[Senate Hearing 109-1005]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-1005
ECO-TERRORISM SPECIFICALLY EXAMINING STOP HUNTINGDON ANIMAL CRUELTY
(``SHAC'')
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 26, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/
congress.senate
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri MAX BAUCUS, Montana
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island BARBARA BOXER, California
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
JOHN THUNE, South Dakota HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
JIM DeMINT, South Carolina FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia BARACK OBAMA, Illinois
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Andrew Wheeler, Majority Staff Director
Ken Connolly, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
OCTOBER 26, 2005
OPENING STATEMENTS
Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma... 1
Jeffords, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
prepared statement............................................. 30
Lautenberg, Hon. Frank R., U.S. Senator from the State of New
Jersey......................................................... 4
Thune, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of South Dakota.... 10
WITNESSES
Bernard, Richard P., executive vice president and general
counsel, New York Stock Exchange............................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Bibi, Mark L., general counsel, Life Sciences Research, Inc. and
Huntingdon Life Sciences, Inc.................................. 15
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Boruchin, Skip, NASDAQ market maker, Legacy Trading Company...... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 38
Lewis, John E., Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism
Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation...................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 30
Sabin, Barry M., Chief, Counterterrorism Section, Criminal
Division, U.S. Department of Justice........................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Vlasak, Jerry, M.D., press officer, North American Animal
Liberation Press Office........................................ 20
Prepared statement........................................... 41
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Article:
``The Animal Zealotry That Destroyed Our Lab,'' by Mark S.
Blumberg, Washington Post.................................. 50
Doris Day Animal League...................................... 53
Charts:
HLS CEO Attacked and Beaten with a Baseball Bat at His Home.. 62
SHAC Attacked Homes of HLS Scientists........................ 63
SHAC Leaflets Chiron Executive's Neighborhood................ 64
SHAC Directs Members to Contact NYSE......................... 65
Jerry Vlasak is an Actor in Multiple Animal Rights Terrorists
Groups..................................................... 66
SHAC Attacked Home of Skip Boruchin in Oklahoma.............. 67
SHAC Attacked Office of Skip Boruchin in Oklahoma............ 68
SHAC Leaflets HLS Executive's Neighborhood with Slanderous
Material................................................... 69
SHAC Orders Direct Action on HLS............................. 70
DOJ Resource Guide on the Domestic Terrorist Threat of SHAC.. 71
Business Card Illustrates the Collusion of Multiple Animal
Rights Groups.............................................. 72
Letters:
Kerr, Jeffrey S., general counsel and director of corporate
affairs, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Foundation (PETA).......................................... 54-58
Lenon, Jordana, National Association for Biomedical Research. 59
Pacelle, Wayne, president and CEO, The Humane Society of the
United States.............................................. 60
Society for Animal Protective Legislation.................... 61
Statement, Bistrian, Bruce R., M.D., Ph.D., president, Federation
of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)......... 48
ECO-TERRORISM SPECIFICALLY EXAMINING
STOP HUNTINGDON ANIMAL CRUELTY (``SHAC'')
----------
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in room
406, Senate Dirksen Building, Hon. James M. Inhofe (chairman of
the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Inhofe, Thune, and Lautenberg.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Senator Inhofe. The committee will come to order. We have a
longstanding habit of starting on time, whether other members
are here or not.
Today, the Committee on Environment and Public Works will
discuss the committee's investigation into eco-terrorism. This
hearing is the second hearing we have had on this subject. We
will focus on Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, ``SHAC,'' a
radical animal rights organization that relies on crimes of
violence and a campaign of fear to convey their message of
animal liberation. SHAC evolved with the purpose of ruining a
contract research organization called Huntingdon Life Sciences.
We will refer to that as HLS, also known as Life Science
Research, a New Jersey-based company that conducts EPA and FDA
mandated testing on animals.
This testing may some day provide a cure for cancer, AIDS,
blindness and the possibilities are endless, as we, the
Congress, have determined that this testing is necessary to
ensure the safety of our consumers.
Our first two witnesses, John Lewis, Deputy Assistant
Director of the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI, and Barry
Sabin, Section Chief of the Counterterrorism Division of the
Department of Justice are here to explain SHAC's revolutionary
tactics used to pressure people through tertiary or third party
targeting to stop any and all business with HLS. SHAC targets
all HLS service providers and clients under the theory that
without them, HLS cannot operate.
SHAC is able to effectively bully companies by using
extremely dangerous and frightening tactics, including the use
of bombs, arson, violence against people and property,
intimidation, and harassment. We have a chart that depicts the
HLS CEO who was attacked with a baseball bat by SHAC. That is
on my side of the two charts, you can see his head is bleeding
profusely. He was near death at that time.
[The reference document follows on page 62.]
SHAC calls these tactics direct actions, and its level of
violence and propensity for harm has led the FBI to include
SHAC, along with the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth
Liberation Front, as the most serious domestic terrorist threat
today, having committed over 1,200 acts of terror and over $200
million in damages.
There is a need for tighter, yet concise legislation to
curb this criminal activity that, up to date, has been
impervious to law enforcement authorities. Such legislation
will close the gaps in the criminal code that have allowed
SHAC, working with multiple other animal rights groups, the
freedom to terrorize people.
Mark Bibi, general counsel for HLS, will inform us about
not only the years of terror that HLS executives, scientists,
and other employees and their family members have endured as
SHAC's primary target, but also the costs associated with
operating a research entity because of SHAC. Notice the chart
that illustrates multiple scientists' homes that were attacked,
coupled with the loss of research, loss of scientists and
security costs of the interference with HLS' ability to compete
in the financial markets.
[The reference document follows on page 63.]
Just last month, HLS was to be listed on the New York Stock
Exchange. The Exchange refused to go through with the scheduled
listing because of threats from SHAC. Here is a chart
illustrating the SHAC Web site threatening the New York Stock
Exchange.
[The reference document follows on page 65.]
When this happened on September 7, I sent a letter to the
New York Stock Exchange cautioning them on such an important
decision and expressing my concerns about setting a dangerous
precedent. As I said in my letter, it seems to me unimaginable
that this country's worldwide symbol of the integrity of the
capital markets, the New York Stock Exchange, would capitulate
to threats or even the mere threat of threats from a single
issue extremist group.
Appeasing these groups only validates the effectiveness of
their tactics and inspires them to replicate this model of
activism in some other venue. What then will happen when the
activists move to the timber industry or the defense industry
or some other controversial industry? Today we will seek
information from the New York Stock Exchange about this
decision.
One of my constituents, Skip Boruchin, from Oklahoma,
endured several years of SHAC's terror, along with his family
and employees. He is with us today to tell his story. Skip's
home and office--notice these charts--were attacked by SHAC and
ALF.
[The reference documents follow on pages 67 and 68.]
Finally, the committee will hear from animal rights
activist, Dr. Jerry Vlasak. Dr. Vlasak is highly controversial,
since he has gone on record advocating the end of biomedical
research using animals by any means possible, including
assassination--that's murder--of scientists. In fact, Dr.
Vlasak has been banned from the United Kingdom for such
volatile statements.
We need to understand and assess the dangers associated
with the research culture that is under attack. If researchers
do not receive protection and the opportunities to fairly
compete, will they leave the United States for places like
China and India? These are questions we must seek the answers
to in order to determine the best response to this troubling
issue.
Consequently, I am introducing legislation today that will
assist law enforcement in their plight to combat the
criminally-based SHAC campaign that targets innocent and
necessary actors in an industry that promotes innovation and
discovery.
[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:]
Statement of Senator James M. Inhofe, U.S. Senator from
the State of Oklahoma
Today the Committee on Environment and Public Works will discuss
the Committee's investigation into Eco-terrorism. This hearing, the
second installment in a series of hearings, will focus on Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (``SHAC''), a radical animal rights
organization that relies on crimes of violence and a campaign of fear
to convey their message of animal liberation. SHAC evolved with the
purpose of ruining a contract research organization called Huntingdon
Life Sciences (``HLS'') also known as Life Science Research, a New
Jersey-based company that conducts EPA and FDA mandated testing on
animals. This testing may, some day, provide us the cure for cancer,
AIDS, blindness the possibilities are endless and we, as the Congress,
have determined that this testing is necessary to ensure the safety of
our consumers.
Our first two witnesses John Lewis, Deputy Assistant Director of
the Counterterrorism Division for the Federal Bureau of Investigations
and Barry Sabin, Section Chief of the Counterterrorism Division of the
Department of Justice are here to explain SHAC's revolutionary tactics
used to pressure people through ``tertiary'' or ``third party''
targeting to stop any and all business with HLS. SHAC targets all HLS
service providers and clients under the theory that without them, HLS
cannot operate. SHAC is able to effectively bully companies by using
extremely dangerous and frightening tactics including the use of bombs,
arson, violence against people and property, intimidation, and
harassment. We have a chart that depicts HLS' CEO who was attacked with
baseball bat by SHAC.
SHAC calls these tactics ``direct actions'' and its level of
violence and propensity for harm has led the FBI to include SHAC along
with the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front as the
most serious domestic terrorist threat today, having committed over
1,200 acts of terror and over $200 million in damages. There is a need
for tighter yet concise legislation to curb this criminal activity
that, up to date, has been impervious to law enforcement authorities.
Such legislation will close the gaps in the criminal code that have
allowed SHAC, working with multiple other animal rights groups, the
freedom to terrorize people.
Mark Bibi, General Counsel of HLS, will inform us about not only
the years of terror that HLS executives, scientists, and other
employees and their family members have endured as SHAC's primary
target, but also the costs associated with operating a research entity
because of SHAC. Notice the chart that illustrates multiple scientists'
homes that were attacked. Coupled with the loss of research, loss of
scientists, and security costs is the interference with HLS' ability to
compete in the financial markets. Just last month HLS was to be listed
on the New York Stock Exchange only to find out at the 11th hour that
the Exchange refused to go through with the scheduled listing because
of threats from SHAC. Here is a chart illustrating the SHAC website
threatening the NYSE. When this happened on September 7, I sent a
letter to the New York Stock Exchange cautioning them on such an
important decision and expressing my concerns about setting a dangerous
precedent. As I said in my letter, it seems to me unimaginable that
this country's worldwide symbol of the integrity of the capital
markets, the NYSE, would capitulate to threats, or even the mere threat
of threats, from a single issue extremist group. Appeasing these groups
only validates the effectiveness of their tactics and inspires them to
replicate this model of activism in some other venue. What then happens
when activists move to the timber, defense, or some other controversial
industry? Today we will seek information from the New York Stock
Exchange about this decision.
One of my constituents, Stephen (``Skip'') Boruchin from Oklahoma,
endured several years of SHAC's terror along with his family and
employees and he is with us today to tell his story. Skip's home and
office--notice these charts--were attacked by SHAC and ALF. Finally,
the committee will hear from animal rights activist, Dr. Jerry Vlasak.
Dr. Vlasak is highly controversial since he has gone on record
advocating the end of biomedical research using animals by any means
possible including the assassination of scientists. In fact, Dr. Vlasak
has been banned from the United Kingdom for such volatile statements.
We need to understand and assess the dangers associated with a
research culture that is under attack. If researchers do not receive
protection and the opportunities to fairly compete will they leave the
United States for places like India and China? These are questions we
must seek the answers to in order to determine the best response to
this troubling issue. Consequently, I am introducing legislation today
that will assist law enforcement in their plight to combat the
criminally based SHAC campaign which targets innocent and necessary
actors in an industry that promotes innovation and discovery.
Senator Lautenberg.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I don't know whether I need my sign before I make my
speech.
Senator Inhofe. I don't have mine up. You don't need yours.
Senator Lautenberg. Anyway, Mr. Chairman, thank you very
much for holding this hearing today. The subject is very
important, and I think it has to be apparent that there is
nothing that we can say that justifies criminality. Among the
subjects I know that we review in this committee on a regular
basis are subjects of terror and what if any involvement that
we are aware of that takes place. We want to step up and defend
people's rights to dissent, but also prosecute those, recommend
prosecution of those who would break the law.
I served in the Army during World War II, and our rights as
Americans are precious to me, including the right of free
speech and political dissent. One person's rights, where
another person's safety begins, is often a delicate question.
Nobody has the right to jeopardize the safety of anyone else.
Anyone who believes that they have that right because their
ideological beliefs are so strong is sorely mistaken.
I support the right, as I said, to free political speech
that is not based on threats or harassment. Protests and
demonstrations are legal and legitimate means of advocating for
change. But I condemn violence and I support the prosecution of
criminal behavior.
I believe that laboratory tests involving animals can be
necessary and important for the advancement of science and
medicine and the protection of public health. I would hope that
that wasn't the case. If it is determined that that is the only
way to establish the safety and efficacy of a product that is
going to be used on humans, unfortunately, so be it.
When such testing is necessary, it must be conducted under
strict standards and subject to regular inspection and
oversight. Even though I believe such testing can be necessary,
I understand that some people don't share my views. These
people have a right to engage in legitimate public debate on
the topic. They have a constitutional right to speak their
minds and even stage protests.
They do not have a right to engage in violent, criminal or
threatening activities, as some members of an organization with
the acronym SHAC, Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty have done. I
deplore these actions for several reasons. Not only do these
illegal actions victimize innocent citizens in my State, they
are also used to tar with a broad brush anyone who supports the
cause of animal rights or protecting the environment. I support
animal rights. I am very careful about that, and have been an
advocate for safe transportation of animals and care of
animals. I stand by that.
But while the actions of SHAC may fall within the statutory
definition of terrorism, the fact is, our Nation faces much
greater threats of terrorism from other sources, which does not
mean that we should let this pass by unnoticed or not acted
upon. SHAC's illegal acts should be prosecuted to the fullest
extent of the law.
They should not divert our attention from great, great
threats to lives, health and safety of the U.S. citizens,
including in New Jersey, such as the need for greatly increased
chemical security. We have people at risk within the nearby
vicinity of chemical plants that could conceivably kill
millions if they are attacked with serious weaponry.
So Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to present
my views on this issue.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg. That was an
excellent statement. I hope it is not inappropriate for me to
say that I totally agree with your statement. I think it is the
best statement I have ever heard you make in the 19 years we
have been here. Thank you very much.
[Laughter.]
Senator Lautenberg. I thought I made one in my 18th year--
--
Senator Inhofe. My memory isn't that long.
[Laughter.]
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg.
So that the witnesses will be aware, while we are short of
members here, the members all have staff that is here. Members
will be coming in and out. We have things that are going on on
the floor. I even have an amendment myself on the floor right
now.
We will go ahead with opening statements. Mr. Lewis, we
will start with you. Just try to stay within 5 minutes or so.
Your entire statement will be made part of the record. Take
what time you need to make, because your testimony--and yours,
Mr. Sabin--are very important.
Mr. Lewis.
STATEMENT OF JOHN E. LEWIS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Mr. Lewis. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Senator Lautenberg. I am
pleased to return before this committee and continue
discussions regarding the threat posed by animal rights
extremists.
I am here today to speak to you about how members of the
animal rights extremist movement advance their cause by using
so-called direct action against individuals, as well as
companies. I see disturbing signs of success in what they are
doing, and legitimate business enterprises are suffering.
I will also touch on the limitations of existing statutes
and the need to amend legislation if there is agreement that
more needs to be done to address this problem.
When I was last here in May, I spoke of direct action
taking many forms, to include harassment and intimidation of an
escalating nature, vandalism also of an escalating nature, and
more severe criminal actions, such as the use of improvised
incendiary and explosive devices.
There are two types of targets today in the cross-hairs of
animal rights extremists who are on the receiving end of the
so-called direct action. The first includes individuals and
companies which directly interact with animals, such as is the
case with our medical research industry. The second type is
individuals and companies which do not directly interact with
animals, but who have business ties with companies which do.
The direct actions carried out by those associated with the
animal extremist movement are very definitely executed to
harass, intimidate, destroy property, inflict economic harm,
with the ultimate aim of terminating normal business
operations. Within the animal rights extremist movement, we are
currently seeing a significant amount of direct action activity
that we are unable to effectively address given the Federal
statutes we have to work with.
This activity involves the targeting of secondary or
tertiary companies which have business or financial
relationships with another principal target. This activity
typically takes the form of and begins with harassment of
employees through telephonic contact, e-mail or in person. This
kind of harassment escalates if the desired effect is not
reached and can quickly involve into intimidation and
legitimate concerns for physical safety.
In other cases, we have seen vandalism used to make a
point, followed by contact with business principals to make
sure they understand there is more to follow if the animal
rights extremists' demands are not met.
The point of this activity, very successfully executed in
recent cases, I might add, is to force business owners to sever
ties with the principal target, an act that disrupts business
and one that can inflict serious economic damage. The Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign, best known as SHAC, is best
known for this tactic. SHAC, as you are aware, has since its
inception, targeted Huntingdon Life Sciences, both in the
United Kingdom and here in the United States. Their overriding
goal is to put HLS out of business by whatever means necessary,
to include violent means.
Although they have not been successful, there is no doubt
that HLS has suffered significantly from a financial point.
SHAC has made it their business to target companies that are
affiliated with HLS, from pharmaceutical companies to builders
to investors. It is not enough to say that SHAC targets
companies, that is not personal enough. SHAC targets people,
individuals in these companies, men and women who hold
management positions and on occasion their family members. SHAC
has used a variety of tactics to intimidate these affiliated
companies, employees, family members, to include bombings,
death threats, vandalism, office invasions, home visits with
and without vandalism, phone blockades and denial of service
attacks on their computer systems and the like.
I can report to you today that this strategy has been quite
effective. SHAC has forced well over 100 companies to sever
ties with HLS, including Aetna Insurance, CitiBank, Deloitte
and Touche, Johnson and Johnson, Merck and others. Their
current target list includes GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis,
UPS, as well as multiple financial institutional investors.
Let me give you a couple of examples here, and I think we
have gone over some of these before. In August 2003, two
explosive devices were detonated at the Chiron Corporation out
in California. A month later, an improvised explosive device
exploded at the headquarters of the Shaklee Corporation, also
in California. The second device that detonated at Chiron was
timed to go off later than the first, and in my view, an
apparent strike at first responders.
At Shaklee, that device was constructed with nails, to
significantly increase its lethality to anyone in the area at
time of detonation. That claim of responsibility that followed
indicated that all customers and their families are considered
legitimate targets, no more will all the killing be done by the
oppressors, now the oppressed will strike back.
In another more recent example, just last month an
incendiary device was left on the front porch of a senior
executive at GlaxoSmithKline in England. GlaxoSmithKline is one
of SHAC's main targets. It was Animal Liberation Front, in this
particular case, that claimed responsibility. In their message,
they wrote: ``This is just the beginning. We have identified
and tracked down many of your senior executives and also your
junior staff. Drop HLS or you will face the consequences.''
Last month, Huntingdon Life Sciences entered into a
business relationship with the New York firm Carr Securities.
Carr is a market maker and intended to market HLS stock. On the
very day following its first series of transactions, SHAC
vandalized the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club. The Yacht Club was
vandalized because certain Carr executives are believed to be
associated with that club. Three days after this incident, Carr
Securities terminated its business relationship with HLS, and
did so with a public announcement that is still on the Internet
today.
An investigation is being conducted by us at several
institutional investment firms around the country today who
either now own or have had HLS stock. Several of them have been
targeted; some of this is currently going on as we speak and
others not yet. In some cases, these firms have sold their
shares in order to bring an end to the harassment and
intimidation. SHAC's Web site features a statement attributed
to a CEO of one such company: ``Please be advised that as of
today, Cortina Asset Management does not own any shares of
Huntingdon Life Sciences Research. We have sold all of our
shares in LSRI today. This will confirm that we have no
intention of dealing with HLS stock at any time in the
future.''
