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Terror legislation impedes upon First Amendment
By Emile Hallez
ehallez@mscd.edu

The clouds are rolling in for animal-rights activists and advocates of First Amendment rights. Making a dark sky more ominous, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was rushed through Congress on Nov. 13 without much debate.

Like its predecessor, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992, the AETA puts crosshairs on the opposition to treating sentient beings as commodities. Under both acts, violent actions against the animal industry are criminal offenses, as are peaceful campaigns that succeed at disrupting business operations.

The AETA differs from the previous act in several important ways. First, the nebulous terms of offense have been broadened and further hazed. Instead of “causing physical disruption to the functioning of an animal enterprise,” one can now be tried “for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise.”

This difference is important – whether one obtusely considers property damage, such as vandalism or research file destruction, an act of terrorism is now beside the point. Currently, “interfering” is the key word. While the AETA contains a clause that is supposed to protect activity ensured by the First Amendment, I roll my eyes in disbelief.

Since six members of the group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty have recently started serving prison sentences, I wonder what First Amendment rights really are. Prosecuted under the terms of the AEPA of 1992, they are in prison for maintaining a website that contained information about Huntingdon’s employees. The Ku Klux Klan has its own website. So in America, speech is protected if it preaches racial intolerance but illegal if it successfully combats cruelty against animals.

Aside from blurring the legality of protest, the AETA has intensified penalties for offenses. Under the AEPA of 1992, offenses, including property damage exceeding $10,000, were punished by fines and no more than one year of jail time. Now, damages not more than $10,000 will land one in prison for a year, as will instilling “in another reasonable fear of serious bodily injury.” Jail sentences for “economic damage” extend to 20 years.

The members of congress who voted in favor of this act are enemies of free speech. The price of civil disobedience has skyrocketed – now that harassment is a means of economic loss associated with terrorism, one wonders exactly what peaceful protest is. Perhaps it is sending a polite but concerned letter to a CEO who will throw it away unread. Or better yet, perhaps it is sitting at home with one’s mouth tightly shut.

Violence is unbecoming of animal-rights activists. Harming a human, in almost any circumstance, would be hypocritical. The essence of animal-rights conviction lies in the term “sentient being,” which obviously encompasses humans. Peaceful protest is the only effective large-scale tool we possess, and the animal industry is doing all it can to squelch its opposition.

The AETA is but another act – along with the Patriot and Military Commissions acts – bringing us ever closer to an oligarchic police state. The heart of recent congressional productivity seems to be scuzzying up the hog wallow, creating a type of Rorschach test shaped in excrement and leaving it for fresh occupants, who will wonder what to make of it.

Despite this acrimonious assault on our rights, I have hope in knowing things tend to get worse before they get better. Vehement oppression fuels opposition, and our representatives think they can snuff out a fire with gasoline.