The Edmond Sun reported last week that the FBI is ‘actively investigating’ Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty to determine whether or not SHAC has violated any federal laws in its campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences.
SHAC did not help its case when it posted on its web site the personal information — including Social Security numbers — of 19 adults who live in Edmond, Oklahoma. The posting of the personal information shows just how far SHAC is willing to press its campaign against HLS.
SHAC has been targeting Skip Boruchin, an Edmond, Oklahoma resident who is a market maker for HLS stock. Unlike a lot of other brokers dealing in HLS stock, Boruchin has a backbone and says he will not be phased by SHAC’s harassment. In fact, Boruchin told the Edmond Sun, “I chose to be a market maker for Huntingdon because someone (SHAC) is telling me I can’t.”
Failing in their efforts to harass Boruchin, SHAC-affiliated activists have turned to harassing his neighbors. The offense committed by the 19 adults whose Social Security numbers were posted on SHAC’s web site is that they are Boruchin’s neighbors. The information was posted with a note saying,
Skip Boruchin is a man who can not be moved by reason or sympathy . . . So we regretfully announced that since Skip can not be figuratively moved, he must be literally moved.
Below is a small ample of information currently available on his neighbors. We have other information for some of them — e-mail accounts . . . credit card information, birthdates, etc. This information will be periodically leaked to the public and to animal liberation groups to do with as they will.
The note on SHAC’s web site claimed that credit card information from one of Boruchin’s neighbors had been obtained by sending a computer virus via e-mail to the neighbor.
SHAC’s Kevin Jonas tried to distance himself from the information that appeared on SHAC’s web site. Jonas told the Edmond Sun,
We simply publish what’s given to us. . . . It’s our duty to show exactly what’s going on in the campaign.
That claim won’t fly at all in court and along with potential criminal charges against SHAC, Boruchin and his neighbors likely have strong civil cases against SHAC as an organization and Jonas personally.
Source:
FBI probes activist web site. David Hartman, Edmond Sun (Oklahoma), September 26, 2002.