Existing statutes make it relatively easy for the FBI to
pursue direct actions that include arsons and bombing. It is a
different story with respect to the harassment via telephone,
e-mail, office and home visits, vandalism to property,
intimidation and the like. The existing Animal Enterprise
Terrorism statute, set forth at 18 U.S.C. 43, does provide a
framework for prosecuting the individuals involved in animal
rights extremism. However, in practice, this statute does not
cover many of the activities SHAC routinely engages in on its
mission to shut down HLS.
Investigating and preventing animal rights extremism is one
of our highest domestic terrorism priorities, as you know. We
are committed to working with our partners to disrupt and
dismantle these movements, to protect our fellow citizens and
to bring to justice those who commit crime and terrorism in the
name of animal rights.
We are also committed to working with the Congress to
develop statutes and amend those statutes that will allow us to
accomplish this mission.
Chairman Inhofe, Senator Lautenberg, I appreciate the
opportunity to come back here and would be pleased to take any
questions when we are finished here.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Sabin.
STATEMENT OF BARRY M. SABIN, CHIEF, COUNTER-
TERRORISM SECTION, CRIMINAL DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE
Mr. Sabin. Mr. Chairman, Senator Lautenberg, thank you for
providing me the opportunity to testify before you concerning
the Department of Justice's efforts to investigate and
prosecute entities and individuals who commit criminal acts in
the name of animal rights.
In order to ensure that the Department has all the
necessary investigatory tools, legal authorities, and
appropriate penalties, the Department supports amending title
18, United States Code, section 43 to include, among other
things, economic disruption to animal enterprises and threats
of death and serious bodily injury to associated persons. The
proposed modifications provide a clear and constitutional
framework consistent with the first amendment for timely,
effectively and justly addressing prohibited criminal conduct
that will ensure that victims' rights are respected and
preserved.
As this committee well knows, animal rights extremists have
not hesitated to use violence to further their social and
political goals. In those cases where individuals have used
improvised incendiary or explosive devices, Federal prosecutors
are well equipped to prosecute and punish such individuals
using the tools provided in title 18, United States Code,
section 844.
Domestic violence by animal rights extremists is not
limited, however, to the use of arson and the use of
explosives. As Mr. Lewis has described in his testimony, Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and other animal rights extremist
organizations and entities are engaging in a campaign of
criminal conduct which is calculated to aggressively intimidate
and harass those who have been identified as targets, including
Huntingdon Life Sciences.
The personal and economic consequences of this campaign
have been and will continue to be significant. In the past,
this kind of criminal conduct was prosecuted as a violation of
the Hobbs Act, codified in section 1951 of title 18 of the
United States Code. In Scheidler v. National Organization for
Women, however, the United States Supreme Court held that in
order to commit the extortion that is the gravamen of the Hobbs
Act violation, a defendant must actually obtain property, that
is, he or she must take a tangible thing of value from his or
her victim.
On the other hand, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act,
codified at section 43 of title 18, is still an important tool
for prosecutors seeking to combat animal rights extremists. The
Department has used section 43 to charge SHAC and individual
defendants in Federal district court in New Jersey.
While section 43 is an important tool for prosecutors, SHAC
and other animal rights extremists have recognized limits and
ambiguities in the statute and have tailored their campaign to
exploit them. Accordingly, the Department supports the draft
bill to amend section 43 in order to address several gaps in
the law that keep prosecutors from using it in the most
effective manner possible.
First, the statute's definition of the type of animal
enterprise that it protects is not broad enough to include some
of the entities that are now targeted by SHAC and other animal
rights extremists. These include pet stores and even animal
shelters. Second, the statute's use of the phrase ``physical
disruption'' to describe the conduct it proscribes
unnecessarily suggests that it covers a narrow scope of
conduct.
Third, the proposal would include this type of criminal
conduct as a predicate for seeking electronic surveillance
authority. Fourth, in its current form, the statute fails to
address clearly the consequences of a campaign of vandalism and
harassment directed against individuals as opposed to the
animal enterprise itself. The proposal would remedy this
ambiguity by clearly stating that committing the proscribed
conduct against an individual, including an employee of an
animal enterprise, or of an entity with a relationship with an
animal enterprise, is equally illegal.
Finally, the proposal provides a range of penalties,
including imprisonment, fines and restitution that are tailored
to reflect the nature and severity of the criminal conduct. It
is important to underscore that this Congress and the Justice
Department have taken significant steps to assist and protect
victims of crime. The Justice for All Act passed with
overwhelming bipartisan support 1 year ago and is codified in
section 3771 of title 18. The attorney guidelines on victim and
witness assistance, as revised in May of this year, recognize
the rights of crime victims and the importance of reasonable
protection for victims from defendants or those persons acting
in concert with or at the behest of suspected offenders.
The proposed legislation seeks to build upon this
foundation. The criminal conduct of animal rights extremists is
directed against individuals and companies in order to
intentionally place these victims in reasonable fear of death
or serious bodily injury. These victims often suffer mentally,
physically, and monetarily when extremists threaten them,
damage their property and affect their livelihood.
This is not first amendment protected speech, but rather
criminal conduct that is within the traditional realm of
statutes prohibiting threats, violence or injury to innocent
victims. In seeking to meet the challenge of these changing
forms of criminal conduct by animal rights extremists, the
Department is acutely aware of the importance of protecting the
first amendment rights of those who protest any cause they
believe right, including the testing and other use of animals.
Let me be clear: The Department does not seek to prosecute
those who enter the arena of debate seeking to persuade their
government or private businesses and individuals of the merit
of their viewpoints. This proposal would not, indeed could not,
criminalize such protected activity. We seek to prosecute
criminal conduct, including conduct that places a person in
reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury.
The first amendment is not a license for the use or
threatened use of violence or for the commission of other
crimes. Those who cross the line from free speech to criminal
conduct should be prosecuted and if convicted, they should be
punished appropriately. As it has done in other contexts, the
Congress must give prosecutors the tools to do so fairly and
effectively.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for your
leadership on this issue and again for inviting us here and
providing us the opportunity to discuss how the statutes are
being used consistent with our constitutional values to fight
violent extremism. Together, we will continue our efforts to
secure justice and defeat those who would harm this country.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Sabin.
Senator Thune, Senator Lautenberg and I have already given
opening statements. If you would like to make an opening
statement, you are recognized to do so.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
Senator Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have a long
statement, but I appreciate your willingness to examine this
issue and am obviously anxious to hear the perspective that the
Department of Justice and others have about the law enforcement
implications of this issue, and also to hear the testimony of
the panelists with respect to some of the threats that they
face.
I hope that in shining a light on some of these terrorist
activities we will be able to form some basis or foundation
that hopefully will lead us to a course of action. I am not
sure what that is at this point, Mr. Chairman, but I think it
is important to have this discussion, to invite these witnesses
to testify about what they are experiencing out there and to
look at what we can do to help address and keep people in this
country safe.
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Thune. That comment
leads me into the first question for you, Mr. Lewis. You heard
Mr. Sabin talk about the recommended specific changes by title.
Have you had a chance to review the recommendations of Mr.
Sabin? What is your response to that?
Mr. Lewis. Yes, I have. I endorse what the Department of
Justice has put forth. It will allow us to reach through our
investigative activity those actions as directed at both
property and persons of secondary or tertiary companies that
happen to do business with companies like HLS, something we
have great difficulty finding now through the statutes that we
have.
Senator Inhofe. I think in your written testimony you said
that there are some 100 companies that have been identified
that have been subjected to this type of abuse. Is that
accurate?
Mr. Lewis. Not that have just been identified, sir, but
that have quit doing business with HLS at some cost to that
company, I might add.
Senator Inhofe. Why do you think the companies are so quick
to back out? It is a terrorist organization. Why do they so
easily respond to the demands?
Mr. Lewis. Sir, in my view, these companies give in to SHAC
at least in part, if not in whole, because they believe that
their business, their customers, their employees, their
employees' family members can all become targets of what has
become fairly well known from SHAC, their harassment,
intimidation, violence in the form of vandalism at their homes,
at their business or worse. There are far too many examples of
this for these businesses not to be aware of it.
I am certain these companies are well aware of this radical
movement of which SHAC is clearly a part. I am certain that
they are well aware that there are many arsons throughout the
country attributed to this movement. I am sure they are aware,
for instance, that there has been use of improvised explosive
devices, that you can go on these Web sites that the animal
extremists, people who are associated with that movement, the
Web sites that they go to, you can find recipes for making
these types of devices.
The fact of the matter is, when a management official is
faced with this kind of thing, when he is associated with a
company that is doing business with HLS and is all of a sudden
contacted by SHAC, all these things I have described I know are
going through his head. He knows what their successes are. I am
sure he knows what, to some extent, how successful law
enforcement has been, and we haven't been that successful at
all.
I believe these companies make a bottom-line decision at
the end of the day: Do I want to go through all this and have
my employees and family members and customers put up with this,
or do I want to take a step back at some small expense to me,
and I will let HLS pick up somewhere else.
Senator Inhofe. Mr. Lewis, you testified before this
committee last April or May when we had a similar hearing with
ALF and ELF, the Animal Liberation Front and the Environmental
Liberation Front. Will you share with us how you see SHAC in
relationship to ALF and ELF?
Mr. Lewis. Within the animal extremist movement there are
three principal organizations that concern me on a daily basis.
SHAC is one of those. There are three entities that concern me
most on a daily basis in the work I do associated with animal
rights extremism and environmental extremism: ELF, ALF and
SHAC. From time to time there are others that come up on the
scope. Some of these are associated with the three that I have
just mentioned. But these names cross my desk on a daily basis.
Senator Inhofe. Mr. Sabin, in your testimony you said to
terrorize people effectively, the SHAC Web site lists 20
terrorist tactics to use on people and companies. How do they
use the Web sites or the Internet in getting their message out?
Mr. Sabin. They use that kind of communication device which
is not just for the local cell, but for nationwide and even
international audience, so that they can take it from a local
to a national level. It is low cost; it has controlled
readership; it enables them to conduct training or
communications rather than traveling from one location to
another, which would inhibit a law enforcement response, a
disruptive response because of their traveling or other kinds
of interaction. It provides a secure method for them to
communicate on a cheap and effective large scope basis.
It is something that is not just promoting its views, but
organizing a direct action campaign. So they link it to
specific terror tactics that are articulated on the Web site
and set forth in the indictment in New Jersey and SHAC--that
criminal case--to explain the manner in which they use that
technology.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you. This afternoon I am going to
introduce legislation that we put together. I want you guys to
realize that we want to untie your hands. What I would like to
ask of you is if you would take the legislation that we are
going to be introducing--it will be assigned to the Judiciary
Committee--and tell us if there are any imperfections on that.
Because even though it will not be assigned to this committee,
we can certainly have an impact and plan to be there as
witnesses when the hearing is held. Can you do that?
Mr. Sabin. We would be happy to do so.
Senator Inhofe. That's good.
Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. I am a little confused about whether or
not the conventional law enforcement codes don't protect people
from the kinds of activities that you have described:
Harassment, intimidation, boycotts that are other than just a
demonstration--physical boycotts. Isn't there protection for
citizens within the code, the law enforcement codes as we know
it?
Mr. Sabin. There are some protections. But we could do
better in terms of making it a more nuanced response to the
campaign that SHAC and animal rights extremists are presently
undertaking. So you could, for example, charge as we have
charged in the case in your State, Senator, interstate stalking
as a criminal violation.
But section 43, which is addressed specifically to the
animal enterprise terrorist activities, as presently drafted,
only addresses--physical disruption, is the term. So the nature
of the conduct, attacks both by SHAC and other groups inspired
by their activities, goes not only against physical disruption,
but the language that we would suggest would be economic
damage, economic disruption, and threats against the person.
So you are not only going against the property of
individuals and animal enterprise, or those associated with the
animal enterprise, but the threats, force or violence that is
inflicted upon an innocent victim who somehow is associated
with that animal enterprise in legitimate business conduct.
Senator Lautenberg. It sounds like a fine line to me. I
want to do what we can to protect people's rights to operate
safely under the law or to go about their normal living. I have
no sympathy for those who would use felonious criminal methods
to bring a goal or an objective across. What we ought to do is,
if it is illegal, if the activity that the company or the
individual is doing is illegal, well, then we ought to fix that
also.
But as long as it is a legal operation, then I don't see
any reason why we would tolerate anything that smacks again of
intimidation, harassment, talk about harming children, harming
your family, destroy a business where people go that has
nothing to do with the operation of the company in mind. It is
just totally unacceptable.
My son lives in Colorado, and he lives in an area called
Vale, CO where they burned down a lodge there, a beautiful
place that the company had put up, according to the law. It was
just destructive, just destructive to go ahead and burn it
down. It wasn't just the economic cost, it was the threat
against people who are conducting their lives, making their
living by working in that company, not doing a thing wrong. It
was outrageous, and we had the FBI, they just unfortunately it
was always a suspicion that it was an environmental group, but
it was never proven. So therefore we can't assess the blame.
But these things--let me ask you something, Mr. Sabin. If a
boycott was threatened and the company's stock dropped on the
Exchange or in the marketplace, would that be included in a
recommended statute, loss of economic value? And again, if the
activity is wrong, it's wrong. There is no sympathy coming from
me.
Mr. Sabin. It would depend upon the specific facts and
circumstances of the matter. The ability to engage in the
marketplace of ideas as affecting the market of the financial
district is something that could be within protected first
amendment activity. Phoning your Senator's office, writing a
letter, depending upon what the letter said, depending upon the
nature of the activity, could fall within the parameters of
legitimate first amendment conduct.
But when that becomes as articulated in our concern over a
course of conduct, where it goes beyond mere speech to actual
conduct in connection with not an isolated event, but a number
of events, that is something that would fall outside the first
amendment. So we can get into specific facts and circumstances
relating to an event, or a number of events, and we would look
at that in the scope of our activities as to whether it is
appropriate to open a criminal investigation and then to
actually charge and prosecute that.
Senator Lautenberg. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure that I see
the fine line. But if there is an open question, I think we
ought to close it. Thank you both.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Thune.
Senator Thune. Mr. Chairman, it sounds like there is pretty
broad support for addressing this in the form of your proposed
legislation. I just have a couple of questions, and forgive me
if this is ground you covered in your testimony.
What is the trend line with respect to these sorts of
incidents of domestic terrorism, eco-terrorism in the past
several years? Is it spiking up? Is it gradual, flat? Has it
always been the case? And then the follow-up question to that
would be, in addition to any legislative authorities that you
might need that are not available to you today, in the form of
enabling legislation, is funding an issue when it comes to
enforcement and making sure that you are appropriately cracking
down on people who commit these types of acts?
Mr. Lewis. Sir, funding is not an issue. We can take that
off the table. It is simply not an issue.
With respect to the trend, there is no doubt that over the
last several years, by virtue of the successes that continue to
pile up in the absence of strong statutes that enable me to
pull the rug out from under their feet, so to speak, or the
Bureau, I should say, not just me, the trend is that they are
becoming very effective at disrupting legitimate business. If
we are talking about SHAC, the disruption is of course aimed at
Huntingdon Life Sciences. As the weeks and months go by, more
and more companies are forced to submit to their will and quit
doing business with HLS.
We also see continuing use of the Internet to advocate what
we consider to be increasingly violent activity. We have seen
rhetoric on there of late, as has been mentioned here, that
includes assassinations and murders as a way of bringing about
change if they can't do it otherwise.
In short, the trend is, I believe this is on the rise.
There is an abundance of this activity which I am looking at
right now. I don't feel, with the tools that I have to use
today, that we can be as effective as we otherwise might. I
believe that this piece of legislation that we have all looked
at--and I know that you all have worked with is an excellent
piece that will give us what we need.
Mr. Sabin. I would agree that there is an increasing spike
in the activity. I would also agree that the tools as discussed
with respect to the loss of the Hobbs Act, because of the
Supreme Court decision, causes this need for a gap to be
filled, specifically in section 43 of title 18. We have a
budget with respect to resources, a budget request that we
would be happy to work with Congress in order to address this
in the coming weeks and months.
I never say no to resources, as long as we can articulate
and justify the appropriate ability to use them effectively in
our terrorism program and work with the FBI to achieve what we
need to achieve to address the mission.
Senator Thune. The principal issue then is not funding; it
is statutory authority, and the baseline authority that you
have today enables you to deal from a law enforcement
standpoint with physical violence, like under any circumstance
you would have, but the authorities that you are seeking have
to do more with the hazing, these types of intimidation
activities and sort of economic terrorism, so to speak. It
looks like that is the principal mode of attack for people who
are behind these types of acts.
Mr. Sabin. Yes, the definition of what would constitute
economic damage or economic disruption based upon the monetary
amount. One of the things that we would underscore is the
ability to use it as a wire tap predicate, as an investigatory
tool.
So going back to the Chairman's original question as to the
use of the Internet, the ability to use that to intercept
communications that are being conducted through that mechanism
or other communication mechanisms, is often an important means
of getting competent evidence that we can use, either to
prosecute an individual or prosecute a group.
With the additional penalties in a proposed statute, you
combine those investigatory tools, the overall understanding of
what we are trying to do in our terrorism program, which is
prevent rather than respond to an incident. Then you have the
leverage of increased penalties to get cooperators that can
then provide the modus operandi, the manner and means by which
an organization or movement is conducting its criminal
activities.
Senator Thune. It looks, Mr. Chairman, like we need some
deterrence to this sort of activity and clearly there is, it
looks like to me, a basis for action on the part of the Senate
to deal with this. So I appreciate your effort to do that, and
I thank the gentlemen for their testimony.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Thune, you might be interested to
know that the United Kingdom is really ahead of us here. They
have had this problem in a more severe way for a longer period
of time than we have. And in fact, it is my understanding that
the company that we are talking about, HLS, actually was a U.K.
company and they moved here because of all the threats and the
violence that was taking place over there.
What I have, and I think this is a good place to do it, put
into the record at this point the bill that was passed in the
United Kingdom dealing with this. We are taking a lot of things
from this bill, since they had this problem before we did. That
is influencing the type of legislation that we are introducing.
So without objection, I will have this as part of the record at
this point.
[The referenced document was not received at time of
print.]
Senator Inhofe. We thank both of you for coming today and
we will, in fact, invite you, either yourselves or your staff
to stay and hear the next panel because we are going to be
dealing with this issue, and I think it would be good for you
to hear them. You are dismissed.
We would ask the next panel to come forward. The next panel
is Mark Bibi, general counsel for the Huntingdon Life Sciences,
from New Jersey; Skip Boruchin, of the Legacy Trading Company
in my State of Oklahoma, Edmond, OK; Richard P. Bernard,
executive vice president and general counsel of the New York
Stock Exchange; and Dr. Jerry Vlasak, Stop Huntingdon Animal
Cruelty, or SHAC, from Santa Monica, CA.
What we are going to do is start our testimony with Mr.
Bibi and we will work across the table here. As I instructed
the first panel, your entire statement will be made a part of
the record. We invite you to try to limit your remarks to about
5 minutes. Mr. Bibi, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF MARK L. BIBI, GENERAL COUNSEL OF LIFE SCIENCES
RESEARCH, INC. AND HUNTINGDON LIFE SCIENCES, INC.
Mr. Bibi. Thank, you, sir. Good afternoon, Chairman Inhofe
and members of the committee. My name is Mark Bibi. I am
general counsel of Life Sciences Research and our operating
subsidiary, Huntingdon Life Sciences.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today
to discuss the dangers posed by SHAC, as you have just heard
identified by the FBI as one of the Nation's leading domestic
terrorism organizations. It is a serious matter and deserves a
serious response.
LSR is a publicly-traded company headquartered near
Princeton, NJ. An important part of our work is to conduct
Government-required animal testing on drugs and chemicals to
identify risks to humans, animals and the environment. Because
of these efforts to make sure products are safe, HLS and those
who do business with us have been relentlessly terrorized by
SHAC.
As I awoke on a chilly November morning and looked out my
window, the fears that had been building ever since I was first
targeted by SHAC a few months earlier were realized. My car's
front windshield had been smashed with a large boulder. The car
was covered with animal rights graffiti. Warning messages were
spray painted all over my house: ``Quit HLS, puppy killer,
close HLS.'' I immediately knew that I had been the victim of a
SHAC attack. The impact of this violence and the implicit
threat of future violence is a terrifying, life-changing event.
