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| Fifth Column |
| Greenpeices - Thrown in jail for ship tresspassing |
| 2003-11-15 |
| When Greenpeace activists illegally scrambled aboard the cargo ship APL Jade, it was the start of a pretty typical day. Convinced the ship was hauling contraband mahogany from Brazil, the environmentalists aimed to draw attention to it by unfurling a banner with this message: âPresident Bush, Stop Illegal Logging.â Their arrests by the Coast Guard were also part of a dayâs work. But the later use of an obscure 19th century law to charge the entire organization with criminal conspiracy has Greenpeace defenders claiming that they are the target of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroftâs attempts to stifle political criticism of the government. THE GREENPEACE demonstration off the coast of Florida on April 12, 2002, was one of a series of similar âdirect actionsâ taken by the international organization near ports around the world as it attempted to draw attention to the mahogany shipment, which violated a Brazilian moratorium on mahogany lumbering in the Amazon, and violated the international treaty controlling trade in endangered species, CITES. It was standard practice for the international organization, which for more than three decades has used this in-your-face method to fight for causes it deems just. It is a method of civil disobedience that has been used by activists on both ends of the political spectrum, from civil rights campaigners to anti-abortion groups. In Florida, as in the mahogany protests elsewhere, a handful of individuals were charged with minor crimes and released shortly thereafter. But 15 months after the APL Jade incident, the U.S. Justice Department in Floridaâs Southern District dramatically upped the ante. Drawing on an 1872 law, it filed criminal charges against Greenpeace USA for boarding a ship before its arrival in port, and with conspiracy to do so â in a case scheduled to be heard in December. Critics and some legal experts say the pursuit of an entire organization for this type of civil disobedience by its members is a break with 200 years of American tradition, and appears to be an attempt by the Bush administration to silence a vocal critic. In the words of former Vice President Al Gore, the legal move looks to be âaimed at inhibiting Greenpeaceâs First Amendment activities.â Because the case is pending, the Department of Justice declined any specific comment on this case. However, said Matthew Dates, special counsel for public affairs: âWe would evaluate the case like any other, based on the facts and the law.â If convicted, Greenpeace USA faces a statutory maximum penalty of five yearsâ probation and a fine of $10,000, according to a press release from the U.S. attorney general for the Southern District of Florida. Some observers say it is possible that Greenpeace could lose its tax-exempt status in the United States â a death knell for a non-profit organization. More broadly, say rights activists, a conviction could have a chilling effect on other organizations that practice nonviolent protest. Despite taking place on a ship, the protest itself was nothing unusual. âIt was a classic sit-in in the sense that it was non-violent, overt, and non-threatening,â says George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley. As is also typical of this type of protest, says Turley, âthe protesters want to be arrested.â But he says the response has been highly unusual. While organizations sometimes face criminal prosecution for the actions of their members, especially in racketeering, fraud and securities cases, it is extremely rare â if not unprecedented â for the government to pursue criminal charges against organizations in âthe free speech area,â he says. Also suspect, says Turley, is the use of an obscure statute of federal law in the case. Passed 131 years ago, Code 18, Statute 2779 was written to prevent organizations such as boarding houses from âsailor mongeringâ â which involved boarding ships before they had moorage, often using alcohol or prostitutes to lure the crewmen ashore, leaving the vessel unattended. His research indicates that the law has been cited in only two cases, most recently in 1890. Turley says these factors strongly suggest a campaign of selective prosecution as a means of silencing a vocal critic, which is prohibited by law. The ACLU of Florida and People for the American Way Foundation, which on Nov. 7 weighed in with a brief to the court on behalf of Greenpeace, say the case is of âprofound importanceâ because it âimperils the core values of the Constitution.â âFor two hundred years, the United States government has refrained from prosecuting advocacy groups whose members occasionally engage in peaceful civil disobedience to convey a constitutionally protected message,â they wrote in their brief. âThe prosecution of Greenpeace indicates a sea change in that policy.