Keystone XL Activists Labeled Possible Eco-Terrorists

Fur­ther, the lan­guage in some of the doc­u­ments is so vague that it could also ensnare jour­nal­ists, researchers and aca­d­e­mics, as well.

Tran­sCana­da also built a ros­ter of names and pho­tos of spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als involved in orga­niz­ing against the pipeline, includ­ing 350.org‘s Rae Breaux, Rain­for­est Action Net­work‘s Scott Parkin and Tar Sands Block­ade‘s Ron Seifert. Fur­ther, every activist ever arrest­ed protest­ing the pipeline’s south­ern half is list­ed by name with their respec­tive pho­to shown, along with the date of arrest.

It’s PSY­OPs-gate and “frack­tivists” as “an insur­gency” [4] all over again, but this time it’s anoth­er cen­tral bat­tle­ground that’s in play: the north­ern half of KXL, a pro­posed bor­der-cross­ing pipeline whose final fate lies in the hands of Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma.

The south­ern half of the pipeline was approved by the Oba­ma Admin. via a March 2013 Exec­u­tive Order [5]. Togeth­er, the two pipeline halves would pump dilut­ed bitu­men (“dil­bit”) [6] south from the Alber­ta tar sands toward Port Arthur, TX, where it will be refined and shipped to the glob­al export mar­ket [7].

Activists across North Amer­i­ca have put up a for­mi­da­ble fight against both halves of the pipeline, rang­ing from the sum­mer 2011 Tar Sands Action [8] to the ongo­ing Tar Sands Block­ade [9]. Appar­ent­ly, Tran­sCana­da has fol­lowed the action close­ly, giv­en the lev­el of detail in the doc­u­ments.

Anoth­er Piece of the Puz­zle

“The Hot Springs School Dis­trict prac­ticed a lock­down pro­ce­dure after pre­tend­ing to receive a let­ter from a group that wrote ‘things dear to every­one will be destroyed unless con­tin­u­a­tion of the Key­stone pipeline and ura­ni­um min­ing is stopped imme­di­ate­ly,” explained the Rapid City Jour­nal [13]. “As part of the drill, the district’s 800 stu­dents locked class­room doors, pulled down win­dow shades and remained qui­et.”

This lat­est rev­e­la­tion, then, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the trou­bling trend pro­filed in inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Will Potter’s book “Green Is the New Red [14].” That is, eco-activists are increas­ing­ly being treat­ed as domes­tic eco-ter­ror­ists both by cor­po­ra­tions and by law enforce­ment.

Tran­sCana­da Docs: “Attack­ing Crit­i­cal Infra­struc­ture” = “Ter­ror­ism”

The doc­u­ments demon­strate a clear fish­ing expe­di­tion by Tran­sCana­da. For exam­ple, TransCanada’s Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion from Dec. 2012 on cor­po­rate secu­ri­ty allege that Bold Nebras­ka had “sus­pi­cious vehicles/photography [15]” out­side of its Oma­ha office.

That same pre­sen­ta­tion also says Tran­sCana­da has received “aggressive/abusive email and voice­mail,” vague­ly cit­ing an inci­dent in which some­one said the words “blow up,” with no addi­tion­al con­text offered. It also states the Tar Sands Block­ade is “well-fund­ed,” an iron­ic state­ment about a shoe-string oper­a­tion com­ing from one of the rich­est and most pow­er­ful indus­tries in human his­to­ry.

Anoth­er por­tion of TransCanada’s Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion dis­cuss­es the var­i­ous crim­i­nal and anti-ter­ror­ism statutes that could be deployed[16] to deter grass­roots efforts to stop KXL. The charge options Tran­sCana­da pre­sent­ed includ­ed crim­i­nal tres­pass, crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy, and most promi­nent­ly and alarm­ing­ly: fed­er­al and state anti-ter­ror­ism statutes.

Jour­nal­ism Could be Terrorism/Criminal Accord­ing to FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter Pre­sen­ta­tion

An April 2013 pre­sen­ta­tion giv­en by John McDer­mott [17] – a Crime Ana­lyst at the Nebras­ka Infor­ma­tion Analy­sis Cen­ter (NIAC) [18], the name of the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) and Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) fund­ed Nebras­ka-based Fusion Cen­ter [19] – details all of the var­i­ous “sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties” that could alleged­ly prove a “domes­tic ter­ror­ism” plot in-the-make.