A few months earlier SHAC had identified me as a target in
their newsletter and on their Web site. They posted my name,
home address and phone number, with the exhortation, ``Go get
'em.'' Almost immediately, the harassment and intimidation had
begun: Nasty phone calls in the middle of the night,
threatening letters and e-mails, protesters at my home,
screaming through bullhorns that I am a murderer. And now, the
sanctity and safety of my home had been violated.
Other SHAC targets have suffered beatings, acid attacks,
car and letter bombings.
SHAC uses these terror tactics not only against HLS and its
employees, but also against third parties to force them to
sever their business relationships with Huntingdon. Time and
again, in dozens of cases, both customers and HLS' providers,
from accounting firms to banks, to lawn gardeners and even
remarkably our security firm, have been forced by fear to
capitulate to SHAC's demand that they cease working with us,
deciding it is safer for them and their employees to give in
rather than to suffer the personal harassment and intimidation.
SHAC is now attacking the integrity and independence of the
U.S. stock market system. LSR stock trades on the OTCBB market.
SHAC targets and harasses any market maker that dares to trade
in LSR stock, and more than 40 market makers have caved in to
SHAC's intimidation.
Senator Inhofe. Let me interrupt for just a moment, for the
purpose of my colleagues here, when you use LSR and HLS, we are
talking about the same organization?
Mr. Bibi. LSR, sir, is the parent holding company of HLS.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much.
Mr. Bibi. Only one of those market makers, Legacy Trading,
from whom you will be hearing shortly, currently consistently
makes a market in our stock. SHAC has a current campaign
against LSR's institutional investors, taking advantage of
public SEC filings to identify those investors. SHAC has
intimidated most of them into selling their LSR stock, causing
significant dislocation in the market.
But perhaps the most shameful apparent capitulation to
date, and that which I believe poses the greatest threat to the
U.S. economy, is that of the New York Stock Exchange. In the
summer of this year, we entered into listing discussions with
the Exchange. We met all the financial requirements to list our
stock on the Exchange, and we told them right up front about
the SHAC campaign. The New York Stock Exchange dismissed the
potential risks, pointing out that since 9/11 they had been a
target of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, assuring
us they would not be scared off by SHAC.
We spent a number of weeks completing all the necessary
paperwork and interviews, keeping in regular contact with NYSE
staff throughout. On August 22, the Stock Exchange told us that
we had been authorized for listing. We issued a press release
announcing that approval, and reporting that we expected to
begin trading on September 7. That press release was approved
in advance by the New York Stock Exchange and the president of
the Exchange, Catherine Kinney, even included a quote in that
release welcoming us.
On the morning of September 7, our senior management team
went to the New York Stock Exchange's Wall Street headquarters
for the original listing celebration. But only minutes before
we were to go down to the trading floor to watch the first
trade in LSR stock, Ms. Kinney told us that they would not be
listing LSR stock that day and that our listing had been
postponed.
One of my LSR colleagues and I spent the next hour or so
meeting with senior NYSE officials, including Ms. Kinney and
Margaret Tutwiler, their press secretary. They asked us and we
spoke only about the animal rights campaign against the
company. It was patently clear to me that the only reason the
Stock Exchange had postponed our listing was because of
concerns about the SHAC campaign.
All Americans took pride when the New York Stock Exchange
reopened for business only 4 business days after the 9/11
terrorist attacks. Yet apparently purely on the basis of a
perceived threat from SHAC, the NYSE postponed plans to list
our stock. A handful of animal extremists had succeeded where
Osama bin Laden had failed.
We have received no information from the New York Stock
Exchange since September 7. They have never raised with us any
question of our eligibility or suitability to list. They have
not asked us for any further information. We seem to have been
indefinitely postponed, with no indication as to when, if ever,
the NYSE will tell us anything.
The risks posed by SHAC should not be underestimated. As
Chairman Inhofe has stated in his public statements, SHAC is
but the tip of the iceberg. They are the test case for a whole
new brand of activism through personal intimidation. Other
activist campaigns are no doubt waiting in the wings to see how
SHAC is dealt with. Imagine the impact if SHAC tactics were
used by those opposed to any myriad of other industries.
SHAC's greatest impact has come in targeting third parties
doing business with or providing services to HLS. I urge the
Congress to adopt more effective laws that can be used to
control this type of third party targeting, and I am gratified
to have heard this afternoon that that type of legislation is
in fact being introduced.
We cannot allow the domestic terrorism practiced, fostered
and encouraged by SHAC to flourish in our own back yard. Thank
you for your time. I would be happy to answer any questions you
may have.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Bibi.
Mr. Boruchin.
STATEMENT OF SKIP BORUCHIN, LEGACY TRADING COMPANY
Mr. Boruchin. Good afternoon, Chairman Inhofe, Senator
Lautenberg, Senator Thune. Thank you for this opportunity to
testify before this committee today.For the last few years, I
have been living a somewhat captive existence, held hostage by
members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, SHAC, an animal
rights activist/terrorist group. As you have heard, SHAC is an
underground group that uses fear and terror to force their
viewpoints upon others.
I am a NASDAQ market maker, lawfully working in the State
of Oklahoma, making a market in the common stock of many
companies. I have been targeted by SHAC because of my job. I am
a market maker, that is, I am continually prepared to buy or
sell shares of these companies, thereby providing a liquid
ready market for those who desire to buy or shell shares.
Huntingdon Life Sciences, also known as Life Sciences Research,
Inc., ticker symbol LSRI, is one of the companies I make a
market in.
Roughly 3\1/2\ years ago, my employer, Legacy Trading,
became the target, the proverbial bullseye for SHAC. This
bullseye on my life is solely due to the fact that I have been
and remain the only market maker in Life Sciences Research.
SHAC launched an all-out terrorist attack on too many other
market makers, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, to
name a few. They were terrorized by SHAC's ``direct action
campaigns'' specifically to influence and control the market in
Life Sciences Research.
I am the only holdout of dozens of market makers who all
capitulated to SHAC's demands and dropped, that is, ceased
trading LSRI stock. Viewing me as the sole provider of a market
for LSRI, SHAC launched a campaign of sheer terror on me and my
family, destroying our privacy, causing dramatic changes in our
daily lives now, and I'm sorry to say, forever.
SHAC's attempt to force me to stop trading the LSRI stock
included local, national and international harassment,
intimidation, and terror. Personal information of my family,
names, addresses, social security numbers, home phone numbers,
as well as those of 19 of my neighbors were published on the
SHAC Web site. ``Run him out of town, tell him to drop the
stock, or we will publish credit card, medical and other
personal information about you.'' Daily, thousands of obscene
and threatening phone calls to home and office at all hours,
day or night. Outright slander, calling me a child pornographer
in the media and all over the Internet.
When these threats and actions did not work, SHAC moved to
far more dangerous and insidious tactics. Describing me as the
``dreaded Legacy,'' SHAC brought their crimes of terror to my
home, office, and family. One day I awoke to find that SHAC had
been in my yard. They spray-painted large messages like puppy
killer, drop HLS, all over the entire house. They wrote, ``Skip
is a murder, 9 million dead,'' on my garage door.
In addition to defacing my home, they cut all the lines of
communication. The next day, the SHAC Web site bragged that
this was the beginning, ``More direct action will come if you
don't drop LSRI.''
On four occasions, Legacy's office has been terrorized. The
criminals have shattered the front office windows, incendiary
devices thrown in, red paint over everything in the office
including computers, furniture, floors and walls. Office
equipment was sabotaged, and spray-painted messages were left
for me to know that I suffered this felony for exercising my
right to make a living: ``Drop HLS, quit making a market.''
If tactics like this were not enough, SHAC also targeted my
relatives and even my 90-year-old mother. In December 2004,
SHAC posted my mother's name, her address at her assisted
living residence and her phone number on the Internet with
specific instructions to have her put pressure on me as I spoke
and visited with her frequently. I quote the SHAC Web site,
``Send her sex toys, have an undertaker arrive to pick up her
dead body and call her collect in the middle of the night,
pretend to be a friend of Skip's, ask for his cell number in
order to place it on the Internet.''
Although my mom passed away in January, the magazine
subscriptions sent, the billing statements and the credit
problems remain. The SHAC torment of my family did not stop
with my mother. My family has been targeted and terrorized in
neighboring States with SHAC's action tactics.
I have chosen only to tell you just a few of the harrowing,
traumatic events I have gone through and go through at the
hands of SHAC. It is difficult to describe the emotions that
accompany actions such as I have described. I feel violated. I
am vulnerable, angry, and gravely frightened for my family.
This is precisely SHAC's goal, to leverage your love of your
family, your value of safety, your pursuit of life, removing my
freedoms to advance their beliefs, because I go to work each
day as a market maker. It is apparent for most people facing
this dilemma, the decision is simple: drop LSRI, drop
Huntingdon Life Sciences, stop making a market.
Well, I did not, and I do not intend to. I fundamentally
believe in the rights that we receive as Americans: The right
to liberty and privacy; the right to participate in government
and even the right to disagree with government; the right to
free speech. The healthy right to free speech should not hold
others captive nor force them to do anything.
SHAC inexcusably promotes the lives of animals over the
lives of the humans they target. I do not confuse SHAC's tactic
with a noble cause nor should anyone else. Huntingdon is a
company that performs a role in the world of developing
technology. But more importantly, they perform a lawful
function, as do I.
Respectfully, I ask what would you do if your mother,
brother, sister, niece, nephew just went to work and were
fanatically terrorized? I urge this committee to simply
evaluate the consequences of such unchecked activism. Please do
not allow people to force their causes, ideas or opinions upon
others using fear, threats or criminal acts.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to be heard today.
I am available to answer any questions.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you so much. I appreciate your
courage very much.
Mr. Bernard.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD P. BERNARD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND
GENERAL COUNSEL, NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE
Mr. Bernard. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Lautenberg, Senator Thune. My name is Richard Bernard, I am the
general counsel of the New York Stock Exchange, and the
Exchange appreciates the opportunity to facilitate this
hearing. I will try to do that by briefly explaining our
listing process and touching on the postponement of LSR's
listing.
As Mr. Bibi suggested, the Exchange has various blackline
material going to the financial well-being and the corporate
governance of a company that seeks to list on the New York
Stock Exchange. It also, however, has broad discretion to take
into account any number of other factors that the Exchange in
its judgment may think is relevant to whether a company's stock
trades on the New York Stock Exchange.
The other thing I want to mention is that this process,
with this notable exception, is always done in confidence. The
typical case is that kinds of considerations that go into the
listing process are discussed long in advance of any formal
announcement, and then the matter is announced. This allows us
to avoid creating any negative impact on a company,
shareholders on its stock, based upon decisions we may make
about whether we wish to list the company or not. They may have
nothing to do with the underlying value of the company or its
business or its business model.
In the case of this company, LSR, which is how we know it
because we would be listing the holding company, we got our
cart before our horse. We announced the decision before in fact
we had what we needed to make that decision. It resulted in, as
far as I know, an unprecedented event of Mr. Bibi and others
coming to the Exchange that Wednesday after Labor Day and
learning only then that we were deferring this decision. The
Exchange regrets that. I will apologize here to Mr. Bibi for
that. I sincerely wish it hadn't happened.
We continue to consider the application of this company. As
you might imagine, because of the publicity that our decision
and events around it have attracted, it is obviously rather
difficult to do this process in a confidential way. But we will
continue to seek to do that. Thank you very much.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Bernard.
Dr. Vlasak.
STATEMENT OF JERRY VLASAK, M.D., PRESS OFFICER, NORTH AMERICAN
ANIMAL LIBERATION PRESS OFFICE
Dr. Vlasak. Senator, before I begin, I would respectfully
request to be able to put a couple of posters on the board. I
noticed a couple of others have been put up throughout the
meeting.
Senator Inhofe. That's perfectly acceptable.
Senator Lautenberg. Mr. Chairman, why do we have to permit
this?
Senator Inhofe. Oh, yes, I think Senator Lautenberg has
brought up a point. We have a committee rule that unless the
testimony or pictures or charts are submitted in advance, they
will not be used in the hearing. So your request is denied.
Dr. Vlasak. My request is denied?
Senator Inhofe. That's correct. Right. Prior to any
witnesses coming in, we send a notice out saying what the rules
of the committee are, and there are certain things that must be
submitted in advance. Charts are among those things. You are
recognized, Dr. Vlasak.
Dr. Vlasak. I think it only provides an insinuation that we
are not hearing both sides of the story. I assume and I have
been told by Ms. English that I was invited here to answer
questions and try to provide some balance to this hearing. I'm
disappointed that I'm not able to use those visual aids.
I received a fax on Friday afternoon which unfortunately
was too late for me to be able to provide the posters in
advance to this committee and have them approved.
Senator Inhofe. Well, first of all, I don't agree with
that, because if you knew Friday afternoon that you wanted to
do this, we would have had a chance to review those. We are
going to treat you like everybody else.
Dr. Vlasak. Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Jerry Vlasak. I
am a practicing trauma surgeon, but more importantly, for
today's purpose, I am here as a press officer with the North
American Animal Liberation Press Office.
The actions of activists who care enough about animals to
speak out in no uncertain times and at times to risk their own
lives and freedom have a message that is most urgent and one
that deserves to be heard and understood. Often, acts of animal
liberation either go unreported in the media or are
uncritically vilified as violent or terrorist, with no
attention paid to the suffering the industries and individuals
gratuitously inflict upon animals. The Press Office seeks to
clarify the motivation and philosophy behind these actions
taken in defense of our animal brothers and sisters.
Huntingdon Life Sciences kills 500 animals a day. That is
over 180,000 animals per year. They carry out experiments which
involve poisoning and torturing animals to death with household
products, pesticides, drugs, herbicides, food colorings,
sweeteners, oven cleaner and cosmetics. HLS is a contract
testing company that operates facilities in the United Kingdom
and New Jersey. They have been infiltrated and exposed in
undercover investigations five times in recent years by
journalists and animal rights campaigners. Each time, horrific
evidence of animal abuse and staff incompetence has been
uncovered, including workers punching beagle puppies in the
face, simulating sex with animals in their care, dissecting
primates while they are still alive and falsifying experiments
to get their client's product on the market.
Two brief examples of the horrific and unscientific testing
done at Huntingdon Life Sciences include the following. An
estimated 12,800 animals died in the research of the sugar
substitute, Splenda, including pregnant rabbits, beagle dogs
and primates. Splenda was forced down the throats of beagles
who were then killed by exsanguination, having their throats
slit.
A 2003 experiment on a refrigeration component that has
long been banned from production forced 7-month-old beagle
puppies to inhale the pollutant, eventually leading to their
deaths. On a daily basis, animals used in vivisection at places
like HLS are drowned, suffocated, starved to death, they have
their limbs severed and their organs crushed; they are burned,
exposed to radiation, used in experimental surgeries; they are
shocked, raised in isolation, exposed to weapons of mass
destruction and rendered blind or paralyzed.
They are given heart attacks, ulcers, paralysis, and
seizures. They are forced to inhale tobacco smoke, drink
alcohol and ingest various drugs, such as heroin and cocaine.
And in my very own town of Los Angeles, primates are now being
forced to ingest the drug ecstasy.
The campaign to stop Huntingdon animal cruelty was set up
at the end of 1999 by a group of activists who had successfully
closed down numerous other facilities that bred cats and dogs
for experimentation. It's important to realize that SHAC is not
just one group or a hierarchical entity, but it is an ideology,
a paradigm shift, if you will, in the way the public views the
atrocities perpetrated by companies such as HLS. Tens of
thousands of people worldwide have joined to protest the evil
perpetrated upon innocent animals in HLS labs.
While some groups like SHAC USA are legal, incorporated
non-profit organizations, other groups are just loosely knit,
caring individuals of like mind. It's ridiculous to think that
SHAC is one group with a top-down organization that controls
all activities in the 18 countries worldwide where it is
currently active.
In summary, there are thousands of physicians like myself
worldwide who realize there is no need to experiment on animals
in order to help humans, the vast majority of whom get sick and
die because of already known preventable lifestyle variables
such as diet, smoking, drugs, and environmental toxins. In a
country where 45 million people have no access to medical care,
in a world where 20,000 children are dying from lack of clean
water every single week, there is no reason to waste hundreds
of millions of dollars doing unscientific drug testing and
experimenting on animals.
Huntingdon is the poster child of an abhorrent, unnecessary
and wasteful industry that not only murders millions of
innocent, suffering animals, but dooms countless humans to
their own unnecessary suffering, because scarce health care
dollars are wasted on useless animal research and testing. The
struggle for animal liberation needs to be seen in an
historical context, like the Boston Tea Party ignited a
revolution, like Nelson Mandela and his fight against
apartheid, like the suffragettes and John Brown, all of these
noble and historical figures fought the governmental powers of
oppression, slavery and exploitation.
Today, groups like SHAC USA and other SHAC activists around
the world fight legally to end these needless atrocities and
the ALF and other groups fight underground for the same
purpose. This struggle will go down in history as one of the
most moral ever fought.
Regarding the proposed legislation that I heard Mr. Sabin
and others mention, I remind you of the quote by John F.
Kennedy, ``Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will
make violent revolution inevitable.''
Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. I will start with you, Mr. Bibi. Something
that was going through my mind during your testimony is, it
would appear to me that we could be subjecting ourselves, if
this type of behavior would continue, with losing some of our
top scientists, researchers and others to countries, as I said
in my opening statement, like China, India, and other places.
Do you have any thought about that?
Mr. Bibi. I would tend to agree with you, sir. Scientists
deserve the right to conduct their vital research in a safe and
secure environment. If proper protections are not afforded by
our country to permit that, I have little doubt that
unfortunately they would look elsewhere.
Recent developments in the United Kingdom are perhaps
instructive in this regard. It's been reported in the press
that as the animal rights terrorism issue grew significantly
worse over the past couple of years, the CEOs of a number of
leading British pharmaceutical companies confirmed directly to
Prime Minister Blair that they would not spend one additional
dollar on research facilities in the United Kingdom until the
matter was brought under control.
In fact, I read in the newspaper just this week that a
number of African countries, including South Africa, have made
an affirmative effort to reach out to the scientific community
in the United Kingdom and the United States to say, come work
here, it is going to be safer for you to do so.
Senator Inhofe. That's interesting.
Mr. Boruchin, we hear about this type of perverted
terrorism, and you never think about it being close to home, at
least I don't, until I read your testimony before this hearing.
I think you and Mr. Bibi have both been personally subjected to
something that's just--it's hard to believe that that could
happen in Oklahoma.
I would ask you, you mentioned free speech. Having been the
target of this for the last 3 years, do you think that SHAC's
form of activism is protected by free speech? You may not have
the background to respond to that, but I'm sure you have talked
to others and gotten opinions. What do you think?
Mr. Boruchin. My personal opinion would be that by removing
my freedoms to advance their beliefs, I don't believe that is
protected by free speech.
Senator Inhofe. The idea of the listing, and Mr. Bernard,
of course, we want to hear from you on this, but do you think
that it is a costly thing either to you, or you might answer
the same thing, Mr. Bibi, on not achieving the listing that you
had anticipated you would receive?
Mr. Bibi. Obviously, the postponement of our listing has
had a very negative effect on our company and our stockholders.
The confidential review process that Mr. Bernard alluded to was
in fact conducted in connection with our application early in
the process. That would have been the time, obviously, for any
issues or concerns to have been raised. In fact it was not, and
we were affirmatively told in writing that we had cleared the
eligibility review process and were invited to submit the
formal application.
The fact that our listing was postponed only after it had
been made public has been nothing short of disastrous, quite
frankly. Our stock price, for example, had traded consistently
in the $12 to $14 range in the weeks leading up to the
announcement of the listing, closing at $14.05 on the day
before that announcement. On the day of the listing, the stock
traded up as high as $18.30 a share, before closing at $16 a
share. On the day before the listing was postponed, we closed
at $17.50 a share. Then on the day when we announced the
postponement, we fell $2.50 to $15 a share, or roughly $30
million or so, immediately out of our shareholders' investment
portfolios as a direct result of that.
For a couple of weeks after the announcement, 3 or 4 weeks
after the announcement, the stock held roughly in the $14
range, and I can only speculate that the investment community
believed that the New York Stock Exchange simply had to list
us. It was inconceivable that that would not be the case.
Regrettably, it appears that the investment community is now
losing faith in the likelihood of the Stock Exchange doing the
right thing, as our stock has now traded down to about $10 a
share.
So roughly $100 million of market value has been lost, as
well. If we are ultimately denied the listing, we would lose
all the benefits that the New York Stock Exchange offers, in
terms of increased liquidity, better stock platform.
Senator Inhofe. I would assume, Mr. Boruchin, that you have
suffered similar types of economic loss.
Mr. Boruchin. I'm a little confused. As I understood, the
company met all the requirements of the New York Stock
Exchange. I know there are two other companies that do similar
testing in their business, and they are on the Exchange.
For me personally, it probably would have resulted in a
loss of income, because as a market maker, I am not on the New
York Stock Exchange. However, the other side is, the target on
my back probably would have been eliminated. I question why
they are not on the Exchange, and am concerned, as you are,
whether the terrorists, SHAC, had any influence on that.
Senator Inhofe. We have a witness we will be asking those
questions of.
Before we do that, I would like to ask my two colleagues if
there is any objection to taking a little bit longer on each
one. We do have a vote at 4:15, and if we could just have a
little bit longer than the 5 minutes, if that's all right.
Mr. Bernard, you had used the term postponing and deferring
the listing. Is it your anticipation that the process is still
ongoing, or would you like to respond to any of the comments
that have been made concerning the Exchange?
Mr. Bernard. The process is ongoing, and I otherwise have
no comment.
Senator Inhofe. OK. Dr. Vlasak, do your fellow animal
rights activists understand that animal testing is required by
law and therefore, the people who are performing this testing
are merely following the law? Do they understand that, and do
you understand that?
Dr. Vlasak. I understand that they are merely following the
law, and the law in this case is wrong, just like the law that
allowed slavery was wrong at one time.
Senator Inhofe. Well, you mentioned slavery, you also
mentioned slavery in several of the comments that you made, as
well as your testimony. You analogized the plight of animals to
that of the African-American slaves of early American history,
asserting that the animal rights movement is similar to that of
the Underground Railroad. You even at one time or several times
have talked about the Jews in Nazi Germany.
It sounds to me, in looking at this, like you're evaluating
the lives of human beings in a similar way that you are
animals. Do you think animals' lives are as precious as human
life?
Dr. Vlasak. Non-human lives, non-human animal lives, are as
precious as human lives. At one time, racism and sexism and
homophobism were prominent in our society. Today speciesism is
prominent in our society. It is just as wrong as racism.
Senator Inhofe. So you do put them in the same category,
the animals of non-human and human lives? Is that correct?
Dr. Vlasak. They are morally equal.
Senator Inhofe. They are morally equal?
Dr. Vlasak. They are.
Senator Inhofe. One of the statements you made at the
animal rights convention when you were defending assassinating
people, murdering people, you said--let me put it up here to
make sure I'm not misquoting you--``I don't think you'd have to
kill, assassinate too many. I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15
human lives, we could save 1 million, 2 million, or 10 million
non-human lives.''
You're advocating the murder of individuals, isn't that
correct?
Dr. Vlasak. I made that statement, and I stand by that
statement. That statement is made in the context that the
struggle for animal liberation is no different than struggles
for liberation elsewhere, whether the struggle for liberation
in South Africa against the apartheid regime, whether the
liberation against the communists, whether it were the
liberation struggles in Algeria, Vietnam or Iraq today,
liberation struggles occasionally or usually, I should say,
usually end up in violence.
There is plenty of violence being used on the other side of
the equation. These animals are being terrorized, murdered and
killed by the millions every day. The animal rights movement
has been notoriously non-violent up to this point.
But I don't believe that--I believe as my statement says--
--
Senator Inhofe. Let me interrupt. You said it has been
notoriously non-violent up to this time?
Dr. Vlasak. That is correct.
Senator Inhofe. You don't think there is violence in the
testimony you've heard?
Dr. Vlasak. I think when you compare the 500 animals being
murdered every single day at Huntingdon Life Sciences, which is
just one company, I think when you look at the amount of
violence that goes on at Mr. Boruchin's house, getting a little
spray paint on the wall, I think if you look at the amount of
violence that went on at this yacht club in New York, where
again, some spray paint was slapped up on a wall, I don't think
you can compare that kind of vandalism with the murder of
millions of animals.
Senator Inhofe. So you call for the murders of researchers
and human life?
Dr. Vlasak. I said in that statement and I meant in that
statement that people who are hurting animals and who will not
stop when told to stop, one option would be to stop them using
any means necessary and that was the context in which that
statement was made.
Senator Inhofe. Including murdering them, is that correct?
Dr. Vlasak. Pardon?
Senator Inhofe. Including murdering them?
Dr. Vlasak. I said that would be a morally justifiable
solution to the problem.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. Dr. Vlasak, you approve of these
dastardly acts in the name of liberation, of a liberation
movement. Do you have any children?
Dr. Vlasak. I have no children. Just to be clear, I don't
approve of any unnecessary suffering. I wish these things
didn't have to happen.
Senator Lautenberg. Fine. You do. What you have said
confirms it. So I just want to go there. I want to know who you
are, what makes you tick. Because it is so revolting to hear
what you say about the murder. These aren't extermination
camps. What's being done, whether you like it or not, is to try
and improve the quality of life for human beings. This isn't
Germany.
How do you feel about people, you said you think people who
have a cause have a right to violence. How about the guys who
kill our soldiers and who killed the people in the Trade
Towers? They have a cause. Is that ok with you?
Dr. Vlasak. No. Unnecessary loss of life is never ok with
me. I extend that loss of life to animal life, non-human animal
life as well.
Senator Lautenberg. You're the super moralist, you're
deciding where it's right and where it's wrong. Many people who
have causes, some of them justified, but to take tactics like
the intimidation of people to spoil their lives or spoil their
ability to make a living is an outrageous thing to propose.
You're anti-social in your behavior, obviously. But to sit here
so smugly and be proud of the fact that you stand by this
statement about 5 or 10 lives, if those lives were your kids,
well, maybe you don't have anybody you love. You don't have any
kids.
Can I ask you a question? Mr. Boruchin's life has been
exposed, credit card numbers, everything else. Where did you go
to medical school?
Dr. Vlasak. I attended medical school at the University of
Texas, in Houston.
Senator Lautenberg. Where do you practice now?
Dr. Vlasak. I practice in the Los Angeles area.
Senator Lautenberg. At a hospital?
Dr. Vlasak. I do. A number of hospitals.
Senator Lautenberg. What is your favorite, what is your
dominant hospital activity?
Dr. Vlasak. I practice at several hospitals in the
Riverside and San Bernadino area.
Senator Lautenberg. Name one.
Dr. Vlasak. Loma Linda University.
Senator Lautenberg. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I think in
terms of the New York Stock Exchange, a place I am familiar
with through my earlier business life, ADP, and also my
company, my ex-company, provided restoration of activities
after 9/11. The assault took place on a Tuesday and by Monday,
my company, my ex-company, without contract, without pricing
discussions, had a company named Cantor Fitzgerald back and
operating in less than 6 days, never had any business with them
before.
So I am directly involved, have been, and we listed on the
New York Stock Exchange. We could subpoena records, I guess,
Mr. Chairman, and find out why it is that the New York Stock
Exchange decided not to permit this company's listing. Because
if all things are in order, this isn't the local golf club or
something. Someone applies and they have the qualifications
financially and there is no scandal attached, I assume that you
have no right not to list. Is that so, Mr. Bernard?
Mr. Bernard. No, sir, that's not so. Those so-called
blackline criteria are the minimum bar, and the Exchange has
the right, in its rules approved by the SEC, to bring in other
factors in making a listing decision.
Senator Lautenberg. Right. But if they meet the criteria
that's established, is someone saying, I don't like the way he
combs his hair or something?
Mr. Bernard. Well, it's certainly not to be trivialized,
but the Exchange has minimum criteria that are financial and
corporate governance.
Senator Lautenberg. Right.
Mr. Bernard. After that, it's making a business decision,
just as ADP would in choosing to help Cantor Fitzgerald, for
which ADP should be very much appreciated.
Senator Lautenberg. I think we ought to go further.
Dr. Vlasak, how do you feel about animals like rats and
mice? The use of experimentation on them to see how they react
to different medications, things of that nature, would you
permit that?
Dr. Vlasak. I think it's a hugely wasteful use of scarce
resource dollars that we have in the medical industry. We have
much better ways of showing whether a drug is toxic to a human
being or not, rather than choking it down a rat's or a mouse's
throat.
I think from a scientific standpoint----
Senator Lautenberg. If they are injected----
Dr. Vlasak. Pardon?
Senator Lautenberg. If they are injected with a material,
is that OK?
Dr. Vlasak. As I was trying to explain to you, I think from
a scientific standpoint, there is so little validity to doing
that, that we're wasting hundreds of millions of scarce health
care dollars. Even if it did work, though, and it doesn't, but
even if it did, I'd still be against it. Because the same
reason I'm against the experimentation that happened on human
beings against their will, whether it was in Nazi concentration
camps or whether it was here in the United States----
Senator Lautenberg. We shouldn't experiment on human
beings.
Dr. Vlasak. There were people who were experimented on
against their will. They have good, useful results and they
published it in the same medical journals that I read today.
But it was wrong. Whether it worked or not doesn't matter.
Senator Lautenberg. Since I have the mic on this side, I
would prefer that we follow my line. So you would say, there is
something called the Lautenberg Cancer Research Center. I
helped establish that, because my father died when he was 43
years old. He got sick at age 42, he worked in a mill in
Patterson, NJ, as did his brother, my uncle. He died when he
was 52, also cancer, their father died also of cancer when he
was 56.
When I had the good fortune of success in business, I put
some resources into a group of New Jersey scientists who were
moving abroad, to learn more about cancer research. After
watching my father suffer for a year, 13 months, he was
athletic; he was strong; he exercised; he was very careful
about his diet. I had enlisted in the Army when my dad finally
died, and I made the decision then that I would do whatever I
can to try and prevent another family from undergoing the same
torture and grief, the same individual.
But you are so smug, if you'll forgive me, about what is
right and what is wrong. If I asked you a question about mice,
mice that are raised particularly, Mr. Chairman, for learning
more about the anatomy of the animal and see if we can convert
that. Right now, there is all kinds of talk about using, even
using animal organs for life saving. You wouldn't permit that,
would you?
Dr. Vlasak. Well, I'm sorry to say that your organization
is wasting money on mice and rat experimentation, when we know
much better ways to find cures for human beings.
Senator Lautenberg. I'll tell the scientists there about
that.
Dr. Vlasak. Let me just address the transplantation issue
that you brought up. As you know, xenotransplantation, or
placing animal organs into human beings, that's not going to
work. It hasn't worked, and it's not going to work any time in
the near future. We have a hard enough time transplanting human
organs into human beings and all the immunosuppressives that
are required to do that.
Senator Lautenberg. We can't find them all that we need.
Dr. Vlasak. Well, we could, if we had a presumed consent
law, for instance. If you guys would pass a law that says
everybody's an organ donor unless proven otherwise, or unless
they declare they don't want to be. This has been done in
Belgium, they get all the organs they need by doing laws like
that.
There is not a shortage of organs absolutely, there is a
shortage of organs that we can get at the last minute. I deal
in trauma patients, I see people die every day. I save lives,
but I lose lives sometimes as well.
Senator Lautenberg. But you're willing to take lives.
That's the anomaly here. You are willing to say that somebody
you don't know, somebody's kid, somebody's parent, somebody's
brother, somebody's sister, take that life, that's ok.
Dr. Vlasak. These are not innocent lives.
Senator Lautenberg. You'll teach those SOBs a lesson about
killing those mice or killing those animals, or doing
experimentation that's going to make this world----why are we
living longer? It is because we experimented in different ways.
And for you to sit there and you decide what the proper course
of action is in the sanctity of your practice and the rules of
your club here, which is identified in your statement,
``morally acceptable,'' I don't want to waste my own energy any
more.
Mr. Chairman, this is an outrage to have an individual sit
here and impose a standard that is supposed to fit all of
society. I don't know whether, at Mr. Bibi's company,
everything they do is exactly right. I know that what they're
trying to do is to help us live better lives, all of us. And I
hope that they continue.
And when I see a kid down here, at Walter Reed Hospital,
who's lost a leg or lost a part of his body, and they find
ways, because they have experimented with things, maybe to
regrow even bone, it's fantastic, and I want it to continue.
You have no right to intimidate people who are engaged in a
proper practice under our laws. You want the law changed? Write
letters. Come down here and ask for a change in law about
whether or not animal experimentation is right. Don't take the
law into your own hands. That's a bad mistake.
Dr. Vlasak. HLS isn't trying to save human lives. They're
trying to turn a profit, nothing else.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Lautenberg, thank you. I think you
and I can go a long ways to correcting what we have seen here
today with the law that we are introducing, and I look forward
to working with you on the floor of the Senate to make sure
that we get this thing passed and give the FBI and the
Department of Justice the necessary tools to stop this type of
perversion in our society.
My son called me up right before this hearing, he noticed
we were having this hearing. He's a doctor. He said, at some
point, you need to explain to them that it's either going to be
the lives of these animals or human life. When I call him back,
Dr. Vlasak, and tell him that we have a witness who equates
animals lives with human lives, then that takes away all the
argument. If you believe that in your own heart, what you do,
and you have advocated the assassination, the murder of human
lives, of human beings, of researchers, then I don't see any
reason to go any further with this.
I can just assure you that we are going to give law
enforcement the necessary tools to stop this type of thing from
happening. I can assure you of that. That's not a maybe, that's
a definite.
And the rest of you, for having the courage to come here
and relate this to us today, I can assure you that there are
many members who aren't here who are on this panel whose staff
is here. They will be submitting questions for the record to
all four of you. I hope that you will be able to respond to
those, and I can assure you, this has been a very useful
hearing. I appreciate your presence here.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:]
Statement of Senator James M. Jeffords, U.S. Senator from
the State of Vermont
Today, the Environment and Public Works Committee holds its second
hearing of the year on ``eco-terrorism,'' this time focused on an
extremist animal rights group called ``Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty''
or SHAC.
Like every member of this Committee, I condemn the campaign of
violence and intimidation perpetrated by members of this group.
Motivated by their extreme animal rights agenda, SHAC members have
claimed responsibility for sabotage, trespass, destruction of property,
harassment and vandalism.
These actions are criminal. And we have laws already on the books
that allow prosecution for such crimes. While SHAC has not caused any
serious injuries or deaths in the United States, we should act quickly
to prevent the escalation of this violence. I therefore was pleased to
learn that the U.S. Department of Justice has indicted seven of SHAC's
leaders, who are currently awaiting trial in New Jersey.
These extremists do not represent the mainstream environmental or
animal rights community. Mainstream groups have been very effective in
using lawful means to advance their agenda. Educational outreach,
shareholder resolutions and dedicated volunteers have significantly
improved the treatment of animals in the United States. Groups such as
the Humane Society of the United States, the People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Doris Day League and the American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have all submitted
letters to the Committee denouncing violence in the name of animal
protection. I'd like to enter these letters into the official record of
today's hearing.
When Americans think of terrorism, they think of the collapse of
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the attack on
the World Trade Center, or the bloody images on the nightly news from
Iraq. In contrast, SHAC appears to be composed of perhaps a few dozen
extremists engaged in a systematic campaign of intimidation and
harassment of a single animal testing company. In our current state of
fear, it is easy to get headlines by using the term ``terrorism.'' But
sometimes, a criminal is just a criminal.
I also believe that there are higher priorities that this Committee
should be devoting its time and energy. If we are truly interested in
protecting our citizens from the effects of domestic terrorism, we
should be focusing on the security of the nation's critical
infrastructure, such as our wastewater and chemical plants. We should
also be working to finance the nation's water infrastructure and to
protect kids from exposure to dangerous chemicals. Directing help to
the victims of Katrina, Rita and now Wilma should also be a high
priority for the Committee. In contrast, the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee does not have jurisdiction over either the
Animal Enterprises Protection Act or the U.S. criminal code. As a
result, there is not much this Committee can do in response to these
hearings.
Nevertheless, I take seriously the Department of Justice's
recommendations that amendments to our criminal code would enhance the
law enforcement community's ability to respond to the illegal actions
of animal rights extremists. I will consider co-sponsoring a proposal
with Senator Inhofe to further refine the Animal Enterprise Protection
Act to give prosecutors the tools necessary to combat animal rights
extremists. Such a proposal would need to fill the gaps in the existing
law while respecting the First Amendment's protection of free speech. I
look forward to reviewing Senator Inhofe's proposal and working with
our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, which would likely have
jurisdiction over such a bill.
I regret that I cannot be in attendance at today's hearing due to a
scheduling conflict with the Finance Committee meeting to discuss World
Trade Organization negotiations and the international trade agenda with
Ambassador Portman. I will review the transcript of the hearing and may
submit questions for the record.
__________
Statement of John E. Lewis, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism
Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Good morning Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member Jeffords, and members
of the Committee. I am pleased to be here again to discuss the threat
posed by animal rights activists, and by the Stop Huntingdon Animal
Cruelty, or the SHAC movement in particular.
I am here today to speak to you about how members of the animal
rights extremist movement advance their cause by using so-called direct
action against individuals or companies. ``Direct action'' is criminal
activity designed to cause economic loss or to destroy property or
operations. I see disturbing signs of success in what they are doing
and legitimate business is suffering. I will also touch on the
limitations of existing statutes.
It is critical to recognize the distinctions between
constitutionally protected advocacy and violent, criminal activity. It
is one thing to write concerned letters or hold peaceful
demonstrations. It is another thing entirely, to construct and use
improvised explosive or incendiary devices, to harass and intimidate
innocent victims by damaging or destroying property, or other
threatening acts. Law enforcement should only be concerned with those
individuals who pursue their animal rights agenda through force,
violence, or criminal activity. Unfortunately, the FBI sees a
significant amount of such criminal activity across our investigations.
Let me begin with a brief overview of the domestic terrorism
threats that come from special interest extremist movements such as the
Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
(SHAC) campaign. Members of these movements aim to resolve their issues
by using criminal ``direct action'' against individuals or companies
believed to be exploiting or abusing animals, as well as other
companies believed to be doing business with the target of their direct
actions.
The extremists' efforts have broadened to include a multi-national
campaign of harassment, intimidation and coercion against animal
testing companies and any companies or individuals doing business with
those targeted companies. This ``secondary'' or ``tertiary'' targeting
of companies that have business or financial relationships with the
principal target generally takes the form of fanatical harassment of
employees and interference with normal business operations, using the
threat of escalating tactics or violence.
The best example of this trend is the Stop Huntingdon Animal
Cruelty campaign, known as SHAC. Since its inception in 1999, SHAC has
conducted a relentless campaign of terror and intimidation specifically
targeting Huntingdon Life Sciences, an animal research laboratory.
SHAC's overriding goal is to put HLS out of business, by whatever means
necessary even by violent means.
SHAC has targeted not just HLS, but companies that are affiliated
with it. SHAC's website publishes lists of these companies, ranging
from pharmaceutical companies to builders to investors. SHAC has used a
variety of tactics to harass and intimidate these affiliate companies,
their employees, and family members, including bombings, death threats,
vandalism, office invasions, phone blockades, and denial-of-service
attacks on their computer systems.
