My beef with animal-rights analysis

As you may know, one of my pet-peeves is how the law enforcement/intelligence communities react to the animal rights movement*. In May of 2005, the FBI declared that animal rights and eco-terrorist groups posed the most serious threats to the nation. I remember when I first read that the word that immediately came to mind was hyperbole. Law enforcement assessments of the threat posed by the animal rights movement (hereafter referred to as ‘AR’) suffers from several serious flaws. Here’s a rundown (in no particular order) of some of the most egregious as well as what is required to correct them:

1. “They’re all the same.”: In every assessment of the AR movement (whether of a specific group of the movement as a whole), I’ve seen, analysis treats the entire movement as a monolithic entity. Chronologies of AR activities tend to group the activities of several organizations into one timeline, creating the impression that everything is highly organized and conforming to some sort of ‘master plan’. That may very well be true (I doubt it, but it’s possible) but that assumption has never been explicitly articulated or been supported with any sort of evidence. This would be just like saying that because some police officers were implicated in racial profiling years ago we have to assume that all cops are racists and will be forever. The fact is that the AR movement (like any political movement) has members with divergent opinions, even among those who would advocate direct action.
2. “What happens in Vegas…happens everywhere else”: In addition to portraying everyone in the AR community as being in ideological lock-step, the intel community makes the assertion that the M.O. of one animal rights group is automatically that of all AR groups. This only works in one direction, however. So, you’ll see plenty of assessments that highlight the most illegal activities by AR activists (which usually occur in Europe) as evidence that AR activists here in the U.S. are highly dangerous. I’ve yet to see any sort of argument that explains why it is that what happens in England today (or, even more outrageously, what happened in England in 1998) is relevant to New Jersey in 2006. I haven’t even seen an argument for why AR activity in the Pacific Northwest is relevant to us.**
3. “Stop being mean!”: Because of these shortfalls every “analysis” of AR I’ve seen resorts to an appeal to emotion to get the reader to agree that AR activists are evil terrorists. In order to do this they include incidents that, while socially unappealling, are totally legal. They’re cheap theatrics designed to elicit a favorable response based on emotions because, in most cases, there’s not enough solid information to elict a favorable one based on reason. Is it impolite to tell a child that his/her daddy kills puppies for a living? Absolutely. Is it illegal? No. Is somebody who does this sort of thing a terrorist? No way!
4. “How dare they obey the law!” In testimony before the subcommitte of Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on 23 May, 2006, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General advocated strengthening the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act because: “…animal rights extremists have recognized limits and ambiguities in the statute and have tailored their campaign to exploit them…”. Let me put that into plain english: “They read the law and aren’t breaking it. So, we need to change the law so we can prosecute them because we don’t like them.” Let me put it another way, imagine you were driving down the highway and saw a speed limit sign. When you see it, you adjust your speed accordingly so you don’t break the law (ok, it’s just an example, imagine you actually obey the speed limit). This argument says that you’re exploiting an obvious loophole in the law and they should lower the speed limit to a point where you can’t avoid breaking it. This implies that the decision has been made that these groups must, by definition, be terrorist groups and therefore actions they carry out should be considered illegal. Also, couldn’t you use that same quote about every person who files income taxes in the U.S.? Don’t we all ‘recognize limits and ambiguities in the tax code and tailor our actions to exploit them’? You bet your 1040EZ we do! Does that mean we’re all criminals?
5. “The sky is falling!”: We’ve defined ‘threat’ as the point at which capabilities and intent intersect. The U.S. Army has the capability to destroy New York City but doesn’t have the intent, therefore it’s not a threat. Some nut wearing a tin foil hat may have the intent to blow up the world but doesn’t have the capability, therefore he’s not a threat. When it comes to the AR movement there hasn’t been a careful examination of their capabilities or intent. In most assessments I’ve seen, there is a continued emphasis on the threat of violent activity even though there’s little actual history of it. The vast majority of AR activists involved in direct action are dedicated to non-violence (as far as I’ve been able to determine, no one in the U.S. has ever died, or been targeted for death as a result of AR activity. If I’m wrong on this point, please let me know) and have limited resources. I would argue that there are a host of terrorist and criminal organizations active in our area that pose much more significant threats both to the safety of individual citizens and our economic interests and yet garner less attention and fewer dedicated resources from law enforcement.

Ok…so what’s the big deal? Good question, I’m glad you asked. In addition to possibly diverting resources away from more significant threats, it is entirely possible that our current path of widely labeling and pursuing AR groups as terrorists (as opposed to just treating them as regular criminals when they break the law) may actually encourage the more violent and destructive behavior on their part. In his paper “How Gangs Fall Apart”, (and I think AR groups could be included in this characterization) Tore Bjorgo writes “…the main sources of gang cohesiveness are external to the gangs, and the police will often perform that function.” I can’t find the source now but I remember reading a document about the psychology of terrorists. Among other characteristics, they were reported to be more likely to have persecution or messiah complexes. Many AR activists believe that they are initiating a second civil rights movement or even working to stop a second holocaust (feeding the Messiah complex – working to save those who can’t save themselves). Couple that with having, as an opponent, the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry and the muscle of the law enforcement community and you can see the forces pushing both for group cohesion and feeding the persecution complex). In short, our tactics now are basically a huge recruiting campaign for anyone who may be psychologically inclined towards terrorist activity but not sympathetic to radical Islam or other extremist ideologies (white supremacism, for example). This post is getting long so next time I visit this subject I’ll discuss what good AR analysis should consist of and how we should think about going about it. I’m hoping this post will spark some discussion, both pro and con about some of the ideas I’ve put forward here today.

*A disclaimer: Just to keep everything on the up and up…you should know that I do have sympathies with elements of the animal rights philosophy. I do, however, firmly reject both the goals and tactics of the more radical followers of the animal liberation movement.

**There seems to be something about the British/European culture that makes people more inclined to get involved with politically motivated direct action (and violent/illegal action). I think that may explain why we haven’t seen anywhere near the amount of violent/criminal action by animal/eco rights activists here in the U.S. as they experience in Europe. It certainly isn’t the lack of skills training, motivation, or intelligence. As a hypothesis, I’d say it might that Americans are discouraged from an early age from getting directly involved in political issues and rather encouraged to take action by writing a check instead. Europeans are much more connected with political activism (in part through a much stronger tradition of trade union activity) so it’s much more natural to ‘take up the cross’ on issues of importance. European activists (on all sides of the political spectrum) have a long history of crossing over into ‘criminal’ activity that I just don’t know we share to the same degree. I haven’t seen the case made for this migration of tactics and I notice that the vast majority of eco-activists in the U.S. emphasize their commitment to non-violent activity (I’m not sure of the influence of the few advocating violence but I think the fact that there haven’t been any significant events is interesting and uniformly overlooked in the intelligence community)