! Journal, No Compromise, Live Wild or Die, and other eco-revolutionary literature. These publications re-acquainted me with the Animal Liberation Front. I felt the same admiration for them as I had when I was eleven years old, and I soon found myself organizing ALF support events. The activist community in Oregon was taking notice of me for being dedicated, outspoken, and relentless. Unbeknownst to me, I was also getting some other attention…
One day I was sitting on my front porch when two men came up the stairs. I assumed they were missionaries or salesmen. As I tried to think of a way to escape their sales pitch one of them suddenly pulled out a badge and said they were investigating a noise complaint. Instinct told me he was lying. As I stood and attempted to leave, one of the men confirmed my gut reaction and told me that they were FBI agents. He pulled out a list of license plate numbers and told me my house had been under surveillance. He was in the middle of asking who had been visiting me when I closed the door.
Soon afterwards my friend Joshua Kielas and I began work on Breaking Free Video Magazine, a periodical VHS series documenting direct action and protest for earth and animal liberation. We had solicited footage of actions from around the world and attempted to track down rare tapes of underground actions. Our mail began arriving open, and one day the studio we were producing from appeared to have been entered while we were gone. I started noticing people following me to and from Joshua's house. One day we went to a demonstration at the University of Oregon, outside the same labs the ALF had destroyed around ten years prior. A vivisector targeted during that raid, Richard Morocco, struck me in the chest during the protest. When I complained to the police they told me that nothing would be done about it. They did tell me, however, that they were keeping an eye on me.
During this time period I was practicing voluntary arrest frequently, and as such was regularly in conflict with law enforcement. Police attacks on activists were becoming regular. I had been arrested at a demonstration in Anaheim, and even though I was the one who had been repeatedly struck, I was charged with multiple counts of assault and battery. A surveillance tape showed me being passive while the police repeatedly shoved and hit me, but a conservative jury declared that I had made unwanted contact with the officer's hands and arms with my chest and stomach. I was subsequently sentenced to forty five days in the Orange County jail.
While I was in jail I received two beatings at the hands of prison guards. At one point I was handcuffed and hit in the back of the head repeatedly for refusing to wear leather boots. Another time I was pushed down a flight of escalators by a guard. When I hit the bottom he joined a colleague in kicking and stomping on me. Neither of these incidents was as bad as the horrible violence directed against the jail's primarily African and Chicano population each and every day.
When I began my sentence I declared that I was on hunger strike, thinking that passive resistance could reach the conscience of the judge and soften the hearts of the police. My opinion soon changed when I realized that judges have no conscience and police have no hearts. While serving my time I began discussing politics with inmates who rightly saw Gandhi's "Token of Suffering," as a tactic which did little to threaten the State and it's corporate masters. As my body began to take damage from the prolonged refusal of food my thoughts turned to the animal abusers, clear cutters, dam builders, developers, and their ilk sitting comfortably in their warm homes, enjoying dinner. Why should I suffer while they enjoy the fruits of their plunder? I was released after thirty six days without eating. I decided then that I was going to focus my energy on methods of battle that were more meaningful.
After recuperating I joined up with some friends to sabotage a whale hunt in the Olympic Peninsula. Local supporters confided that their friends at the Sheriffs office had been spying on us. We later found out that a Joint Terrorism Task Force had been formed near the small town of Sequi where our group made its base of operations. After three months of freezing cold water, rough waves, and bad food, the hunters went into action. We were ready. Jake Conroy and I were arrested for interrupting the hunt with smoke canisters, fire extinguishers, and flares. Our deeds on the water that day saved a young whales life and taught me the true value of direct action. Initially accused of attempted murder, our charges were lowered to Felony Assault in the First Degree. We plead guilty to gross misdemeanor and reckless endangerment charges, and returned to the ocean during the next hunting season to save another whale.
At this time the heat surrounding the ELF was increasing literally and figuratively. The Earth Liberation Front, sister group to the ALF, was burning down businesses, vehicles, and developments that were further harming the planet. The shadowy organization had grown rapidly, largely due to the frustration many people were feeling with formerly radical groups such as Earth First! As the lefties and pacifists gained greater hold on above ground resistance, the ELF offered an alternative for those determined to have an impact beyond banner hangs and giant turtle costumes. Their fires were rekindling the forgotten flames of rebellion that had been smothered by an increasingly timid environmental movement, and the FBI was taking notice. Special Agents began appearing everywhere trying to track down the elusive "elves." The Justice Department announced that the ELF had become their number one priority, and simultaneously sealed my status as their biggest fan. I wasn't startled when Marshals came looking for me hoping to gain my testimony on the Front's activities. I was just bewildered at how they went about it.
One day during my second season of the whale campaign I was crewing on my friend Brett's small boat, Stingray. We had patrolled the area all day with a device meant to scare gray whales from the hunt zone. The Coast Guard radioed us and claimed the device violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and that they were going to cite us. It soon became clear that was not their real intention. Coast Guard Cutters encircled our boat, and then a small fleet of Zodiacs skipped across the ocean towards us. The men on board were clearly not with the Guard. They had on shiny black jackets with the words, "Federal Agent" emblazoned across the back. One of them came aboard and served me with a subpoena to the Portland Federal Grand Jury.
Still, I got off easy that day. My friend Erin Abbot was run down by a Zodiac while she attempted to keep the whalers from their prey. One of her shoulder blades was split in half, many of her ribs were broken, and she was nearly killed by the spinning blades of the boats engine which passed only inches from her head. Rather than rescuing her, the Guard members who ran her down allowed her to remain in the water for five minutes before calling for a Medivac Helicopter. The courts never gave Erin justice, but all of us on the water that day will remember her courage for the rest of our lives.
When we returned to land that night I placed a call to the ELF Press Officer, Craig Rosebraugh. Craig and I had known each other for years, and during that time he had been subpoenaed to grand juries repeatedly. He explained that Grand Juries are fact finding expeditions carried out by federal prosecutors. Once subpoenaed, a witness has no protection from self incrimination, no right to an attorney in the grand jury room, no right to hear evidence presented against them, and no right to remain silent. Grand juries can jail US citizens for up to eighteen months without actually convicting them of a crime.
Craig agreed to handle any media interest in my subpoena and to help me find a place to stay in Portland. I left the whale campaign and headed south to meet up with other activists and determine how I would handle the grand jury. At one point I was staying with some friends near San Francisco who lived with two pit bulls. As the dogs tore around the living room wrestling with each other I thought of how lucky they were to be in a loving home rather than a vivisection lab, a puppy mill, or a blood sports arena. I felt a tug on my heart and walked outside. I can't fully explain what compelled me to do it, but I burned the subpoena and spit on the ashes.
The next day I wrote an open letter to the Animal and Earth Liberation movement explaining that I would never provide information about our struggle to the US Attorneys office and that I refused to even show up for the hearing. On the morning of my scheduled appearance Craig read my statement to the hundred or so supporters who showed up outside the Federal Building in Portland. The newspapers declared me an "Anarchist Fugitive." I thought that was funny, since I was not hiding and was living at the exact address the FBI had last monitored. Months passed without incident and I thought that perhaps the feds had decided I was not worth their time.
A young vegan I had met during this time period invited me to speak at his high school. After my speech I left the building to get breakfast. Suddenly cars swooped in from all sides. I was surrounded by Federal Marshals, FBI, and local police and arrested on a warrant for felony criminal contempt. After my bail hearing supporters gathered several thousand dollars and made bond within minutes. I was released and placed on pre-trial supervision. The judge presiding over the case issued a demand that I stop advocating, encouraging, or showing support for illegal actions in any manner. My lawyer countered that this was a violation of my first amendment rights, and asked; "Would Mr. Harper be allowed to wear a t-shirt exclaiming `Hooray for Jaywalking'?" The judge replied that I would be in violation of his order if I publicly approved of jaywalking, and that I would be jailed.
This grand jury ended uneventfully. Stuart Sugarman, my genius council on the case, struck a deal where I would enter the grand jury room in exchange for the felony being dropped. I did enter the grand jury room, but like former President Ronald Reagan, I just couldn't remember anything once I got there. The jury was asking where I was on certain dates, who I knew, and what knowledge I had of ELF crimes. My answers kept coming back, "I don't recall," prompting a hilarious fist pounding episode by US Attorney Stephen Piefer. "Stop playing games with me, Mr. Harper," he screamed, "I will walk out of this room and pursue any sentence I can against you!" He insisted he had evidence that I had liberated rabbits from a farm in Philomath, Oregon, and participated in mink releases elsewhere in the Northwest. I just smiled politely and continued with my memory lapse. A few minutes later I left the federal building without incident. That Grand Jury dissolved soon afterwards, but it wasn't long before another subpoena arrived.
In 2001 I made a campaign video for Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) entitled "This Means War." The short film contained footage I had received from anonymous ALF members documenting a raid on Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). Sure enough, after the premier in New Jersey I was delivered another subpoena. Prosecutors asked me to turn over the video on September 12th, 2001; one day after real terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I showed up at the court house but refused to hand over the video tape and was released.
Since that time I have encountered more surveillance, harassment, and physical aggression than I can list here. The short version is as follows. After being run off the road by corporate goons and beaten by cops in Arkansas, I was arrested alongside several other protestors for the crime of walking in the street without a permit. I was then dragged off the police bus and served with a civil RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) lawsuit claiming more than 10 million in damages that HLS investors expected me and other activists to repay. RICO was originally designed to protect small businesses from the mafia. Now it was being used to protect multi-billion dollar investment firms from kids with placards. Eventually the case was dropped after we defeated its main financer, Stephens Incorporated, by pressuring them to end their investment in Huntingdon.
