WILSON: So where does that leave the case of Joseph Dibee? Federal authorities still consider him a domestic terrorist, despite his case falling outside the country's most urgent threats.
In fact, FBI Director Christopher Wray said as much in March, while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.ĬHRISTOPHER WRAY: We elevated racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism to our highest threat priority, on the same level with ISIS and homegrown violent extremists, where it remains to this day. WILSON: McCord says the most deadly concern is far-right white supremacists. MCCORD: That are clearly aimed at people, to kill people and to make other people in fear of being killed, so that they will feel intimidated and coerced and push government policy into it - anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-people-of-color policies. She says, as we recalibrate the definition of domestic terrorism, it's hard to equate torching an empty building with the deadly hate crimes of recent years, instances like mass shootings at a Walmart in El Paso and a synagogue in Pittsburgh. WILSON: Mary McCord is a former acting attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice. MARY MCCORD: We're seeing a little bit more of a shift, I think, among the population about what we do think of as terrorism.
It was an event senior law enforcement would come to label as a clear act of domestic terror. Many of those forces seemed to converge on January 6 with the storming of the U.S. Far-right elements, once considered fringe or extreme, suddenly seemed to have the embrace of the presidency. The Trump years saw a dramatic unraveling of norms. WILSON: Dibee's case comes as the country debates what is and is not considered domestic terrorism, a debate that mirrors many of the country's divisions. He's pleaded not guilty, and he's adamant he's not a terrorist.ĭIBEE: This case sort of exemplifies the government's - like, this whole hyperbole about terrorism and, you know, hippies being terrorists. In Oregon, prosecutors say Dibee helped destroy a slaughterhouse that sold horse meat. WILSON: That's Joseph Dibee, one of those charged by the government for crimes in several states. JOSEPH DIBEE: Obviously, I'm not going to talk about the substance of anything in my case, but pretty much everything is open game other than that. WILSON: Though no one died, 18 people were indicted as part of a conspiracy that caused millions of dollars in damages across five Western states during the mid-to-late '90s. GONZALES: The indictment tells a story of 4 1/2 years of arson, vandalism, violence and destruction, claimed to have been executed on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front or Earth Liberation Front, extremist movements known to support acts of domestic terrorism. Where he proceeded to lay out the charges against a Pacific Northwest-based cell of animal rights and environmental extremists.
Animal liberation front music trial#
Oregon Public Broadcasting's Conrad Wilson reports on a case from long ago set to go to trial this year that will put those questions to a test.ĬONRAD WILSON, BYLINE: In 2006, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales walked up to a podium at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.ĪLBERTO GONZALES: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. But what the federal government considers its most serious domestic threats has evolved over time, raising questions about when serious labels, like terrorist, should be used.
However, when they came back together they formed under the new name of The Animal Liberation front.Some of the nation's most senior law enforcement officials have called the January 6 attack on the U.S. Once Lee and Goodman were arrested the group fell apart for a little while, but then the core group of members rejoined when Lee was released from prison. The group's intentions were to stop animal testing by any means necessary. They destroyed the center because they wanted the torture of animals to stop. The two men were arrested for firebombing a vivisection research center. The Band of Mercy was formed by a number of activists, but two in particular named Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman, demonstrated the lengths the group would go to. Even though they had some success in stopping fox hunts, the organization decided that militant action needed to occur. However, during the early 1970's the Hunt Saboteurs Association decided that what they were doing was not enough. Hunts by blocking roads, using bull horns to protest hunters, and spraying chemicals that threw dogs off the sent of foxes.
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