On May 18, 2004, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the animal rights terrorism, “Animal Rights: Activism vs. Criminality.” Unfortunately the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) not only could not be bothered to attend the hearings, but issued a statement dismissing animal rights terrorism and suggesting that the topic was unworthy to be heard by the committee in the first place.
But even this Administration had not up until now, as far as I know, thought the Animal Enterprise Protection Act a major component of its “war on terrorism.” In fact, I understand that the statute has rarely, if ever, been used. Nor has anyone ever thought to include it in the ever-expanding laundry list of predicate offenses that make up the statutory definition of “federal crime of terrorism.” This hearing may be a signal that is changing.
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No one should be confused. I do not condone those who commit criminal acts against laboratories and other facilities that use animals for research, testing and other purposes. I do not condone those who commit criminal acts against family planning clinics or doctors, either.
Indeed, in the last Congress, I worked closely with Senator Hutchinson to increase penalties for criminal acts against animal enterprises, while fending off efforts to expand the Federal Government’s power to investigate and prosecute so-called eco-terrorism in ways that could chill legitimate First Amendment activity. Our compromise language was eventually included in the conference report on H.R.3448, the “Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002,” which was signed into law on June 12, 2002.
But I think most Americans would be surprised that we are devoting a hearing today to this issue. I think that most Americans would rather that we address more urgent concerns that really do pose a threat to this country and to the world.
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Finally, with respect to this hearing, I had suggested that the Committee might want to invite a third witness for the second panel to provide a different perspective on the issue of this morningÂ’s hearing. I regret that the Chairman declined to do so to provide balance to these proceedings. If we are going to devote time to this issue, then it seemed to me to be better if we were able to hear from all sides. I thank all of our witnesses for coming today.
Lets go through Leahy’s statement step by step. First, Leahy simultaneously lauds the Animal Enterprise Act while at the same time belittling the point of hearings since the law is almost never used. Which is the basic point — the Animal Enterprise Act has failed to curtail animal rights terrorism and is not an effective law at all. As is clear with the recent indictment of extremists associated with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, federal prosecutors have had to look at creative interpretations of other existing laws to go after animal rights extremists, such as the interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit interstate stalking that the SHAC defendants are charged with.
The fact that the law is rarely used is not a sign that this is not an important issue, but rather that so far Congress has failed to find an effective tool to crack down on animal rights violence and extremism.
The last half of Leahy’s statement can be summed up thusly — since animal rights terrorism isn’t as dangerous as Al Qaeda, why should we bother to try to stamp it out? Well okay, but then why should we bother trying to stamp out acts of harassment and terrorism by extremist racist organizations or, for that matter, why bother ever holding hearings about organized crime — after all, the mob didn’t crash planes into the World Trade Center. Why should there be a special law to protect abortion clinics from protests and harassment? After all, pro-life extremists did not blow up the USS Cole.
Animal rights violence may not pose the threat that Al Qaeda does, but it certainly does pose a threat to individuals working in a number of industries, as well as the potential long-term viability of those industries if law enforcement does not move aggressively to stop the sort of chaos that Great Britain has allowed through its inaction. Leahy, apparently, would prefer to wait until the United States is confronted with the same sort of level of extremism and violence that the UK is faced with.
Finally, Leahy’s suggestion that the hearing wasn’t complete without the pro-animal rights terrorism side being represented was reprehensible. Imagine if a Senator said that a hearing on racist harassment directed at minorities would not be fair unless white supremacists were allowed to give their side or if a hearing on anti-abortion violence wasn’t complete until advocates of killing abortion doctors were allowed to use the Senate as a platform to express their views.
Leahy owes an apology to the men and women in medical research who have to endure harassment and threats of violence by extremist animal rights groups.
The full text of the prepared statements offered by those appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on animal rights violence are all available on this site: