Ideas for Change: Rescind the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

categories: Activism and Actions, Green Scare

Published December 04, 2008 @ 03:50PM PT

Perhaps you've read about the insidious AETA and the Green Scare on this blog before (here and here). And perhaps you've kept up with the great coverage of this issue at Green Is the New Red. If not, it's time to learn about the issue. Over at Change.org's Ideas for Change in America project, Alex Hershaft, founder of FARM, has posted an idea deserving of votes and action:

Rescind the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was enacted in November of 2006 at the behest of the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries. AETA restricts the freedom of speech and assembly of animal and other social justice activists. It unfairly brands as terrorism any activities that cross a state line and interfere with the operation of an animal enterprise or of any entity that deals with one. Such activities may include website posts, peaceful vigils, nonviolent civil disobedience, undercover investigations, and whistle-blowing.

The rights of animals won't advance--the lives of animals won't improve--if those of us with voices to fight for their rights and lives are intentionally deterred from exercising our rights to free speech and assembly (or if we're imprisoned for exercising those rights). As I wrote previously on this blog, if the AETA had been enacted decades ago, luminaries such as Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King Jr. all could have been charged as terrorists.

GO VOTE.

For more information on the AETA, go here:

AETA Fact Sheet (Center for Constitutional Rights)

Analysis of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (GreenIsTheNewRed.com)

The Chilling Effect (by Will Potter, in Satya)

Equal Justice Alliance: Defending Freedom of Speech and Assembly

Animal Enterprise Terrorism 101 (by Will Potter, originally in Herbivore)

Will Potter Talk about Activist Repression (video)

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Image courtesy of Last Chance for Animals

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Comments (4)

Hell yeah!

Posted by Tracy Habenicht on 12/05/2008 @ 07:47AM PT
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By the way, I've tried voting for things. I click "Vote Now," but it just takes me back to the same page and says I've voted for 0 things.

Posted by Tracy Habenicht on 12/05/2008 @ 07:49AM PT
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Uh-oh. I'll report the problem. Thanks for the alert, Tracy!

Posted by Stephanie Ernst on 12/05/2008 @ 08:44AM PT
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I really hope we all get adjoining cells - but I hope there's vegan prison food.

Posted by Lisa Smolen on 12/05/2008 @ 01:54PM PT
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Author

Stephanie is an independent animal rights advocate, a vegan, a tree-hugging environmentalist, and a freelance editor and writer. She lives in St. Louis with an aging corgi-lab and an adolescent rescued pit bull.