- VERY URGENT - House to Vote on "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act" TOMORROW - FRIDAY, SEPT. 29 The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) is a bill that, if passed, could make it a crime to cause any business classified as an "animal enterprise" (e.g., factory farms, fur farms, vivisection labs, rodeos and circuses) to suffer a profit loss -- even if the company's financial decline is caused by peaceful protests. Outlawing non-violent activist tactics that don't physically hurt anyone and defining them as "terrorism" is a completely unacceptable violation of our constitutionally-granted First Amendment rights to freedom of speech as Americans. We must take action NOW to defend our right to protest cruelty against animals -- before it is too late! Industry groups are pushing AETA through quickly and with little public scrutiny (fast-tracking it like they did the Patriot Act: first through the House of Representatives, then through the Senate) before the current Congressional session ends. In fact, the House is scheduled to vote on this bill (HR 4239) TOMORROW, Friday, September 29th! We need to flood the lines with calls in opposition to AETA now! This is the most important call yet because it affects our ability to help ALL animals! Call your Representative and Senators TODAY and urge them to protect our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech by opposing the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Get your elected officials' phone numbers here. Call Senators Inhofe & Feinstein, co-sponsors of S 3880 (the AETA bill in the Senate), and express your opposition to this bill. - Senator James Inhofe: (202) 224-4721 - Senator Diane Feinstein: (202) 224-3841 Click here to urge the ACLU to take action on this issue. Details & Talking Points: AETA labels the non-violent tactics of Martin Luther King and Gandhi as "terrorism." It spells out penalties for "an offense involving exclusively a nonviolent physical obstruction of an animal enterprise or a business having a connection to, or relationship with, an animal enterprise, that may result in loss of profits but does not result in bodily injury?." In other words, any act that causes a loss of profits to animal-exploiting industries (like a reduction in meat consumption) can be treated as "terrorism." Under AETA, undercover investigators, whistle-blowers and other activists would be prosecuted as "terrorists." It defines "economic damage" as including "the loss of profits." The extremely vague and broad sweeping language puts all animal advocates at risk. Causing exploitive corporations to lose profits is NOT terrorism -- it's effective activism, and we as Americans have a Constitutional right to protest. Even activists that are not prosecuted under the law will be affected by the extreme rhetoric. AETA is unnecessary. There are already laws to protect industries against illegal actions, regardless of who commits the acts. Instead, the government should focus on catching real terrorists. For instance, the CIA has officially shut down the unit searching for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda mastermind responsible for murdering nearly 3,000 human beings on September 11th, 2001. Yet the U.S. government is now targeting its own citizens, most aggressively peaceful animal rights activists who haven't harmed a single person. All Americans should be concerned about this gross infringement on the first amendment. The term terrorism should not be used against peaceful social justice advocacy. Who will be next? For more in-depth information about AETA, click here. Read HR 4239 Read S. 3880
hahahaha so ironic..... Rosa parks was treated like a hero when the boycott of the public transportation system started way back when. But people trying to protest cruelty to animals are called terrorists. WTF?! Is everyone a terrorist now?! How is condoning animal rights instilling terror and mayhem into the general public? I'll tell you... its not
I would guess that if a protest tactic such as a sit in that blocks the business, its suppliers, its customers could be considered harmful to the owners and the employees.
Ummm...maybe it's because 99.9% of animal-rights protests are not peaceful and that the government has to do something to crack down on domestic terrorists like the A.L.F, SHAC, SHARK and other groups who think they are actually accomplishing something by burning down buildings, setting diseased animals free into the wild that disrupt the ecosystem, and endangering both human and animal lives? It sucks that peaceful animal-welfarists such as myself will get caught up in this but perhaps this should be a wake-up call to all those morons out there causing so much trouble. Btw, I always find the comparisons of the animal-rights movement to Ghandi or MLK to be disgusting. Neither of those men who have approved the tactics used by most of the AR activists today. I once heard Rodney Coronado refer to himself as the new MLK and then in the same lecture, teach people how to make molotov cocktails. Ugh.
This has already been posted and if you had posted the actual bill others could see that it states loss of profit from destruction of their property. Such as releasing animals and destroying records.
But like a Bible Thumper its easier to take little bits of something to get thier agenda across becuase if the took it in the whole context of the document it would not strike as much fear or attention. Now just how fun would that have been?
damn... guess I was wrong... didnt know the WHOLE (emphasis on that word) issue and I didn't know almost everyone was so violent about it. I mean sure there's always extremists for certain issues, but now I can begin to grasp why the bill was proposed...
Same goes for alot of things, there are extremists but all suffer for them, like gun control, drug use, drinking, war, ect.
Well when personal intrest becomes a personal issue to the wallet of others than yup I guess so. Maybe people need to do the same thing to others and create hardships for those who are protesting. If you dont like furs and animal testing then dont buy them, best protest you can do, if you do more than you infringe on others rights.
Then Yank any peaceful means other than not buying the goods, would infringe on anothers right to make money. Then you would also see consumer rights groups spreading of information as to a products weakness as an infringement of someone else's rights.
