The more radical activists - the ones that performed rescue actions or effective campaigns that threatened the economic viability of companies that relied on harming animals - were often prosecuted as terrorists. He documents numerous cases in which individuals affiliated with the ELF and/or ALF, and people who are just regular old vegans handing out pamphlets or holding up signs, were surveilled, followed, and in some cases persecuted, by a conglomerate of FBI agents, homeland security personnel, police officers, and even private security companies hired by corporations. Some highly recommended reading on this topic is a book called Green is the New RedР’В by Will Potter, who runs a blog of the same name.

Their attention to the ALF is also a testament to how effective and passionate animal rights activists can be. Homeland security has been caught monitoring circus protestsР’В (I wrote this!), vegan potlucks, and even a demonstration outside of a Honey Baked Ham store. ItРІР‚в„ўs one of the clearer examples of national security resources being diverted to a domain in which they do not belong. Along with the Department of Homeland Security and state and local police departments - often working in concert via fusion centers located across the country - the FBI has a lengthy history of surveilling individuals and groups affiliated with a movement that, according to historian and MIT PhD candidate Ryan Shapiro, has never physically harmed anyone. The FBI has long considered the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and ALF to be the number one domestic terror threatРІР‚вЂњ9/11 and frequent right-wing terrorist attacks notwithstanding. If youРІР‚в„ўre not familiar with the persecution of environmental and animal rights activists across the United States, let me briefly - and sloppily - catch you up to speed. IРІР‚в„ўll be the first to admit that watching videos of these extremely risky rescue operations inspired me to want to do the same - until I realized just the kind of threat these activists face. What should vegans think about the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the anarchistic, black-clad, surreptitious, direct-action radicals that quite literally save animalsРІР‚в„ў lives through more than their diet?

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