â Greenpeace, which has led an aggressive pro-environmental campaign since its founding in 1971, has been at odds with the Bush administration since its earliest days in office, decrying the presidentâs position on the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, staging protests against the National Missile Defense Initiative and the opening of roads on national forest land. Just a few months after Bush took office, Greenpeace activists climbed a water tower near his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and unfurled a banner that read: âBush the Toxic Texan, Donât Mess with the Earth.â They were arrested after a two-hour stand-off during which they refused to climb down, ignoring demands by the mayor, the county sheriff and the Secret Service. âWe have been critics across the board,â says John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace. He says the organization has never before been challenged at this level in the United States, and characterizes it as the way the Justice Department operates under Ashcroft. âThe parallel I see is with the McCarthy era â the overreach by the government to stifle its critics,â he says. âIt is a fight we are willing to take on ... a fight for our right to dissent peacefully in this country in areas we think society is wrong.â Greenpeace will seek additional discovery to lay out what went into the decision to charge Greenpeace, says legal counsel Tom Wetterer. âWe have found no previous examples of where the government has charged an organization for a political protest,â he says. âThe prosecution, if indeed it is selective, amounts to nothing more than an act of intimidation by the government, apparently directed at silencing political speech,â says the ACLU/PAWF brief. âIt is a fight we are willing to take on â a fight for our right to dissent peacefully in this country in areas we think society is wrong.â From the point of view of the activists, the events of April 12 were mostly unsurprising, but ominous signs emerged later on. In Coast Guard custody for most of the day, a Friday, the mood was relaxed and they were led to believe they would soon be released. âThey told us to order pizza,â says Scott Paul, Greenpeaceâs forest campaign coordinator, who was among those arrested. âLater in the day, the FBI got involved and the atmosphere changed dramatically.â He was one of 14 activists who ended up spending the weekend in a federal penitentiary before release the following Monday. Within two months, the case was resolved. Six people, including the two who boarded the ship, pleaded guilty under the âsailor mongeringâ law on condition that other charges would be dropped. Later, says Greenpeaceâs Wetterer, it was clear that the Justice Department had launched a separate federal grand jury investigation, which led to the criminal indictment in July of this year. Public affairs officer Dates declined to comment on what prompted the government to further pursue the case, or its âdeliberative process.â Speculating about that process, Turley of George Washington University says it seems âtruly remoteâ that the case was pursued independently by the DOJ in Miami. âDOJ guidelines give a great deal of decentralized powers to state offices, except when they use statutes in unusual ways,â he says. Since this is such an unusual prosecution, âthis had to be approved at the central level,â he says. Meanwhile, Greenpeace says it confirmed that the original target of the protest, the APL Jade, went on to Charleston, S.C., where it discharged its cargo of mahogany for shipment to a forest product company. In November 2002, the United Nations Environmental Program upgraded protection of mahogany under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a move that places even stricter controls on trade in the wood. The United States is a signatory to the treaty. |
| Posted by:Jarhead |
| #22 Remember action/consequences principle. Right or wrong, the Greenpiecers boarded a ship without permission. They may be protesters, they may be pirates. Action against them is up to the master and the owner. If the Greenpiecers are doing this on principle, then fine, they must face the consequences, which includes getting shot, arrested, jailed, and possibly losing their tax exempt status. They played their hand and they will have to live with it. They ought to lose their tax exempt status, and so should the ACLU. The Sons of Liberty got away with the act. Great, but they could have got caught and jailed or hung. They took the chance and won against the Crown. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-11-15 11:04:24 PM |
| #21 TGA is full of it. I disagree. I respect allefforts for environmental preservation. As a civil engineer/project manager I can attest to the ways those protections have been bastardized to stop projects/progress (IMHO); AP can tell a similar tale. These freaks are one step from the ELF bastards and should be slammed hard! They have a safe refuge in our courts system and I respect when they play by the rules, as I am bound to do.....otherwise, smack the trust-funds of these weasels and make them earn a living! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-11-15 9:45:00 PM |
| #20 TGA is full of it. All this talk about nonviolent protest for a great 'cause' is dung. Holding a pro life sign within 100 feet of Planned UnParenthood's abortion chambers during the Reno/Clinton reign of terror meant getting slapped with a felony charge under RICO and DECADES of jail time. And these panty waist perverts want to screw a precious mahogany tree. What dung! Here's an idea - let's apply the law equally. You don't look at someone's motive to decide whether to enforce the law!! |
| Posted by: Pro Life 2003-11-15 9:33:24 PM |
| #19 ...as it attempted to draw attention to the mahogany shipment, Heh heh, he said hog... |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-11-15 9:26:19 PM |
| #18 Old Patriot, as it seems Greenpeace did not board this ship out of a whim.. they have been monitoring illegal mahogany trade for years so you might at least give them the benefit of the doubt that they knew what they were doing. The Brazilian president Cardoso banned the mahogany trade and president Bush has publicly spoken out against it. So I think Greenpeace has a point, and unfortunately in our media society the point gets across more easily with a media friendly action. Most of the (laudable) achievements of Greenpeace involved breaking (or bending) laws at some point. Remember how Greenpeace fought against French nuclear testing in Mururoa? Against whaling? Oh they boarded quite a few whaling ships and succeeded in protecting the whales because commercial whaling was banned after these spectacular (and at some point law breaking) actions. The firefighter analogy isn't that far fetched. If you hear a child screaming in the neighbor's apartment and you have reasons to believe that the child is abused, then nobody will prosecute you for trying to stop it. Even if you break a law by doing it. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-11-15 7:39:06 PM |
| #17 Bulldog, as I said, I'm not exactly excusing them but asking to consider the whole case. To dig out a dusty law so you can whack them doesn't sound right to me. Blurring the line, maybe. Sometimes it's hard to see the line, especially in a twilight zone. Let's assume the ship was not carrying timber but... marihuana (and the authorities still turning their backs)... where is the line? Cocaine? (pardon the pun). I'm a firm advocate of respecting the law (of free democratic societies). But then again even in the U.S. laws exist that are questionable and some of them have only been abolished because some people chose to break them in public. All I'm asking for is not to put people in a boat with "terrorists" who clearly do not qualify. Saving the rain forest is saving the lung of our Earth... I think that beats the lost dollars of timber smugglers hands down. Greenpeace's actions may sometimes be questionable (they seem to need these spectacular acts to get the attention), their political views might not be yours or mine but the basic idea that the Earth is a precious gift that we should not put to waste for some extra dollars is not a terrorist one. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-11-15 7:19:01 PM |
| #16 First of all, was it contraband, or legitimately purchased? Brazil isn't the only nation that grows mahogany trees - most of South and Central America do also. Secondly, was it legitimately purchased, or black market. They "suspected", but did they know? IF they're just out to cause trouble, hoping to force someone to give up trading in a legitimate cargo because they don't want that cargo traded in, then they should all be hanged from the ship's railing as a warning to the next group. If it was indeed contraband, duly recognized as such by both the exporting and importing country, the US should have seized it and the ship. That didn't happen. Makes me wonder what all the particulars are in this case, and why they're not all being discussed. The article is written as if something illegal was being done. However, unless the laws of two nations involved were broken, it was Greenpeace that was the agressor, and should get their teeth handed to them on a plate. I'd want to know a lot more before I accepted the words in this article as 100% Gospel truth. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-11-15 7:14:51 PM |
| #15 But TGA, a fireman isn't a vigilante. There may be a fine line between drawing attention to criminal activity in this way and committing criminal activity yourself, but what you seem to be propounding is a blurring of the line, or a nudging of the line, because of the motives behind the actions of this group. And I don't believe that 'good' motives excuse bad behaviour. I sympathise with their campaign to stem the trade in endangered wood, but in carrying it out their in this way, when there are many other ways of doing it, they make themselves liable to prosecution. Perhaps they'd enjoy being 'martyrs' to their cause, but is it fair to honest shipping to allow Greenpeace's eco-pirates freeedom of the seas, to go boarding vessels at will?! |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-11-15 6:06:44 PM |