Unfortunately, this strategy has been quite effective. Over 100
companies many of them in the U.S. have severed ties with HLS,
including Aetna Insurance, Citibank, Deloitte & Touche, Johnson and
Johnson, and Merck. SHAC's current target list includes
GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, UPS, and multiple financial
institutional investors. SHAC has targeted not only the facilities of
these companies, but also their employees and family members.
However, when these companies or individuals are threatened or
attacked, it is not necessarily the work of SHAC itself. There may be
overlap in membership in extremist movements, which can make it
difficult to identify the actual perpetrators. Also, in the past 18
months, a number of SHAC splinter groups have been created, which use
SHAC tactics and focus on SHAC targets. This is most likely an attempt
by animal rights extremists to continue the SHAC campaign while
appearing to distance themselves from the SHAC organization. However,
while the SHAC organization attempts to portray itself merely as an
information service or media outlet, it is closely aligned with these
groups, as well as with the Animal Liberation Front. Many of the ALF's
criminal activities are directed against companies and individuals
selected as targets by SHAC and posted on SHAC's website.
Let me give you several examples. In August 2003, two improvised
explosive devices detonated at the Chiron Corporation. A month later,
an improvised explosive device wrapped in nails exploded at the
headquarters of the Shaklee Corporation in California. The companies
were targeted because they have ties to HLS. The previously unknown
``Revolutionary Cells of the Animal Liberation Brigade'' claimed
responsibility via an anonymous communique, which stated: ``We gave all
of the customers the chance, the choice, to withdraw their business
from HLS. Now you will reap what you have sown. All customers and their
families are considered legitimate targets...no more will all the
killing be done by the oppressors, now the oppressed will strike
back.'' Following this attack, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in
San Francisco identified and charged known activist Daniel San Diego in
connection with the bombings. He is currently a fugitive from justice.
In another example, last month an incendiary device was left on the
front porch of a senior executive at GlaxoSmithKline in England. The
executive was not home when the bomb detonated, but his wife and
daughter were inside. Fortunately, no one was hurt. GlaxoSmithKline is
one of SHAC's main targets, yet it was the ALF that claimed
responsibility for the attack. In a message posted on the Internet,
activists wrote: ``We realize that this may not be enough to make you
stop using HLS but this is just the beginning. We have identified and
tracked down many of your senior executives and also junior staff, as
well as those from other HLS customers. Drop HLS or you will face the
consequences.''
That same week, British newspapers reported that a chain of
children's nursery schools had become a target of SHAC. Leapfrog Day
Nurseries, a major provider of childcare in Great Britain, had a
program that offered childcare vouchers to HLS employees. A spokesman
announced that Leapfrog Nurseries had received letters from animal
rights activists threatening physical force. One news account quoted a
letter as saying: ``Not only you but your family is a target. Sever
your links with HLS within two weeks or get ready for your life and the
lives of those you love to become a living hell.'' In order to ensure
the safety of the children and their employees, Leapfrog Nurseries cut
ties with HLS. Again, an extremist group other than SHAC is believed to
be responsible for the victory but by extension, it is also a victory
for the SHAC campaign.
And most recently, last month Carr Securities began marketing the
Huntingdon Life Sciences stock. The next day, the Manhasset Bay Yacht
Club, to which certain Carr executives reportedly belong, was
vandalized by animal rights activists. The extremists sent a claim of
responsibility to the SHAC website, and 3 days after the incident, Carr
terminated its business relationship with HLS. These are just some of
the examples of SHAC's use of threats and violence to financially
strangle HLS and permanently mar its public image. These examples
demonstrate some of the difficulties law enforcement faces in combating
acts of extremism and domestic terrorism. Extremists are very
knowledgeable about the letter of the law and the limits of law
enforcement. The SHAC website has a page devoted to instructing
activists on how to behave toward law enforcement officers, how to deal
with interrogations, and what to say and not say if they are arrested.
Extremists also adhere to strict security measures in both their
communications and their operations. The SHAC website advises activists
to ``NEVER discuss illegal activity indoors, over the phone, or
email...keep the discussion of illegal activity on a need to know basis
only. This means working only with people you know and trust and
discussing your action with the people you are carrying it out with and
no one else.''
Despite the challenges posed by the cellular, autonomous nature of
extremists and their high operational security, the FBI and its law
enforcement partners have worked steadily to investigate and deter
extremist activity. Our job is to protect all citizens from crime and
terrorism, whether international or domestic in origin. We now have 103
Joint Terrorism Task Forces nationwide, which investigate and protect
our communities from domestic and international terrorists. We have
used a wide variety of techniques to investigate criminal activity
conducted by SHAC, and have collected vital intelligence and evidence.
And we are making progress.
In one example of a recent success, last May the FBI helped secure
criminal indictments in New Jersey against the SHAC organization and
seven of its national leaders, charging them with Animal Enterprise
Terrorism, Conspiracy, and Interstate Stalking. They are known among
animal rights activists as the ``SHAC 7.'' Last September, a federal
grand jury returned a superseding indictment against the SHAC 7,
charging them with Harassing Interstate Communications because of the
posting of ``target'' information on the SHAC website, which continues
to result in vandalism, harassment and intimidation of victim companies
and their employees. Their trial is set for February 2006.
But despite successes such as this, the FBI's efforts to target
these movements in order to prevent and disrupt criminal activity have
been hindered by a lack of applicable federal criminal statutes. This
is particularly frustrating as we attempt to dismantle organized,
multi-state campaigns of intimidation, vandalism, threats and coercion
designed to interfere with legitimate interstate commerce, as exhibited
by SHAC. While it is a relatively simple matter to prosecute extremists
who have committed arson or detonated explosive devices, under existing
federal statutes it is difficult, if not impossible, to address a
campaign of low-level criminal activity like that of SHAC.
In order to address SHAC's crusade to shut down legitimate business
enterprises through direct action, the FBI initiated a coordinated
investigative approach, beginning in 2001. FBI field offices that had
experienced SHAC activity worked closely with U.S. Attorneys' Offices,
the Justice Department, and FBI Headquarters to explore strategies for
investigation and prosecution. First, we examined the idea of using the
existing Animal Enterprise Terrorism statute, as set forth in 18 U.S.C.
Sec. 43, which provides a framework for prosecuting individuals
involved in animal rights extremism. In practice, however, the statute
does not cover many of the criminal activities SHAC routinely engages
in on its mission to shut down HLS. The current version of the section
43 only applies when there is ``physical disruption'' to the
functioning of an animal enterprise that results in damage or loss of
property. But, as you have heard me describe, HLS has been economically
harmed by threats and coercion that did not ultimately cause property
damage.
For example, in 2004, SHAC targeted Seaboard Securities, a company
that provided financial services to HLS. SHAC posted the phone numbers
and addresses for Seaboard Securities' offices on its website, and also
provided detailed recommendations on how to harass the company. The
SHAC campaign against Seaboard included phone blockades, office
invasions and damage to property belonging to Seaboard Securities and
its employees. In the wake of this pressure, Seaboard Securities
severed its relationship with HLS in January 2005.
Much of this activity cannot be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 43
nor are there other federal criminal statutes that provide effective
prosecutorial remedies. Moreover, even when section 43 does apply, the
current penalty of up to 3 years in prison has failed to deter a
tremendous amount of criminal conduct. The activities of SHAC
frequently fall outside the scope of the statute, and because members
are well-versed in the limits of the statute, they have tended to
engage in conduct that, while criminal, would not result in a
significant federal prosecution.
As we continued to examine these legislative challenges, another
option we considered was prosecution under the Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C.
Sec. 1951). Under this legal theory, prosecution was based on the
premise that the subjects were engaged in an extortion scheme against
companies engaged in, or doing business with, animal-based research.
Victims were subjected to criminal acts such as vandalism, arson,
property damage, physical attacks, or the fear of such attacks, until
they discontinued their research or terminated their association with
or investment in animal-based research companies such as HLS.
However, the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Scheidler v. National
Organization for Women removed the Hobbs Act as an option. The decision
states that such conduct by activists does not constitute extortion as
defined under the Hobbs Act unless the activists seek to obtain or
convert the victims' property for their own use.
The FBI would support changes to the statutes that will address the
issue of secondary and tertiary targeting by organizations like SHAC.
We will continue to work with our Department of Justice colleagues and
the Congress to refine and amend existing statutes so that we may have
more effective tools to address this growing crime problem.
Investigating and preventing animal rights extremism is one of the
FBI's highest domestic terrorism priorities. We are committed to
working with our partners to disrupt and dismantle these movements, to
protect our fellow citizens, and to bring to justice those who commit
crime and terrorism in the name of animal rights.
Chairman Inhofe and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss the challenges we face in this area of our work.
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
__________
Statement of Barry M. Sabin, Chief, Counterterrorism Section, Criminal
Division, Department of Justice
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for providing me
the opportunity to appear here today and testify before you concerning
the Department of Justice's efforts to investigate and prosecute
entities and individuals who commit criminal acts in the name of animal
rights. In that regard, I will seek to address some of the strengths
and limitations of the laws that presently provide the means by which
we investigate and prosecute animal rights extremist matters. These
investigations are an important part of the mission of the Department
of Justice to protect the American people and our institutions from
acts and threats of violence.
As you know, counterterrorism is the number one priority of the
Department of Justice. As such, we remain dedicated to the task of
protecting the American people from violence and the threat of violence
posed by terrorism while at the same time protecting the First
Amendment rights and other civil liberties guaranteed to all Americans
in the Constitution. In protecting America and Americans from the
threat of terrorism, though, we recognize that the threat to the
American people comes not only from extremists overseas, but also from
extremists located within our borders.
In order to ensure that the Department has all the necessary
investigatory tools, legal authorities and appropriate penalties, the
Department supports amending Title 18, United States Code, Section 43
to include economic disruption to animal enterprises and threats of
death and serious bodily injury to associated persons. The proposed
modifications provide a clear and constitutional framework for timely,
effectively and justly addressing prohibited criminal conduct that will
ensure that victims' rights are respected and preserved.
justice department efforts to combat domestic extremists
Mindful of incidents such as the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the United States government
is resolved to address the use of violence by Americans, against other
Americans, for the purpose of coercing the government or intimidating
civilians in furtherance of political or social goals. The Department
of Justice has had numerous recent successes in combating those
Americans who commit acts of domestic terrorism. Working in a task
force approach with our state and local partners, we have sought to
timely share information across the Nation to prevent incidents from
occurring. These Joint Task Forces have sought to use all available
investigatory tools, including undercover operations and informants, as
well as all available criminal statutes, such as interstate stalking
and explosives statutes, to disrupt violent groups and marshal
compelling evidence to bring them to justice.
For example, in the past year the Department has prosecuted white
supremacists who have used or threatened to use violence against other
Americans. In November, 2004, in the District of Nevada, former Aryan
Nations official Steve Holten pleaded guilty to sending threatening
messages to employees of several local newspapers, as well as state
government employees. On February 25, 2005, in the Western District of
Pennsylvania, Ku Klux Klan leader David Wayne Hull was sentenced to 12
years in prison for unlawfully teaching a government informant how to
construct an improvised explosive device. Matthew Hale--formerly the
leader of the World Church of the Creator--was sentenced on April 6,
2005, to serve 40 years in prison for, among other things, soliciting
the murder of a federal district court judge in the Northern District
of Illinois. On August 30, 2005, neo-Nazi skinhead Sean Gillespie--who
videotaped himself fire-bombing a synagogue--was sentenced to 39 years
in prison in the Western District of Oklahoma.
The Department has also prosecuted other extremists who used or
threatened to use explosives to commit acts of violence. On July 18,
2005, Eric Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison for the bombing of
an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, as well as a night club and
Centennial Park in Atlanta, Georgia. On September 12, 2005, Gale
William Nettles was convicted of conspiring to blow up the Dirksen
Federal Building in Chicago, Illinois. On September 22, 2005, former
Jewish Defense League leader, Earl Krugel, was sentenced to 20 years in
prison for carrying an explosive device as part of a conspiracy to
injure or impede a United States Congressman and damage a mosque.
Similarly, the Department has also made progress in prosecuting
animal rights and environmental extremists who have violated federal
law. On November 19, 2004, in the Central District of California,
William Cottrell was convicted for the arson of a car dealership in
West Covina, California, as well as numerous sport utility vehicles. In
the Western District of Wisconsin, Peter Young pleaded guilty on
September 2, 2005, to violations of the Animal Enterprise Protection
Act arising from his activities in 1997 in Wisconsin and other states.
Earlier this month, on October 14, 2005, environmental extremist Ryan
Lewis, and two associates, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of
California to arson and attempted arson of several partially completed
homes under construction.
the threat posed by shac and other animal rights extremists
As this Committee well knows, animal rights extremists have not
hesitated to use violence to further their social and political goals.
In those cases where individuals have used improvised incendiary or
explosive devices, federal prosecutors are well-equipped to prosecute
and punish such individuals using the tools provided in Title 18,
United States Code, section 844.
Domestic violence by animal rights extremists is not limited,
however, to the use of arson and the use of explosives. As Mr. Lewis
has described in his testimony, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (or
SHAC) and other animal rights extremist organizations and entities are
engaging in a campaign of criminal conduct which is calculated to
aggressively intimidate and harass those whom it identifies as targets.
In pursuit of its goal of closing the animal testing operations of
Huntington Life Science (HLS), SHAC's campaign has included a wide
variety of ``direct action'' techniques specifically designed to coerce
the subjects of those efforts while avoiding an effective law
enforcement response. Harassment of other businesses, and the employees
of those businesses, vandalism of property belonging to individuals
whose only offense is working for a company that does business with
HLS, or, even worse, publication of private information about such
individuals, their spouses and even their young children, are only some
of the techniques used by SHAC and like-minded persons to coerce and
intimidate companies and individuals. With every perceived success,
SHAC emboldens other extremist organizations to act similarly. The
personal and economic consequences of this campaign have been, and will
continue to be, significant.
tools for the prosecution of shac and similar groups and individuals
In the past, this kind of criminal conduct was prosecuted as a
violation of the Hobbs Act, codified in section 1951 of Title 18 of the
United States Code. In Scheidler v. National Organization for Women,\1\
however, the United States Supreme Court held that, in order to commit
the extortion that is the gravamen of a Hobbs Act violation, a
defendant must actually ``obtain'' property--that is, he or she must
take a tangible thing of value from his or her victim. The Supreme
Court specifically rejected the notion that a Hobbs Act violation was
committed by a person or entity who, like SHAC, acts to deprive the
victim of the free exercise of his or her property rights. Thus, while
conduct similar to SHAC's campaign was previously investigated and
prosecuted as Hobbs Act violations, after the Scheidler decision in
2003, that option was no longer available to federal prosecutors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ 537 U.S. 393, 123 S. ct. 1057, 154 L.Ed.2d 991 (2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the other hand, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, codified
at section 43 of Title 18, is still an important tool for prosecutors
seeking to combat animal rights extremists. This statute was passed in
1992 primarily to address the problem of those who physically intruded
upon the property of entities who tested or otherwise used animals in
order to damage the property belonging to the animal enterprise.
Originally established as a misdemeanor, the statute's penalties have
been enhanced by amendments in 1996 and 2002.
The Department has used Section 43 to charge SHAC and seven
individual defendants in federal district court in New Jersey. The
indictment alleges that the defendants conspired to engage in ``direct
action'' activities, which was described by SHAC to involve activities
that ``operate outside the confines of the legal system.'' The
indictment further alleges that the SHAC Website posted what it termed
the ``top 20 terror tactics'' that could be taken against companies or
individuals.
The six-count superseding indictment alleges violations of
interstate stalking, in violation of Title 18, United States Code,
Section 2261A, and conspiracy to utilize a telecommunications device to
abuse, threaten and harass persons, in violation of Title 47, United
States Code, Section 223(a)(1)(c). The charges are pending and a trial
is scheduled for February 2006.
While section 43 is an important tool for prosecutors, SHAC and
other animal rights extremists have recognized limits and ambiguities
in the statute and have tailored their campaign to exploit them. While
the Department is confident that some of SHAC's conduct violates this
statute in its current form, amendment of the statute to make clear and
unequivocal the application of the statute to recent trends in animal
rights extremism will enhance the effectiveness of the Department's
response to this domestic threat.
proposed amendment of title 18, united states code, section 43
Accordingly, the Department supports Senator Inhofe's effort to
amend the Animal Enterprise Protection Act in order to address several
gaps in the law that keep prosecutors from using it in the most
effective manner possible.
First, the statute's definition of the type of ``animal
enterprise'' that it protects is not broad enough to include some of
the entities that are now targeted by SHAC and other animal rights
extremists. These include pet stores and even animal shelters. The
threat posed to individuals associated with such organizations is no
less significant than the threat that gave rise to the original
statute. Senator Inhofe's proposal would expand the definition of
``animal enterprise'' so that these types of victims are also clearly
included within the scope of the statute.
Second, the statute's use of the phrase ``physical disruption'' to
describe the conduct it proscribes unnecessarily suggests that it
covers a narrow scope of conduct tantamount to trespass. In that
regard, the statute permits the argument that it does not cover actions
by SHAC or other animal rights extremists taken not against an animal
enterprise, but against those entities that choose to do business with
an animal enterprise. While careful parsing of the language of the
statute makes clear that this is not the case, lack of clarity
threatens effective use of the statute. Senator Inhofe's proposal
avoids this ambiguity by focusing instead on ``economic disruption''
(that is, business losses) and ``economic damage'' (that is, physical
property damage) resulting from the threats or property damage that it
would proscribe. In doing so, it would more effectively protect animal
enterprises from the criminal conduct in which animal rights extremists
like SHAC currently engage.
Third, Senator Inhofe's proposal would include this type of
criminal conduct as a predicate for seeking electronic surveillance
authority. Participants in the animal rightsextremist movement exercise
excellent tradecraft, and are very security conscious. Animal rights
extremists have made extensive use of the internet for communications
and have relied upon electronic mail and other communications media to
interact. These communications are occurring on a national level, and
electronic surveillance provides law enforcement authorities a timely
and effective means for capturing and sharing information. Law
enforcement personnel should not be restricted from proactively seeking
approval from a federal district court judge to capture probative
evidence that would assist their criminal investigations.
Fourth, in its current form, the statute fails to address clearly
the consequences of a campaign of vandalism and harassment directed
against individuals--as opposed to the animal enterprise itself.
Senator Inhofe's proposal would remedy this ambiguity by clearly
stating that committing the proscribed conduct against an individual,
including an employee of an animal enterprise (or of an entity with a
relationship with an animal enterprise), is equally illegal.
Finally, Senator Inhofe's proposal provides a range of penalties
including imprisonment, fines and restitution that are tailored to
reflect the nature and severity of the criminal conduct. This broad
range of penalties will enable the government to effectively and
appropriately charge the accused with a crime commensurate with the
accused's criminal conduct and to seek punishment reflecting that
degree of culpability.
Viewed in its entirety, the changes in Senator Inhofe's proposal
would empower prosecutors with a more effective tool to meet the
challenges now posed by animal rights extremists. I strongly encourage
the Committee to endorse this proposal.
protecting the victims
It is important to underscore that this Congress and the Justice
Department have taken significant steps to assist and protect victims
of crime. The Justice For All Act, passed with overwhelming bipartisan
support one year ago (Title 18, United States Code, Section 3771), and
the Attorney General Guidelines on Victim and Witness Assistance, as
revised in May, 2005, recognize the rights of crime victims and the
importance of reasonable protections for victims from defendants, or
those persons acting in concert with or at the behest of suspected
offenders. Senator Inhofe's proposed legislation seeks to build upon
this foundation. The criminal conduct of animal rights extremists is
directed against individuals and companies in order to intentionally
place these victims in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily
injury. These victims suffer - often mentally, physically, and
monetarily - when extremists threaten them, damage their property and
affect their livelihood. This is not First Amendment protected speech,
but rather criminal conduct that is within the traditional realm of
statutes prohibiting threats, violence or injury to innocent victims.
respecting the first amendment
In seeking to meet the challenge of these changing forms of
criminal conduct by animal rights extremists, the Department is acutely
aware of the importance of protecting the First Admendent rights of
those who protest any cause they believe right, including the testing
and other use of animals. Let me be clear: The Department does not seek
to prosecute those who enter the arena of debate seeking to persuade
their government or private businesses and individuals of the merit of
their viewpoints, and this proposal would not--indeed, could not--
criminalize such protected activity. We seek to prosecute criminal
conduct, including conduct that places a person in reasonable fear of
death or serious bodily injury.