NAIC says its mis­sion is to [19] “[c]ollect, eval­u­ate, ana­lyze, and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and intel­li­gence data regard­ing crim­i­nal and ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty to fed­er­al, state, local and trib­al law enforce­ment agen­cies, oth­er Fusion Cen­ters and to the pub­lic and pri­vate enti­ties as appro­pri­ate.”

Among the “observed behav­iors and inci­dents rea­son­ably indica­tive of pre­op­er­a­tions plan­ning relat­ed to ter­ror­ism or oth­er crim­i­nal activ­i­ty” is “pho­tog­ra­phy, obser­va­tion, or sur­veil­lance of facil­i­ties, build­ings, or crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and key resources.” A slip­pery slope, to say the least, which could ensnare jour­nal­ists and pho­to-jour­nal­ists out in the field doing their First Amend­ment-pro­tect­ed work.

Anoth­er so-called “sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty” that could eas­i­ly ensnare jour­nal­ists, researchers and aca­d­e­mics: “Elic­it­ing infor­ma­tion beyond curios­i­ty about a facility’s or building’s pur­pose, oper­a­tions, or secu­ri­ty.”

Melis­sa Trout­man [20] and Joshua Prib­an­ic [21] – pro­duc­ers of the doc­u­men­tary film “Triple Divide [22]” and co-edi­tors of the inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism web­site Pub­lic Her­ald – are an impor­tant case in point. While in the Tio­ga State For­est (pub­lic land) film­ing a Seneca Resources frack­ing site in Troy, Penn­syl­va­nia, they were detained by a Seneca con­trac­tor and lat­er labeled pos­si­ble “eco-ter­ror­ists.”

“In dis­cus­sions between the Seneca Resources and Chief Cald­well, we were made out to be con­sid­ered ‘eco-ter­ror­ists’ who attempt­ed to tres­pass and poten­tial­ly van­dal­ize Seneca’s drill sites, even though the audio record­ing of this inci­dent is clear that we iden­ti­fied our­selves as inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists in con­ver­sa­tion with the sec­ond truck dri­ver,”they explained in a post about the encounter [23], which can also be heard in their film.

“We were exer­cis­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al right as mem­bers of the free press to doc­u­ment and record events of inter­est to the pub­lic on pub­lic prop­er­ty when stripped of that right by con­trac­tors of Seneca.”

Activists protest­ing against the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Coun­cil (ALEC) dur­ing its April 2013 meet­ing in Ari­zona were also labeled as pos­si­ble “domes­tic ter­ror­ists” by the Ari­zona  [24]FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter [24], as detailed in a recent inves­ti­ga­tion by the Cen­ter for Media and Democ­ra­cy [25].

“Not Just Emp­ty Rhetoric”

It’d be easy to write off Tran­sCana­da and law enforcement’s antics as absurd. Will Pot­ter, in an arti­cle about the doc­u­ments, warned against such a men­tal­i­ty.

“This isn’t emp­ty rhetoric,” he wrote [3]. “In Texas, a ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tion entrapped activists for using sim­i­lar civ­il dis­obe­di­ence tac­tics [26]. And as I report­ed recent­ly for VICE [27], Ore­gon con­sid­ered leg­is­la­tion to crim­i­nal­ize tree sits. Tran­sCana­da has beenusing sim­i­lar tac­tics in [Cana­da] as well [28].”

And this lat­est inci­dent is mere­ly the icing on the cake of the recent explo­sive find­ings by Glenn Green­wald of The Guardian [29] about theNation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency’s (NSA) spy­ing [30] on the com­munca­tions records of every U.S. cit­i­zen [31].

“Many ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tions (and a great many con­vic­tions) are polit­i­cal­ly con­trived to suit the ends of cor­po­ra­tions, offer­ing a stark reminder of how the expan­sion of exec­u­tive pow­er — whether in the con­text of drag­net NSA sur­veil­lance, or the FBI treat­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as ter­ror­ism — pos­es a threat to democ­ra­cy,” Shahid But­tar, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Bill of Rights Defense Com­mit­teetold DeSmog­Blog.