| #14 Bulldog, there is always a fine line... "Convinced the ship was hauling contraband mahogany from Brazil"... thats what the article says. Now from what I read that ship DID carry contraband mahogany (and US authorities turning a blind eye to it?) so you argument of monetary harm might be a bit thin on the ground. Seems like a matter of priority to me. Sometimes you have to chose between two evils. And look at the whole matter. Nobody punishes a firefighter for knocking down a door in order to save a house. Greenpeace may not qualify for the comparison but as I said... tread lightly. Shipman, whiskey would never have been tossed into the water, it would have been destroyed with a more "personal" effort! |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-11-15 5:35:49 PM |
| #13 Which is exactly the difference between a tyranny and a free democracy. I think that's a bit simplistic, TGA. "Democracy" doesn't mean politically-motivated individuals have the right to act as if a law unto themselves. That's more like anarchy. Whenever someone or some group's actions cause monetary harm to another individual, group or company, the injured party has a right to expect compensation from, and/or punishment for, the perpetrators. Boarding a cargo ship with intent to cause disruption is not a "victimless crime", and whatever the motivation, they have no right to complain if their saboteurial actions result in punitive consequences. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-11-15 5:09:30 PM |
| #12 TGA you have to remember it was Tea... if a shipload of was whiskey tossed into the inner harbor it would have been a different story. PS. The great hymn Shall We Gather At The River was based on just such an action. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-11-15 5:05:49 PM |
| #11 Frank G, I know. (The Bostoners did destroy property btw.) Which is exactly the difference between a tyranny and a free democracy. I'm not exactly a fan of Greenpeace but sometimes they do raise legitimate issues and a peaceful protest (as annoying as it may have been to some) may be something like a misdemeanour but please let's not place people who unfurl some banners on a ship with people who bomb skyscrapers and synagogues. A non violent sit in is not a "criminal conspiracy" even if bending some dusty law makes it one. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-11-15 4:34:41 PM |
| #10 TGA - I have some doubt the Boston Tea Party would've been dealt with lightly like this had the perpetrators been caught |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-11-15 4:16:06 PM |
| #9 "Tread lightly here..." Screw off. The green terrorists are always accusing the conservatives of 'wrapping themselves in the flag', but they sure do want to claim SOME KIND of legitimacy by doing the same, don't they? They consider murderous swine like Mao, Guevera, and OBL to be 'George Washingtons'. They can all go suck it. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-11-15 4:09:26 PM |
| #8 TGA -- Sorry, there's no comparison. The Boston Tea Party was about eliminating a tyranny; the Greens are about instituting one. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-11-15 4:06:39 PM |
| #7 About 50 members of the political organization, The Sons of Liberty, boarded 3 ships in Boston Harbor. Some were dressed, not very convincingly, as Mohawk Indians. In a very orderly and quiet fashion, they plunked [sterling]9,659 worth of Darjeeling into the sea... Tread lightly here... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-11-15 3:54:38 PM |
| #6 I can't stand greenterrorists, but they have a point. Unfortunately, their point is located at the top of their heads. |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-11-15 3:50:26 PM |
| #5 Oops, sorry, didn't read the last para, it DID have mahogany onboard. Why are we doing that? I can't stand greenterrorists, but they have a point. |
| Posted by: chargethemwithpiracy 2003-11-15 3:37:04 PM |
| #4 Why can't they be charged with piracy? Also, the article never mentions if the mahogany was onboard- was it? Doesn't sound like it, sounds like these assholes screwed the goat. And why aren't they protesting Brazil instead of the U.S.? Oh, and burning down buildings and Hummers isn't 'free speech', it's vandalism bordering on terrorism. |
| Posted by: chargethemwithpiracy 2003-11-15 3:34:18 PM |
| #3 These idiots make a lot of us who actually truly care about the environment look bad. As soon as I saw the ACLU in there I had to post this crap. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-15 2:57:49 PM |
| #2 YES! I love how these idiots commit crimes and then claim it's "free speech". |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-11-15 2:53:31 PM |
| #1 selective use of a 1800's law, huh? Well, I would guess that should their storming of a cargo ship have occurred in the 1800's they might have been lucky to have seen land again, ever.... this is a shot across the bow - take their tax-exempt status...and Jesse Jackson's too ...time to make the laws work for the right as well |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-11-15 2:51:09 PM |