After that debacle I released "The Mandate," a video which documented more of the protests and direct action against HLS and their associates. During my speaking tour promoting the short film I was followed constantly by the FBI. When I returned home I began organizing against local HLS collaborators and soon my home was raided by the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force. They claimed that pictures of my sister at age 3, childhood martial arts trophies, and old magazines were valuable evidence against me and packed them up alongside several boxes of my roommate's possessions. The FBI simultaneously raided the SHAC USA offices, where the soldiers in the War on Terror did not find any WMDs but did manage to confiscate copies of the sitcom, "Bosom Buddies," along with some dream diaries, computers, and random junk.
In the months following the raid I found out that people, including one of my roommates, were offered money to spy on me. After moving to a new apartment I began to suspect that my home was being entered while I was away, and one day had the suspicion confirmed when I found files rifled through, closet doors opened, and vegan outreach materials thrown around. I began noticing people following me around town and started hearing rumors of my name being mentioned to witnesses in grand juries. Then one morning around 6am there was a knock on my door. It was the FBI with a warrant for my arrest. Six others were arrested across the country that morning, all of us charged with conspiracy to violate the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act. Four of us are charged with "Conspiracy to use an Interstate Tele-communications Facility for the Purpose of Harassment." Three of those arrested were also charged with additional counts and are facing more than 23 years in prison.
It is clear that in the age of the PATRIOT Act privacy is a thing of the past. Since the arrests I have learned that a long time friend, Lisa Distefano, was actually an informant. Her mission was to spy on me and deliver details of my life to the FBI. The full depth of her betrayal will remain unknown until she testifies against me at trial. There were also warrants to install key sniffing programs on our computers and wiretaps in our homes. I have seen thousands of pages of phone calls, e-mails, and instant messenger conversations between me and my co-defendants, alongside transcripts of our writings and speaking engagements. Video surveillance was also taken of many of the defendants. This "evidence" is worthless; there clearly was no conspiracy, yet the trial continues because the powerful men who have lost money due to the Huntingdon campaign also pull the strings of the so called justice system.
Compared to what other people in the effort for Earth and Animal Liberation have endured I am lucky. In England people have been killed for campaigning for animal rights. In South America, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere environmentalists have been "disappeared." Female comrades in the movement have complained of being sexually assaulted by security guards and police officers during protests, and a friend of mine from Europe was permanently disabled when a cop knocked her off a platform during a civil disobedience action. Looking to other movements, especially those comprised of fewer white people, rape, assassination, and the framing of innocent activists is common place. I fear that as time goes by we will be facing the same, and yet, I continue on this path. I know full well that more prison time lays in my future, and that worse brutality is inevitable; still I will not hesitate to act on the convictions that the ALF first sparked in me at age eleven. Here is why.
At one time in the area that is now San Francisco early explorers reported seeing flocks of birds so great in number they would block out the sun for hours. French traders in Newfoundland wrote of migrating harp seals that covered the horizon as far as anyone could see, and ran for ten days and nights without stopping. Going further back in time, the area that is now Iraq was once so covered with trees and wildlife that the mothers and fathers of Earth's first terrible empire could never have imagined it would become a desert. Perhaps it was the spread of that early civilization that eventually led to the loss of the harp seals, of the sky shattering migrations of birds, and all the other wonders that disappear forever each and every day that we continue the war against wilderness.
The Human Empire is nearly complete. The last of wild areas that once covered the whole earth are falling to our advancing cities. The other animals on this planet have been taken from their homes and made our captives, stripped of their original form and domesticated for our use. With our increasingly dangerous technology nature stands almost no chance of righting the wrongs we have inflicted against the free beings of this world, and on the world itself. Perhaps I am naïve, but despite all this horror I still see some promise for the future.
Tonight a teenage girl and her friends might pick up hammers for the first time and smash the windows of a nearby McDonalds. An officer from a mainstream environmental group may realize that they will never save those wetlands near his home with paperwork alone, so he decides to step into the night with a gas can in his hands. An old woman in Oregon may walk a path in the forest she has loved since she was a child, and pull spikes from her pockets to place in the trees she climbed long ago. Though these people are thousands of miles apart, they share something with the millions of others who will also step up to fight the twin scourge of animal slavery and eco-destruction; a spirit of indomitable resistance, a fearless desire to save what they love and free the voiceless billions from their suffering. That teenage girl, the middle aged career environmentalist, and that old woman all know what might await them as a consequence of their actions, but their hope for a better tomorrow over rides their instinct for self preservation. They will act anyway. We must follow them on that path.
The government can jail some of us, but they can not stop the phenomenon of compassion. It reached me as a boy on my way to school, and with each new action it has the chance of inspiring others to take sides. So long as I know that new warriors join the fight, and that old veterans refuse to bow, I will have hope that our small uprising will save the world. Stay safe, keep fighting as long as you have a breath left in your body, and victory may yet be ours.