The First Amendment is not a license for the use or threatened use
of violence, or for the commission of other crimes. Even if these
crimes are politically motivated - even if they are committed as a form
of protest - Congress is empowered to prohibit the conduct it deems
offensive without running afoul of the First Amendment. Those who cross
the line from free speech to criminal conduct should be prosecuted and,
if convicted, they should be punished appropriately. As it has done in
other contexts, Congress must give prosecutors the tools to do so
fairly and effectively.
conclusion
Prior Congressional action has provided law enforcement and
prosecutors with a solid framework within which to pursue the goal of
prevention and disruption of violent extremism within our borders. We
in the Justice Department have more work to do to eliminate this
dangerous threat, and we urge you in Congress to continue to build upon
and enhance the legal tools needed to accomplish our mutual goals.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership on this issue and again
for inviting us here and providing us the opportunity to discuss how
the statutes are being used consistent with our Constitutional values--
to fight violent extremism within our criminal justice system. We would
also like to thank this Committee for its continued leadership and
support. Together, we will continue our efforts to secure justice and
defeat those who would harm this country.
__________
Statement of Mark L. Bibi, General Counsel, Life Sciences Research,
Inc. and Huntingdon Life Sciences, Inc.
Good afternoon, Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member Jeffords and
members of the Committee. My name is Mark Bibi. I am General Counsel of
Life Sciences Research and its operating subsidiary, Huntingdon Life
Sciences. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss the dangers posed by SHAC , identified by the FBI as one of the
nation's leading domestic terrorist threats. It is a serious matter and
deserves a serious response.
LSR is a publicly traded company headquartered near Princeton, New
Jersey. An important part of our work is to conduct government-required
animal testing on drugs and chemicals to identify risks to humans,
animals and the environment. Because of these efforts to make sure
products are safe, HLS and those who do business with us have been
relentlessly terrorized by SHAC.
As I awoke on a chilly November morning and looked out my window,
the fears that had been building ever since I was first targeted for
terror by SHAC a few months earlier were realized. My car's front
windshield had been smashed with a large boulder. The car was covered
with animal rights graffiti. Warning messages were spray painted all
over my house ``Pup Killer''; ``Close HLS''; ``Quit Now''. I
immediately knew that I had been the victim of a SHAC attack. The
impact of this violence--and the implicit threat of future violence--is
a terrifying life-changing event.
A few months earlier SHAC identified me as a target in their
newsletter and on their web site. They posted my name, home address and
phone number, with the exhortation ``Go get em.'' Almost immediately,
the harassment and intimidation had begun nasty phone calls in the
middle of the night. Threatening letters and e-mails. Protesters at my
home screaming through bullhorns that I'm a ``murderer''. And now the
sanctity and safety of my home had been violated.
Other SHAC targets have suffered beatings, acid attacks, car and
letter bombings.
SHAC uses these terror tactics not only against HLS and its
employees, but also against third parties to force them to sever their
business relationships with Huntingdon. Time and again, in dozens of
cases, both customers' and HLS' providers from accounting firms, to
banks, to lawn gardeners and even our security firm have been forced by
fear to capitulate to SHAC's demand that they cease working with us,
deciding it's safer to them and their employees to give in rather than
to suffer the personal harassment and intimidation.
SHAC is now attacking the integrity and independence of the U.S.
stock market system. LSR's stock trades on the OTCBB market. SHAC
targets and harasses any market maker that dares to trade in LSR stock,
and more than forty market makers have caved in to SHAC's intimidation.
Only one, Legacy Trading, currently consistently makes a market in LSR
stock.
SHAC has a current campaign against LSR's institutional investors.
Taking advantage of public SEC filings to identify those institutional
investors, SHAC has intimidated most of them into selling their LSR
stock, causing significant dislocation in the market.
But perhaps the most shameful apparent capitulation to date and
that which poses the greatest risk to the U.S. economy is that of the
New York Stock Exchange. In the summer of this year LSR entered into
listing discussions with the NYSE. We met all of the financial
requirements to list our stock on the Exchange. We told them about the
SHAC campaign. The NYSE dismissed the potential risks, pointing out
that since 9/11, they had been a target of the most dangerous
terrorists in the world, assuring us they would not be scared off by
SHAC. We spent a number of weeks completing all the necessary paperwork
and interviews, keeping in regular contact with NYSE staff throughout,
and on August 22 the NYSE told us that we had been authorized for
listing. We issued a press release announcing that approval and
reporting that we expected to begin trading on the NYSE on September 7;
that press release was approved in advance by the NYSE, and the
President of the NYSE, Catherine Kinney, even included a quote
welcoming us.
On the morning of September 7 our senior management team went to
the NYSE's Wall Street headquarters for the original listing
celebration. But only minutes before we were to go down to the trading
floor to watch the first trade in LSR stock, the President of the NYSE
told us that they would not be listing LSR stock that day, and that our
listing was postponed. One of my LSR colleagues and I spent the next
hour or so meeting with senior NYSE officials. We spoke only about the
animal rights campaign against the Company. It was patently clear to me
that the only reason the NYSE postponed our listing was because of
concerns about the SHAC campaign.
All Americans took pride when the New York Stock Exchange reopened
for business only four business days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Yet, apparently purely on the basis of a perceived threat from SHAC,
the NYSE postponed plans to list LSR. A handful of animal extremists
had succeeded where Osama bin Laden had failed.
We have received no information from the NYSE since September 7.
They have never raised with us any question of our eligibility or
suitability to list. They have not asked us for any further
information. We just seem to have been indefinitely postponed, with no
indications as to when if ever the NYSE will tell us anything.
The risks posed by SHAC should not be underestimated. SHAC is the
tip of the iceberg they are the test case for a whole new brand of
activism through personal intimidation. Other activist campaigns are no
doubt waiting in the wings to see how SHAC is dealt with. Imagine the
impact if SHAC tactics were used by those opposed to various other
industries from defense, to mining, to oil, to timber, to who knows
what else.
SHAC's greatest impact has come in targeting third parties doing
business with or providing services to HLS. I urge the Congress to
adopt more effective laws that can be used to control this third party
targeting.
We cannot allow the domestic terrorism practiced, fostered and
encouraged by SHAC to flourish in our own back yard.
Thank you for your time. I would be happy to answer any questions
you may have.
__________
Statement of Skip Boruchin, Legacy Trading Company
Good afternoon, Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Jeffords. Thank
you for this opportunity to testify before this Committee today.
Daily, we all are faced with choices. My choice today is to present
to you factual information that I hope will assist you. The alternative
for me would be to leave it for someone else. My past personal
experience indicates my choice to present information to you will
unfortunately lead to retaliation against me and my family.
For the last few years, I have been living a somewhat captive
existence, held hostage by members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
(``SHAC''), an animal rights activist/terrorist group. As you have
heard, SHAC is an underground group that uses fear and terror to force
their viewpoint upon others. I am a NASDAQ Market Maker, lawfully
working in the State of Oklahoma making a market in the common stock of
many companies. I have been targeted by SHAC because of my job. I am a
market maker, that is I am continually prepared to buy or sell shares
of these companies thereby providing a liquid ready market for those
who desire to buy or sell shares. Huntingdon Life Sciences also known
as Life Sciences Research, Inc., (Ticker Symbol--LSRI) is a contract
research organization that performs testing on animals and is one of
the companies I make a market in.
Beginning roughly about (3\1/2\) three and one half years ago, my
employer, Legacy Trading, became the TARGET, the proverbial Bull's Eye
for SHAC. This Bull's eye on my back and on my life is solely due to
the fact I have been and remain the only market maker in Life Sciences
Research Inc. (LSRI). SHAC launched an all out terrorist attack on too
many other Market Makers. Merril Lynch, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs
to name a few. They were terrorized by ``SHAC's direct action
campaigns'' specifically to influence and control the market in Life
Sciences Research, LSRI. ``Drop LSRI or else!!!'' I am the only hold
out of dozens of market makers who all capitulated to SHAC's demands
and dropped; that is ceased trading LSRI stock. Viewing me as the sole
provider of a market for LSRI, SHAC launched a campaign of sheer terror
on me and my family, destroying our privacy, causing dramatic changes
in our daily lives now and I'm sorry to say forever.
SHAC's attempts to force me to stop trading the LSRI stock included
local, national and international harassment, intimidation and terror.
Personal information of my family, names' address's social security
numbers home phone numbers as well as those of 19 of my neighbors,
placed on the SHAC site. ``Run him out of town, tell him to drop the
stock, or we will publish credit card, medical and other personal
information about you.'' Daily thousands of obscene and threatening
phone calls, to home and office at all hours, day or night; outright
slander calling me a ``child pornographer'' in the media and all over
the internet. When these threats and actions did not work, SHAC moved
to far more dangerous and insidious tactics. Describing me as the
``dreaded Legacy.'' SHAC brought their crimes of terror to my home,
office and family. One day I awoke to find that SHAC had been in my
yard. They spray-painted large messages like ``Puppy Killer'' ``Drop
HLS'' all over the entire house. They wrote ``Skip is a murderer.''
``Nine Million Dead'' on my garage door. In addition to defacing my
home, they cut all lines of communication. The next day, the SHAC
website bragged that this was the beginning; more ``direct action''
will come if you don't drop LSRI!!''
On four occasions Legacy's office has been terrorized. The
criminals have shattered the front office windows, incendiary devices
thrown in, red paint over everything in the office including computers,
furniture, the floors and walls. Office equipment was sabotaged and
spray-painted messages were left for me to know that I suffered this
felony for exercising my right to make a living. ``DROP HLS quit making
a market!!!''
If tactics like this were not enough, SHAC also targeted my
relatives and even my 90-year-old mother. In December of 2004, my
mother came under attack. SHAC posted MY MOTHER'S name, her address at
her assisted living residence and her phone number on the internet with
specific instructions to have her put pressure on me as I spoke and
visited with her frequently. I quote the SHAC website when I tell you
that SHAC members were instructed to ``send her sex toys, have an
undertaker arrive to pick up her dead body,' and call her collect in
the middle of the night, pretend to be a friend of Skip's; ask for his
cell number in order to place it on the Internet.''
The SHAC torment of my family did not stop with my Mother. My
family has been targeted and terrorized in neighboring states with SHAC
action tactics. I have chosen only to tell you of just a few of the
harrowing traumatic events I've gone through and go through at the
hands of SHAC.
It is difficult to describe the emotions that accompany actions
such as I described. I feel violated, vulnerable, angry, and gravely
frightened for my family. This is precisely SHAC's goal to leverage
your love of your family, your value of safety, your pursuit of life
removing my freedoms to advance their beliefs.
Because I go to work each day as a Market Maker. It is apparent for
most people facing this dilemma the decision is simple drop LSRI/ drop
Huntingdon Life Sciences.
Well I did not, and I do not intend to. I fundamentally believe in
the rights that we all receive as Americans. The right to liberty and
privacy. The right to participate in government and even the right to
disagree with government. The right to free speech. These are all
sacred opportunities that we must not take for granted nor use against
others. The healthy exercise of free speech should not hold others
captive or force them to do anything.
SHAC inexcusably promotes the lives of animals over the lives of
the humans they target. I do not confuse SHAC's tactics with a noble
cause nor should anyone else. Huntingdon is a company that performs a
role in the world of developing technology. But more importantly, they
perform a lawful function, as do I. Respectfully I ask what would you
do if your mother, brother, sister, niece, nephew just went to work and
were fanatically terrorized. I urge this committee to simply evaluate
the consequences of such unchecked activism. Please do not allow people
to force their causes, ideas or opinions upon others using fear,
intimidation, threats of crimes, and criminal acts. I thank you for the
opportunity to be heard, and I am happy to answer any questions.
__________
Statement of Richard P. Bernard, Executive Vice President and General
Counsel, New York Stock Exchange
Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Jeffords and Members of the
Committee, I am Richard P. Bernard, Executive Vice President and
General Counsel of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE or Exchange). On
behalf of the New York Stock Exchange and our President Catherine
Kinney, thank you for inviting me to testify today before the
Committee. The NYSE greatly appreciates your leadership in establishing
the nation's policies on matters affecting the environment and public
works. The issues you address today surrounding the activities of
environmental activist groups are both timely and important, to
business and consumers alike. I hope that the information we can
provide related to this topic will be of use to you and to the
Committee.
1. listing on the new york stock exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest cash equities
market. We serve 90 million investors, the institutional community and
over 2,700 of the world's leading corporations. The companies listed on
the NYSE have a total global market capitalization of $21 trillion.
During the first nine months of 2005, our average daily trading volume
was 1.61 billion shares, worth over $55 billion a day.
By way of background, I would like to describe the process by which
a company becomes listed on the Exchange, including the information
considered by the Exchange and the bases upon which the Exchange makes
a decision that a company is qualified to list on the Exchange.
Companies seeking to list on the Exchange are subject to review
from several perspectives. There are, of course, a number of specific
financial and corporate governance criteria that must be met in order
for a company to qualify to list. These are specified in the Exchange's
Listed Company Manual, in which we have codified the Exchange's rules
that relate to listed companies. Beyond these specified criteria,
however, the Exchange has broad discretion regarding the listing of a
company. The Listed Company Manual states that ``the Exchange may deny
listing or apply additional or more stringent criteria based on any
event, condition or circumstance that makes the listing of the company
inadvisable or unwarranted in the opinion of the Exchange. Such
determination can be made even if the company meets the standards [in
the Manual].'' (See NYSE Listed Company Manual Section 101.00.)
The process of determining whether a company is qualified to list
is one that is conducted in confidence. Section 101.00 of the Listed
Company Manual states that: ``Prospective applicants for listing are
invited to take advantage of the Exchange's free confidential review
process to learn whether or not the company is eligible for listing and
what additional conditions, if any, might first have to be satisfied.''
Section 104.01 of the Listed Company Manual, for domestic companies,
and Section 104.02, for non-U.S. companies, then give an outline of the
information needed for the purpose of conducting a confidential
eligibility review.
The process is confidential in order to protect the privacy of the
company. Especially in view of the fact that the Exchange can exercise
discretion to decline to list a company that appears to satisfy the
objective criteria, the Exchange has historically been concerned that
companies might be reluctant to investigate listing if a determination
of non-eligibility was likely to become public. The negative
implication of such a determination could have an impact on investors'
assessment of the company, even when such a reaction would be
unwarranted.
And such a reaction might very well be unwarranted. The Exchange
may determine, for example, that a company is too close to the line
from a financial point of view to warrant listing at this time,
although the Exchange may counsel the company that it would welcome a
further inquiry from the company after a period of time. Or it may be
difficult to determine with certainty whether the company has the
number of public shareholders that the Exchange requires. Neither of
these circumstances should concern investors, but a negative
implication may nonetheless attach to a disinclination to list by the
Exchange, if that were to become public.
In another circumstance there may be a historical issue with the
company, fully disclosed, but which causes the Exchange to decline to
list the company. If the Exchange had to be concerned about the public
impact of such a determination, it could chill the ability or
willingness of the Exchange's management to make what is often a close
and difficult ``call''.
2. life sciences research
A predecessor of the company, Huntingdon Life Sciences Group plc,
was listed on the Exchange for approximately twelve years, beginning on
February 16, 1989. That company was removed from listing on the
Exchange in December 2000 for failure to remain in compliance with the
Exchange's financial continued listing requirements. At the time the
company indicated that its financial reversals were attributable to
``economic terrorism'' by animal rights activists. Regardless of the
cause, given the financial situation in which the company found itself,
the Exchange's rules dictated that the company should be delisted.
Life Sciences Research was incorporated on July 19, 2001 and was
the vehicle that was used to acquire the business of Huntingdon Life
Sciences Research and continue its business through a U.S.-based
company. After several years of trading on the over the counter
bulletin board, management of the company approached the Exchange
regarding listing in mid-July of this year.
In mid-August of this year, following a typical eligibility review,
the Exchange staff informed Life Sciences Research that the company was
acceptable for listing. In a press release dated August 22, 2005, the
company announced that it would list. Following that announcement,
reactions from persons associated with member organizations and others
focused our attention on information that we should have considered in
determining the advisability of listing Life Sciences Research's common
stock on the Exchange. To provide an adequate opportunity for us to
evaluate that information, we informed Life Sciences Research on
September 7, 2005 that its listing must be postponed. It is unfortunate
that our attention was not focused sufficiently far in advance to
enable us to reconsider the listing prior to the day the company was
scheduled to list and out of the public eye. We sincerely regret the
circumstances, and clearly would have preferred to have been able to
make the postponement decision earlier than we did.
The reaction to the announcement of the listing of Life Sciences
Research, and to its postponement, has clearly focused public attention
on the very serious concerns that have confronted Life Sciences
Research for a number of years now, and which you and your Committee
are working to address. Unfortunately, such publicity is quite at odds
with our policy of affording applicants a confidential listing
evaluation. That policy is the reason why we have limited our public
response to an acknowledgement that the listing of Life Sciences
Research has been postponed. We will continue to try to conduct our
evaluation in confidence, difficult as that may be in the current
circumstances.
Thank you again for inviting us to testify.
__________
Statement of Jerry Vlasak, M.D., Press Officer, North American Animal
Liberation Press Office
i. introductory remarks
Good afternoon, gentleman, my name is Dr. Jerry Vlasak. I am a
practicing trauma surgeon, but more importantly for today's purpose, I
am a Press Officer with the North American Animal Liberation Press
Office. I am also a former vivisector.
The stated purpose of the Animal Liberation Press Office is: to
communicate the actions, strategies, philosophy and history of the
underground animal liberation movement to the media and the public, and
that's what I hope to do here today.
The actions of underground activists who care enough about animals
to speak out in no uncertain terms, and at times to risk their own
lives and freedom, have a message that is most urgent and one that
deserves to be heard and understood. Often underground animal
liberation speech and actions either go unreported in the media or are
uncritically vilified as ``violent'' or ``terrorist'', with no
attention paid to the needless and senseless suffering that industries
and individuals gratuitously inflict on animals. The Press Office seeks
to clarify the motivation and nature of underground actions taken in
defense of animals.
ii. hls
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is the largest contract testing lab
in Europe, and operates facilities in the UK and New Jersey. They kill
500 animals a day. HLS will test anything for anybody. They carry out
experiments which involve poisoning animals with household products,
pesticides, drugs, herbicides, food colorings and additives, sweeteners
and genetically modified organisms, oven cleaner and make up.
HLS has been infiltrated and exposed 5 times in recent years by
journalists, animal rights campaigners and members of the public; each
time evidence of animal abuse and staff incompetence has been
uncovered.
A 1999 inspection of their Occold (UK) facility by the Good
Laboratory Practice Monitoring Authority revealed 41 deficiencies,
including errors in standard operating procedures, training issues,
record keeping, quality assurance, equipment, labeling and facilities.
520 violations of the UK Good Laboratory Practices Act were
documented in an expose by the Daily Press (UK) in 2000. They are the
only UK laboratory to ever have their licence revoked by the
government.
In East Millstone, NJ in 1997, an investigator from the People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals brought information to light that
forced Huntingdon to plead guilty to animal cruelty violations and pay
a $50,000 fine.
iii. shac
The campaign Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was set up at
the end of 1999. In what has become an international campaign in more
than 18 countries, a campaign that knows no limit to the creativity and
length to which many demonstrators will go, SHAC has brought HLS to the
brink of financial ruin.
