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When Congress passed the industry-backed Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) in 2006, the use of “terrorist” to describe animal rights activists became socially acceptable. Peculiar, no? Terrorists use suicide bombs and planes as weapons; activists use cameras and leaflets. Terrorists torture and kill indiscriminately; activists work to reduce suffering and harm. Do ISIS and Hamas look to the animal rights movement for guidance? Are they emulating our tactics? Probably not.

Don’t get me wrong. There are terrorists in the equation — they are the people who terrorize animals in factory farms, in laboratories, on fur farms and in many other windowless buildings that keep the public in the dark. These terrorists attempt to use the AETA to shift attention away from their own atrocities: “Hey – let’s pay members of Congress to pass a law that equates animal activism to terrorism so that the activists become the enemy and we become the victim.”

The animal industries’ use of the word “terrorist” to demonize activists was an exploitation of the public’s fear and vulnerability in a post 9/11 era, and animal abusers in other countries picked up on this approach. In 2013, leaders of the bullfighting business in France described the country’s anti-bullfight association a “terrorist organization” when calling on the government to dissolve it.

Kevin Oliff and Tyler Lang. Photo by Dom Greco

In July, two activists in California, Kevin Olliff and Tyler Lang, were arrested and charged under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act for allegedly releasing 2,000 mink and foxes from fur farms. Will Potter, author of Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, tells their story.

How do the victims of actual terrorism and their families feel about the use of “terrorist” to describe animal rights activists? And why do people accept this bastardization of the word? Is it simply because they haven’t given it any thought? Or, is it because categorizing activists as terrorists helps people rationalize their own behavior. After all, eating and wearing animals is less egregious than being a terrorist.

Under AETA, anyone who causes the loss of property or profits to institutions that use or sell animals can be prosecuted. The law is vague, and it is unconstitutional because it violates free speech. Eventually, it will be overturned. Learn more about AETA and where it stands now.

According to the Chicago Tribune, “the lawyer for one of two California animal activists accused of sabotaging an Illinois mink farm and releasing about 2,000 animals into the wild last year said today he plans to challenge the constitutionality of the federal “animal enterprise terrorism” charges the men are facing.” The lawyer, Michael Deutsch, said that AETA “is overbroad and potentially criminalizes free speech rights protected by the First Amendment” and that it “unfairly brands activism as terrorism.”   The activists, Tyler Lang and Kevin Johnson (aka Kevin Olliff) spray-painted “LIBERATION IS LOVE” in big red letters on the side of a barn after liberating the mink. 

Kevin Johnson (Illinois Dept. of Corrections / July 29, 2014)

Let me get this straight: The “terrorists” are the individuals who free captive animals from intensive confinement and emotional and physical torture, and the “victims” are the people who are terrorizing the animals?  I would ask how that is even possible, but then I remind myself that mainstream society found ways to justify the slaughter of native Americans, the enslavement of people who look different and the deprivation of basic human rights to large fractions of society. The AETA must go.