It is important to realize that SHAC is not one group, or
hierarchical entity, but an ideologically aligned group consisting on
thousands of people who gather in various groups to protest the
atrocities perpetrated by HLS. While some like SHAC USA are
incorporated, above ground non-profit organizations, who engage in
legal demonstrations, legal boycotts and legal leafleting/education of
the public, other groups are just individuals loosely knit. It is
ridiculous to think that SHAC USA and SHAC UK is one group with a top-
down organization that controls all activities worldwide.
iv. nyse de-listing
On September 7, 2005 HLS was due to begin trading on the NYSE under
the symbol LSR. Moments before trading was to begin, and with HLS
executives on the stock exchange floor to celebrate, the listing was
cancelled without comment. There was no direct or indirect reference or
mention of animal rights action.
Did NYSE president Catherine Kinney halt the listing because she
had just realized the financial temerity of HLS, or did she decide that
a company as debased and cruel as HLS should not be associated with her
exchange?
The New York Stock Exchange's reluctance to admit the lab is
understandable, as the company hides their financial details from
public scrutiny.
Currently HLS stock still trades on the OTCBB under the symbol
LSRI. It was de-listed from the London Stock Exchange in 2002; the
company reincorporated in Maryland and underwent a reverse 5:1 stock
split. It's split-adjusted price today is a bit under $2 per share.
Chairman of the Board and CEO Andrew Baker owns 27 percent of the
stock, and in June fronted the company another $43 million in a
leaseback offer giving him personal ownership of the company's land,
buildings and equipment, which he leases back to them.
Even after that massive infusion of cash, HLS still reports a
whopping $75.9 million debt. A $50 million bond is payable in mid 2006.
No commercial bank or insurance company is willing to do business
with HLS, and at least 25 market makers have thus far refused to deal
in their stock.
HLS has not paid a dividend in many years, 2 of its directors are
3rd world-based and have no experience in the field, and its annual
shareholders meetings are held secretly in Panama. Hundreds of
customers and suppliers have cancelled their contracts with HLS,
choosing not to do business with a company dealing in the torture and
killing of defenseless animals. Is this the kind of business that
belongs on any stock exchange?
In the last 2 weeks, HLS share price has gone into a downfall, as
company after company sheds their stock from their portfolios. More
than a million shares have been divested, as companies are informed
about the vile business carried out by HLS. One company, Awad, stated
that had they known about the cruelty at HLS, they probably would have
never invested in them.
Oct. 20, 2005--Washington Mutual sells off 188,430 of their shares in
HLS!
Oct. 19, 2005--Royce & Assoc. sell off 120,000 shares!
Oct. 19, 2005--Thomson, Horstmann & Bryant, Inc. sell off 123,500
shares!
Oct. 18, 2005--Cortina sells off their 165,000 LSRI shares!
Oct. 13, 2005--AWAD sells off their 250,000 shares in LSRI!
Oct. 12, 2005--Greenville Capital Management sells off their 251,000
shares in LSRI!
v. about the animal liberation movement
By their accusations against SHAC and the ALF, some are trying to
disguise where the real violence exists, and not the violence of
extensional self-defense, but the real violence, of Huntingdon
laboratories. Other activists watch all this, and become embittered and
frustrated until they begin utilizing more radical.
iv. ccf
When it met in May of this year to discuss ``animal enterprise
terrorism'', this committee heard from David Martosko, director of
research for a lobbyist group called Center for Consumer Freedom(CCF).
The Center for Consumer Freedom, formerly known as the Guest Choice
Network, was set up by one Richard Berman with a $600,000 ``donation''
from tobacco company Philip Morris. Berman arranges for large sums of
corporate money to find its way into non-profit societies of which he
is the executive director. He then hires his own company as a
consultant to these nonprofit groups. Of the millions of dollars
``donated'' by Philip Morris between the years 1995 and 1998, 49
percent to 79 percent went directly to Berman or Berman & Co.
On November 16, 2004, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service
alleging that CCF has violated its tax exempt status. The complaint
alleges that CCF engaged in prohibited electioneering, made substantial
payments to the founder of the organization, Richard Berman, and to
Berman's wholly owned for profit entity Berman & Co., and engaged in
activities with no charitable purpose. CREW executive director Melanie
Sloan told Forbes magazine, ``It doesn't seem to me that someone should
get a tax deduction while they're writing public relations memos about
how people should be able to smoke in restaurants.''
vii. summation
Each of the witnesses that have testified before me have their own
financial interests at stake in the continued oppression, torture and
murder of non-human animals by HLS.
HLS is only one representative of the Global Vivisection Complex,
an outdated, inefficient and wasteful entity whose time has come and
gone. What are the major medical breakthroughs in the areas of cancer
research, HIV/AIDS treatments, Parkinson's or other debilitating
diseases has LSR's work been at the forefront of?
According to recent opinion polls, only 13 percent of the public
have confidence or trust in the Pharmaceutical Industry, ranking
amongst the likes of big tobacco, the oil industry, and insurance
companies (Harris Poll published in July of 2005). In August of 2005,
Opinion Research Corporation International of Princeton, New Jersey
found that 67 percent of the United States would rather donate to
medical research that does not involve animal experimentation.
In the 21st century, there is absolutely no need to torture and
kill non-human animals to advance human medicine. The majority of
physicians in the UK, according to a recent poll, are against animal
experimentation and feel it is not necessary for medical research. Here
in the United States, there are thousands of physicians like myself who
realize there is no need to kill animals in order to help humans, the
vast majority of whom get sick and die because of preventable lifestyle
variables such as diet, smoking, drugs and environmental toxins. In a
country where 45 million people do without reliable access to ANY
medical care, there is no reason to waste hundreds of millions of
dollars testing drugs and procedures on non-human animals. In a world
where 20,000 children are dying from lack of access to clean water each
week world wide, there is no reason to waste hundreds of millions of
dollars testing drugs and procedures on non-human animals.
Huntingdon is the poster child for the abhorrent, unnecessary and
wasteful industry that not only murders millions of innocent, suffering
animals, but dooms countless humans to their own unnecessary suffering
as scarce health-care dollars are wasted on useless animal research and
testing.
I thank the Committee for listening to my comments, and invite your
questions.
______
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS)
Largest contract testing lab in Europe
Operates facilities in the UK and New Jersey.
Kill 500 animals a day
HLS will test anything for anybody.
Carry out experiments which involve poisoning animals
with household products, pesticides, drugs, herbicides, food colorings
and additives, sweeteners and genetically modified organisms.
HLS has been infiltrated and exposed 5 times in recent
years by journalists, animal rights campaigners and members of the
public
Each time horrific evidence of animal abuse and staff
incompetence has been uncovered:
workers punching beagle puppies in the face
simulating sex with animals in their care
dissecting primates while they are still alive
falsifying experiments to get their clients' product on the market.
1999 inspection of their Occold (UK) facility by the Good
Laboratory Practice Monitoring Authority revealed 41 deficiencies,
including errors in standard operating procedures, training issues,
record keeping, quality assurance, equipment, labeling and facilities.
520 violations of the UK Good Laboratory Practices Act
were documented in an expose by the Daily Press (UK) in 2000.
Only UK laboratory to ever have their licence revoked by
the government.
In East Millstone, NJ in 1997, an investigator from the
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals brought information to
light that forced Huntingdon to plead guilty to animal cruelty
violations and pay a $50,000 fine.
Some examples of the testing done at HLS include the
following:
An estimated 12,800 animals died in the research of the sugar
substitute Splenda. HLS used pregnant rabbits, beagle dogs, and
primates to test the substance, administering up to 1200 times the
estimated daily intake. Thirty two beagles were used and after weeks of
having the substance pumped into them, were killed by exsanguination--
having their throats slit. The primates suffered brain defects, mood
swings, grip reflexing, severe weight loss, and then death. The rabbits
experienced convulsions, intestinal disorders, and not surprisingly
trauma-induced death.
A 2003 report documented the lab carrying out an expenment on a
refrigeration component, long since banned in production, for the
Japanese Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Association. The repeated
study forced 7 month old beagles to inhale the pollutant, which caused
severe head trembling, head tremors, whole body shaking,
unconsciousness, and eventually death.
Animal experimentation at Huntingdon Life Sciences is not
life-saving, not necessary, and is inherently cruel.
______
Center for Consumer Freedom
Front group for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries.
Media campaigns which oppose the efforts of scientists, doctors,
health advocates, and environmentalists
Created by Berman & Co., a public affairs firm owned by lobbyist
Rick Berman
Berman has argued against a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
initiative to lower the blood alcohol content (BAC) limit for drivers.
Claimed that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
warnings about salmonella-related food poisoning are just ``whipping up
fear over food.''
Anyone who criticizes tobacco, alcohol, fatty foods or soda pop is
likely to come under attack from CCF.
In 1995, Berman and Norm Brinker, his former boss at Steak and Ale
Restaurants, donated the $25,000 that disgraced then-House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, who was hauled before the House Ethics Committee for
influence-peddling over the money. Berman and Brinker were lobbying
against raising the minimum wage.
In a 1999 interview Berman boasted that he attacks activists more
aggressively than other lobbyists. ``We always have a knife in our
teeth,'' he said. Since activists ``drive consumer behavior on meat,
alcohol, fat, sugar, tobacco and caffeine,'' his strategy is ``to shoot
the messenger. . . . We've got to attack their credibility as
spokespersons.''
On November 16, 2004, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service
alleging that CCF has violated its tax exempt status. The complaint
alleges that CCF engaged in prohibited electioneering, made substantial
payments to the founder of the organization, Richard Berman, and to
Berman's wholly owned for profit entity Berman & Co., and engaged in
activities with no charitable purpose. CREW executive director Melanie
Sloan told Forbes, ``It doesn't seem to me that someone should get a
tax deduction while they're writing public relations memos about how
people should be able to smoke in restaurants.''
In April 2005, CCF launched a $600,000 ad campaign in such major
newspapers as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post
and USA Today, calling ``obesity'' a ``hype'' and stated, ``Americans
have been force-fed a steady diet of obesity myths by the `food
police,' trial lawyers, and even our own government.''
______
Center for Consumer Freedom
[From SourceWatch]
The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) (formerly called the ``Guest
Choice Network'') is a front group for the restaurant, alcohol and
tobacco industries. It runs media campaigns which oppose the efforts of
scientists, doctors, health advocates, environmentalists and groups
like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, calling them ``the Nanny Culture--
the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, anti-meat
activists, and meddling bureaucrats who `know what's best for you.' ''
history
CCF is one of the more active of several front groups created by
Berman & Co., a public affairs firm owned by lobbyist Rick Berman.
Based in Washington, DC, Berman & Co. represents the tobacco industry
as well as hotels, beer distributors, taverns, and restaurant chains.
The group actively opposes smoking bans and lowering the legal
blood-alcohol level, while targeting studies on the dangers of red meat
consumption, overfishing and pesticides. Each year they give out the
``nanny awards'' to groups who, according to them, try to tell
consumers how to live their lives.
Anyone who criticizes tobacco, alcohol, fatty foods or soda pop is
likely to come under attack from CCF. Its enemies list has included
such diverse groups and individuals as the Alliance of American
Insurers; the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons; the American
Medical Association; the Arthritis Foundation; the Consumer Federation
of America; New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; the Harvard School of Public
Health; the Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other
Drug Problems; the National Association of High School Principals; the
National Safety Council; the National Transportation Safety Board; the
Office of Highway Safety for the state of Georgia; Ralph Nader's group,
Public Citizen; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC); and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
starting off smoking
Berman launched the Guest Choice Network in 1995. Its initial
funding came entirely from the Philip Morris tobacco company. ``I'd lke
to propose to Philip Morris the establishment of the Guest Choice
Network,'' Berman stated in a December 11, 1995 letter to Barbara Trach
(http://www.prwatch.org/documents/berman/berman600k.pdf), PM's senior
program manager for public affairs. ``The concept is to unite the
restaurant and hospitality industries in a campaign to defend their
consumers and marketing programs against attacks from anti-smoking,
anti-drinking, anti-meat, etc. activists. . . . I would like to solicit
Philip Morris for an initial contribution of $600,000.'' The purpose of
the Guest Choice Network, as Berman explained in a separate planning
document (http://www.prwatch.org/documents/berman/gcplan.pdf), would be
to enlist operators of ``restaurants, hotels, casinos, bowling alleys,
taverns, stadiums, and university hospitality educators'' to ``support
mentality of `smokers rights' by encouraging responsibility to protect
`guest choice.' According to a year end 1995 budget (http://
www.prwatch.org/documents/berman/budget.pdf), Guest Choice planned to
spend $1.5 million during its first 13 months of operation, including
$390,000 for ``membership marketing/materials development,'' $430,000
to establish a communication center and newsletter (which Berman
promised would have a ``60 percent to 70 percent smoking focus''
(http://www.prwatch.org/documents/berman/gcplan.pdf)), $110,000 to
create a ``multi-industry advisory council,'' and $345,000 for
``grassroots network development/operation.''
The tobacco company complied with Berman's initial funding request
for $600,000 (http://www.prwatch.org/documents/berman/pm600k.pdf) and
pitched in another $300,000 early the following year. ``As of this
writing, PM USA is still the only contributor, though Berman continues
to promise others any day now,'' wrote Philip Morris attorney Marty
Barrington in an internal company memorandum dated March 28, 1996
(http://www.prwatch.org/documents/berman/pm300k.pdf). Aside from Philip
Morris, there are no other publicly known funders of Guest Choice until
its public launch 2 years later, in April 1998, sporting an advisory
board comprised mostly of representatives from the restaurant, meat and
alcoholic beverage industries.
quotable and notable events
In a 1999 interview with the Chain Leader, a trade publication for
restaurant chains, Berman boasted that he attacks activists more
aggressively than other lobbyists. ``We always have a knife in our
teeth,'' he said. Since activists ``drive consumer behavior on meat,
alcohol, fat, sugar, tobacco and caffeine,'' his strategy is ``to shoot
the messenger. . . . We've got to attack their credibility as
spokespersons.''
In November 2001, the Guest Choice Network launched a separate web
site, ActivistCash.com, which purports to expose the ``hidden funding''
of various activist groups that support animal rights, food safety and
smoking prevention.
In January 2002 the Guest Choice Network renamed itself the Center
for Consumer Freedom.
On November 16, 2004, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service
alleging that CCF has violated its tax exempt status. The complaint
alleges that CCF engaged in prohibited electioneering, made substantial
payments to the founder of the organization, Richard Berman, and to
Berman's wholly owned for profit entity Berman & Co., and engaged in
activities with no charitable purpose. CREW executive director Melanie
Sloan told Forbes, ``It doesn't seem to me that someone should get a
tax deduction while they're writing public relations memos about how
people should be able to smoke in restaurants.'' \1\ (http://
www.forbes.com/business/2005/09/23/obesity-lobbying-ccf-
cz_sl_0923ccfhtml). The full text of CREW's complaint is available
online.\2\ (http://www.citizensforethics.org/activities/20041116/)
campaign timeline
In early 2002, CCF ran national radio ads targeting studies on the
link between food consumption and health. One ad referred to ``red-
faced picketers wielding pointed wooden sticks with signs that read
`eat tofu or die' on the way to your classic cheeseburger and fries.''
In a May 11, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle article, CCF spokesman
John Doyle responded to questions about nationwide radio ads put out by
the group. He said the ads were meant to attract people to their
website and ``draw attention to our enemies: just about every consumer
and environmental group, chef, legislator or doctor who raises
objections to things like pesticide use, genetic engineering of crops
or antibiotic use in beef and poultry.'' \3\ (http://sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a12002/05/11/MN119037.DTL)
In April 2005, following a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention study that ``obesity accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in
the United States''--in contrast to earlier CDC studies suggesting
365,000 annual obesity-related deaths\4\ (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/
HEALTH/diet.fitness/04/20/obesity.deaths.ap/)--CCF launched a $600,000
ad campaign. The ad, run in such major newspapers as the New York
Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and USA Today, called
``obesity'' a ``hype'' and stated, ``Americans have been force-fed a
steady diet of obesity myths by the `food police,' trial lawyers, and
even our own government.'' \5\ (http://www.consumerfreedom.com/
advertisements_detail.cfm/ad/30) CCF's Mike Burita said the ad campaign
was part of their ``putting pressure on the leadership of the CDC, who
has still not endorsed this new figure'' for obesity-related deaths.
Claiming that CCF wanted ``some perspective,'' Burita added, ``Obesity
is certainly a genuine problem. But when genuine problems become
political issues they tend to become exaggerated, as this has.'' \6\
(http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7633701/)
A September 2005 Forbes article describes ads CCF ran in its
``anti-anti-obesity'' campaign:\7\ (http://www.forbes.com/business/
2005/09/23/obesity-lobbying-ccf-cz_sl_0923ccf.html)
In one ad, Seinfeld ``Soup Nazi'' character actor Larry Thomas
plays a chef who weighs customers, then barks ``salad!'' or ``no food
for you'' depending on how far they push the scale. In another, heavy-
handed ``food police'' rip an ice cream cone away from a whimpering
kid, whack a beer from a man about to enjoy a sip and snuff out a hot
dog on the ground.
The article also mentions PetaKillsAnimals.com, another CCF
campaign against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and
continues:
But Berman has already moved onto his next topic: scares about
mercury levels in fish. He'll soon be adding FishScam.com to a growing
collection of Web sites that includes AnimalScam, CSPIscam and
ActivistCash, which exposes the financing behind do-gooder groups and
lefty celebrities.\8\ (http://www. forbes.com/business/2005/09/23/
obesity-lobbying-ccf-cz_sl_0923ccf.html)
personnel
CCF is registered as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. The IRS
Form 990 filed for the the 6-month period from July to December 1999 by
CCF (then calling itself the Guest Choice Network), listed the
following officers:
Richard Berman, executive director.
Ray Kraftson, director
Dixie L. Berman, secretary/treasurer
Dan Popeo, director (Popeo is also chairman of the Washington
Legal Foundation, a corporate-funded right-wing think tank which
paid him $301,593 in salary and benefits in 2000.)
Allison Whitesides, director (Whitesides has also worked as a
public relations representative for Coca-Cola North America and
Outback Steakhouse. In November 2001, she went to work as a
legislative representative for the National Restaurant
Association.)
The CCF also has an advisory panel. In 1998 it included the
following individuals:
Dave Albright, National Steak & Poultry
Jane Inns, Perkins Family Restaurants, L.P.
Steve Bartlett, Meridian Products Corporation
Robert Basham, Outback Steakhouse, Inc.
John F. Berglund, Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association
Lou Chatey, Sebastiani Vineyards
H.A. ``Andy'' Divine, University of Denver
Timothy J. Doke, Brinker International, Inc.
Richard Fisher, Tetley USA, Inc.
William L. Hyde, Jr., Ruth's Chris Steakhouse
James Spector, Philip Morris, USA
Michael Middleton, Cargill Processed Meat Products
Daniel J. Popeo, Washington Legal Foundation
Richard G. Scalise, Armour Swift-Eckrich
Daniel Timm, the Bruss Company
Carl Vogt, Fulbright & Jaworski
Richard Walsh, Darden Restaurants, Inc.
Terry Wheatley, Sutter Home Winery
In addition to these officers, several Berman & Co. employees and
associates have appeared in news stories as CCF representatives:
Mike Burita has worked for a variety of conservative causes,
including Republican election campaigns, Phyllis Schlafly,
Frontiers of Freedom, and Brent Bozell's Media Research Center.
John Doyle, communications director for Berman & Co., also
doubles as a spokesman for the CCF, the Employment Policies
Institute and the American Beverage Institute.
On February 24, 2000, the Washington Post reported that Tom
Lauria, ``who helped peddle the tobacco industry's message at the
Tobacco Institute before the lobby group was dismantled last year
as part of an agreement with the states,'' had been hired as
director of communications for CCF (then named the Guest Choice
Network). Lauria left Berman's employ sometime in 2001.
David Martosko has been described in news stories as CCF's
director of research.
affiliated organizations
In addition to the Center for Consumer Freedom, Berman & Co.
sponsors several other organizations and web sites, including the
Employment Policies Institute (which fights to keep the minimum wage
low and opposes mandatory health insurance for workers), and the
American Beverage Institute, which opposes restrictions on drinking and
driving.
funding
CCF is registered as tax-exempt nonprofit organization and is
required to disclose some financial information to the Internal Revenue
Service which is publicly available by inspecting their IRS Form 990s.
Like Berman's other front groups, it does not disclose the identity of
its funders, but some information about it has become publicly
available thanks to the 1998 attorney generals' settlement with the
tobacco industry, which required tobacco companies to release millions
of pages of previously secret company documents.
CCF claims to represent ``more than 30,000 U.S. restaurants and
tavern operators.'' However, the IRS Form 990 which it filed for the
the 6-month period from July to December 1999 (under the name of
``Guest Choice Network'') shows that almost all of its financial
support came from a handful of anonymous sources. Its total income for
that period was $111,642, of which $105,000 came from six unnamed
donors. It received no income from membership dues. Some of its funding
apparently came from one of Berman's other organizations, the American
Beverage Institute, which ``contributes monthly amounts to the Guest
Choice Network to assist with media expenses.'' The Guest Choice
Network did not report paying salaries to any of its employees, who
were presumably paid by Berman & Co.
CCF's Form 990 for the year 2000 showed total income of $514,321,
almost all of which ($492,500) came from seven unnamed donors. Once
again, it received no income from membership dues and did not report
paying salaries to any employees. However, it did list $256,077 in
compensation paid to Berman and Co., Inc., for ``management services.''
Like other Berman & Co. front groups, CCF is headquartered at the
following address: Email: [email protected]; website:
www.consumerfreedom.com
__________
Statement of Bruce R. Bistrian, M.D., Ph.D., President, Federation of
American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
(FASEB) appreciates the opportunity to submit testimony on behalf of
our 23 scientific society members, representing more than 65,000
biomedical research scientists. Furthermore, FASEB gratefully
acknowledges the leadership role of Chairman James Inhofe in
highlighting the detrimental consequences of animal rights (AR)
extremism. We feel strongly that the decision by the New York Stock
Exchange to halt the scheduled listing of the parent company of
Huntington Life Sciences, in apparent response to pressure from AR
extremists, sets a dangerous precedent that jeopardizes our progress in
medical research and the quest for new therapies to treat and cure
disease.
The use of animal models in biomedical research is absolutely
essential to our ability to develop treatments and cures for those
suffering from debilitating diseases. Breakthroughs in treatments for
diabetes, heart disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS and Parkinson's disease would
not have been possible without the use of animals. Moreover, animal
research directly benefits animals themselves: the majority of
veterinary advances are a direct result of research involving animal
models.
Members of the FASEB Societies believe that the use of animals in
research and education is a privilege. This imposes a major
responsibility to provide for their proper care, ethical and humane
treatment. Good animal care and good science go hand-in-hand and is
taken most seriously by the scientific community. In addition, FASEB
feels that it is a responsibility of researchers to communicate to the
public about the role and importance of animals in research, a task
made difficult due to the dangers posed by members of AR extremist
groups.
The recent escalation in violence and intimidation campaigns by AR
extremists directed towards researchers and their institutions is of
great New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and its apparent capitulation to
the AR extremist group, Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC),
biomedical researchers are often the focus of campaigns launched by
groups like SHAC or the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). We would like to
take this opportunity to put a human face on researchers whose lives
have come under siege. These are scientists who have dedicated decades
of their life in an effort to alleviate human suffering and improve
human health. Moreover, these incidences are often widely reported when
they take place and are counted as victories by the AR extremist
movement.
In the November 22, 2002 edition of Science magazine,\1\ then FASEB
President Steven Teitelbaum, MD, published an Op-Ed in response to the
ongoing situation of Michael Podell, DVM. Dr. Michael Podell was an
Associate Professor in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences
and Center for Retrovirus Research, College of Veterinary Medicine at
the Ohio State University (OSU). He studied the effect of
methamphetamine abuse on the progression of immunodeficiency virus,
known in humans as HIV, the causative agent of AIDS, as well as the
neurological effects of HIV, a poorly understood aspect of the disease.
Podell's investigation involved the use of feline models, because his
previous research had discovered that feline immunodeficiency virus
(FIV) closely mirrors the neurodegenerative effects of HIV infection in
humans, making cats an excellent surrogate for HIV neuropathology. This
research was uncovering tantalizing new evidence about the effects of
methamphetamine use on viral replication. Podell's findings, published
in the Journal of NeuroVirology, plainly showed a manifold increase in
neural cells' ability to replicate FIV after methamphetamine treatment.
The OSU study also shed light on the mechanism by which FIV associates
with astrocytes, mutating into a strain of virus that does not depend
on immune system interaction for replication. This important piece in
the puzzle of how the viral load of FIV/HIV in the brain leads to
dementia is vital to efforts to lessen this debilitating brain damage.
However, before these findings were published, Dr. Podell abandoned his
research, walking away from a $1.68 million grant from the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), the sort of funding only one in five
researchers might successfully apply for.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Teitelbaum, S. (2002, Nov. 22) Science. 298:1515.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why did Michael Podell, a promising and successful scientist who
was contributing invaluable knowledge to the fight against AIDS, leave
his career as a research scientist? From the awarding of the grant in
October, 2000, Dr. Podell, his family, and Ohio State University were
subjected to an intense and often violent campaign of harassment.
According to interviews with Dr. Podell,\2\ he received thousands of
harassing emails and a dozen death threats. The university itself was
subjected to repeated acts of vandalism. Ultimately, it was concern for
the safety of his family, who were also being threatened, that played a
large part in convincing Michael Podell to leave. In one threatening
letter they received, a newspaper picture of a United Kingdom scientist
whose car had been bombed by AR extremists was scrawled with the
message ``You're next.''\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Davis, S. (2002, August 1) DVM Newsmagazine.
\3\ Stolberg, SG (2002, July 23) New York Times. P. Al
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadly, this is not an uncommon story: throughout the US and UK,
law-abiding biomedical researchers are being targeted. Although these
groups have sought cover under the fact that no U.S. researcher has
been physically harmed or directly targeted for physical violence, this
is not true in the UK. Human targets of groups like SHAC and ALF in
Europe have been beaten, branded, attacked with caustic substances, and
firebombed.\4\ The roots of the U.S. movement of AR extremism are in
the UK. FASEB feels it is only a matter of time before these domestic
campaigns escalate to the violent intensity of their UK counterparts.
We fear that the NYSE's action will embolden these groups to increase
their violent efforts to halt the use of animals in research.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Bhattacharya, S. (2004, April 22) The New Scientist. Retrieved
2005, Oct. 25 from: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4913
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Research institutions, funded in large part by taxpayer dollars,
are also victims of AR extremism. In the last hearing on this topic
held by this committee, you examined the damage done during the
November, 2004 attack at the University of Iowa, which caused $450,000
worth of damage to laboratories and equipment. Again, this is not an
uncommon story: Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge was
spared the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, but has been attacked multiple
times by ALF,\5\ most recently in April, 2005.\6\ On ALF's website,
where the attack against LSU is triumphantly detailed, there is an
ominous message to researchers, ``Stop now, or be stopped.'' \7\ Money
that could be going towards life-saving medical research is now being
spent on increased security and cleaning up the damage caused by AR
extremists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ McElfresh, A. (2004, Jan. 30) The Reveille (LSU). Retrieved
2005, Oct. 25 from: http://www.lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/
2004/01/30/4019fdcbb1286
\6\ Smallwood, S. (2005, Aug. 5) The Chronicle of Higher Education.
51(48). P. A8.
\7\ Animal Liberation Front. Retrieved 2005, Oct. 25 from: http://
www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Actions-USA/LSU_Rat_Lib_05.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But the monetary damages done to laboratories and research
institutions, (documented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Association of State
Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and the Foundation for Biomedical
Research), do not fully convey the impact of direct actions by ALF and
SHAC. The loss of computer files, lab animals, research notebooks or
microscope slides may not account for a great monetary loss, but could
represent years of work in the life of a scientist or graduate student.
Imagine working long hours on a small stipend, following your heart's
passion through the sometimes frustrating process of bench research for
five years, trying to achieve a doctoral degree, only to have all of
that work eliminated in one night by a group whose public website
describes in great detail exactly how to attack and harm research
laboratories. The human toll of having one's research lab targeted by
AR extremists is described eloquently in a Washington Post editorial
(July 17, 2005) written by Dr. Mark Blumberg, a researcher at the
University of Iowa, which we have attached.
Animal rights extremists have become a serious impediment to the
progress of biomedical research, as well as to the peace of mind of
scientists themselves. FASEB understands that the committee is
addressing the broader topic of eco-terrorism, of which AR extremism is
only one part. However, we urge the committee to carefully examine the
toll of AR extremism on the scientific community and our medical
research enterprise, the results of which are an insidious stifling
effect on the discovery of new cures for diseases. Biomedical
researchers are dedicated to improving the health, well-being and
productivity of all people. They should be allowed to do so in safety
and security. Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony and for
shedding light on this critical issue. FASEB stands ready to assist in
any way possible.
______
[From the Washington Post, Sunday, July 17, 2005]
The Animal Zealotry That Destroyed Our Lab
[By Mark S. Blumberg]
55Iowa City, Iowa.--``Are you lying down?'' my wife asked me over
the phone. It was Sunday, Nov. 14 of last year, and I was just waking
up in my hotel room in Madison, Wis., where I'd gone to visit my sister
and her son for the weekend. My wife's question--especially her urgent
tone--triggered a cascade of sickening thoughts. Soon, I was racing
home to Iowa.
Although the pieces only came together over the next several days,
the bare facts were these: Early that morning, at least five
individuals had illegally entered the research facility at the
University of Iowa where my colleagues and I, all professors of
psychology and neuroscience, work. The intruders broke into offices and
laboratories, dumped acid and other chemicals and destroyed equipment.
They also ``liberated'' the animals--primarily rats and mice--used in
our studies of such basic behavioral and biological processes as
learning, memory, temperature regulation and sleep. One of my graduate
students arrived at work early that morning and discovered, in bold red
spray paint, the slogans that are the hallmark of the Animal Liberation
Front (ALF): ``Science not sadism'' and ``Free the animals.''
With this break-in, my department had become the latest poster
child of the animal rights movement. After years of escalating attacks
on research facilities in the United Kingdom, animal rights and
environmental extremists have turned to North America, which is fast
becoming a breeding ground for their type of violence. But because the
number of individuals affected is still relatively small, most
Americans remain unaware of the seriousness of the threats. As my
experience shows, even among decision-makers, few are taking it
seriously enough.
The care of laboratory animals isn't, as some seem to believe, an
unregulated field. As scientists engaged in government-sponsored
research, we must conform to an exhaustive array of local, state and
federal rules. Nor are we unthinking about these animals' use. As
scientists, we debate it among ourselves and with others, as all
thoughtful individuals do when dealing with issues of life and death.
What happened in Iowa, though, was not a debate; it was an assault.
For us, the break-in set off a chain of events that one might
expect after an attack of such magnitude. Our unassuming buildings at
the edge of campus were cordoned off as local, state and then federal
law enforcement personnel descended. With the closing of these
buildings, the daily lives of hundreds of faculty, staff and students
were disrupted. Experts in the handling of hazardous materials spent
weeks identifying and removing the corrosive chemicals that had been
dumped inside.
The cost of the cleanup, replacement of valuable equipment and
purchasing of new animals totaled in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars. Contrary to initial reports, relatively little data were lost
(in part because the attackers seemed more concerned with smashing
computers than erasing hard drives) although even small losses can have
far-reaching consequences for research.
Instead, it was the human cost that was most devastating. Imagine
the horror of walking into your office at work, as one of my young
colleagues did, to find computers, books and personal effects (such as
ultrasound images of your unborn child) soaked in acid. Then, imagine
having to don a chemical protection suit for several days and sift
through multiple 55-gallon drums filled with acid-soaked papers,
photocopying those that are still readable as they crumble in your
hand.
Unfortunately, the attack on the building is where our story
begins, not ends. For what followed was a series of well-orchestrated
harassments. First came the e-mailing of a communique to the media,
detailing the crime and the rationale for targeting our facility and
the individuals who work there. Each of us was singled out for
derision; I was colorfully described as having a ``famously deranged
mind'' because of my research on the similarities between the high-
pitched squeals of infant rats and the life-sustaining grunts of human
preemies in respiratory distress.
Some of ALF's statements produced the desired chilling effect:
``Let this message be clear to all who victimize the innocent,'' the e-
mail read. ``We're watching. And by axe, drill, or crowbar--we're
coming though your door. Stop or be stopped.'' Later in that document,
the brazen and indiscriminate nature of their threat was revealed when,
after noting ``the established link between violence towards animals
and that towards humans,'' they listed ``as a public safety measure''
our names, our spouse's names, home addresses and phone numbers, as
well as information about our students.
Next came the video. Several days after the communique, local
journalists informed a group of us that a surreptitious delivery had
brought a 50-minute videotape of the crime. Would we be interested in
seeing it? Within an hour, two colleagues and I found ourselves huddled
together in front of a small television set in a local newsroom,
watching in dismay as these individuals--clearly youthful despite being
hidden behind hoods, masks and gloves--paraded through our facility,
smashing delicate instruments with oversize hammers and transferring
rats and mice to plastic cages. It was particularly difficult for me to
watch as my infant rats, along with their mothers, were thrown together
with several other adults, knowing (as these animal ``liberators''
apparently did not) that cannibalism of the young was the likely
outcome. There was no video of that.
In the weeks thereafter, our attackers and their allies kept up
their campaign. There were press conferences by local agitators,
freedom of information requests, midnight phone calls, a well-
publicized visit by a nationally known pro-ALF speaker whose message
was that more attacks were needed. And then came the magazines. They
started as a trickle, but soon my mailbox was deluged with dozens
catering to every taste: Canoe & Kayak, Guns & Ammo, Fit Pregnancy,
Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords. It's simple but ingenious: tear out those
little subscription cards, apply a label, and send it in. No hassle, no
mess. In total, nearly 450 subscriptions were directed at us, 160 to me
alone. Funny? Perhaps, unless you consider how you would respond to
such an onslaught, including the invoices and, ultimately, the credit
agencies that followed.
When we learned that a Senate panel would be addressing the issue
of animal rights extremism in May, we thought that some relief was
imminent. Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-
Defamation League have been keeping an eye on the growing violence.
Critics have pointed out financial donations, overlapping personnel and
supportive public statements that raise questions about a possible
relationship between above-ground groups such as People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) and fringe groups like ALF. We hoped that
such evidence had accumulated to the point that a concerted and
bipartisan effort might finally affect their formidable fundraising
apparatus. We were sadly disappointed.
We were encouraged that the president of our university had been
called as a witness and that our experiences of the past several months
would receive some high-level attention. Unfortunately, the hearing
quickly devolved into a partisan disagreement. Incredibly, the senators
seemed more interested in protecting their favored activist groups from
scrutiny than in determining which groups actually posed significant
threats to the lives and livelihoods of law-abiding citizens. Most
galling were the comments of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New
Jersey, who seemed miffed that his time was being wasted on such fluff.
Incredulous of the testimony provided by the FBI and the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), in which violent
animal rights and environmental extremists were identified as among our
most serious domestic terrorism threats, Lautenberg asked facetiously
who the next target would be: ``Right to Life? Sierra Club?'' Then, he
inexplicably proclaimed himself ``a tree hugger.''
I later made several attempts to contact Lautenberg about his
comments, via fax, phone and e-mail, but never received a response.
I was a victim of a violent crime once before. While on break from
college in the early 1980s, I was sitting in my parents' home in Chevy
Chase reading a book when, suddenly, I looked up and found myself
staring into the barrels of two snub-nosed revolvers. The intruders
tied me up and robbed the house, then left silently. As traumatic as
that event was, its effect on me was fleeting. I was angry, yes, but I
did not feel terrorized. These home invaders clearly did not hate me
for who I was or what I did. They did not issue a communique declaring
that others should attack me. They did not release a video to force me
to relive the indignity of the event. And they did not encourage their
minions to engage in further harassments. Terrorists, no matter what
their cause, seek political change through violence and intimidation.
Is it essential that we label animal rights extremists as terrorists?
Perhaps not, unless such a label helps us--and especially politicians--
to better appreciate the seriousness of the threat and to marshal the
necessary law enforcement resources.
Because the threat is serious. Today, scientists, clinicians and
educators find themselves engaged in a seemingly endless string of
pitched battles: over the teaching of intelligent design in our public
school classrooms, over the availability of stem cells to treat
degenerative diseases, over the rights of severely brain-damaged
individuals to die. If we focus on the conventional politics that drive
these conflicts--right vs. left--we miss the bigger picture.
In fact, what ties all of them together is a common distrust of and
disdain for science, for empirically based medicine, for the value of
evidence and critical analysis, and for progress in a free and open
society. Moreover, and perhaps most alarming, is the adoption by
certain groups of increasingly violent action to achieve their
political aims. Indeed, the mounting acceptance of intimidation and
violence within the anti-abortion movement eerily parallels the
escalating tactics of animal rights extremists. Thus, the ideology and
goals of these groups may align at opposite ends of the political
spectrum, but their tactics have converged. As we know, a number of
abortion doctors have already been killed, and some animal rights
extremists seem to approve of physical violence as a tactic. It's only
a matter of time before someone takes the next step. Whom will
Lautenberg hug then?
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Oct. 25, 2005.
Hon. James M. Inhofe, Chairman,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Russell J. Feingold,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Inhofe and Feingold: Thank you very much for holding
the hearing tomorrow on the terrorist tactics of the animal rights
extremist group SHAC. I attended the May 18 EPW hearing along with my
colleagues from the National Association for Biomedical Research and am
extremely grateful for the attention this matter is getting. My job is
very difficult because, as public information and outreach coordinator
for the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, I would like to be
more open with the public; but there is increasing animal rights
terrorism out there and we don't want to make ourselves more vulnerable
to it.
Our society needs to condemn these terrorists and anyone who
encourages their acts of violence through Internet chat room rhetoric,
recruiting people to the cause who would later break the law, and
harassing, threatening or attacking third party supporters such as
stockholders and their families. SHAC and other animal rights extremist
groups and individuals have been getting away with too much for too
long. The spokespeople for these terrorists say the perpetrators do not
harm people; but I strongly disagree. There are many more ways to harm
a person other than to cause physical injury, as I detailed to you,
Senator Inhofe, in my June 6, 2005, letter after the May hearing.
Yesterday, the police contacted me personally, and told me that my
family and I are now a planned target of animal rights extremists.
Thus, I am now forced to take further security precautions, for reasons
that I have been asked to keep confidential at this time. Please help
us pass the necessary laws in this country to bring tougher
surveillance and penalties upon those who conspire to intimidate and
threaten law-abiding citizens engaged in or financially supporting
life-saving and humane biomedical and veterinary research.
I express my utmost thanks to you and the EPW committee for holding
these hearings and for your continued dedication and support for
protecting the staff, animals and facilities of centers such as the
Primate Center where I work.
In addition, I thank you, Senators Feingold and Inhofe, for your
dedication to maintaining our clean water and air in Wisconsin,
Oklahoma, and the United States. My previous job, for many years, was
in the Bureau of Water Resources Management at the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources. My family is dedicated to preserving wetlands,
storm water runoff ponds and other critical natural zones in the West
Bend area through the Cedar Lakes Conservation Foundation. Thank you
for your great track records on the environment.
Sincerely,
Jordana Lenon.
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Society for Animal Protective Legislation,
Washington, DC, October 25, 2005.
To all Members of Congress: On behalf of the animal welfare
community, we affirm our commitment to non-violent methods to improve
the lives of animals. As Mahatma Ghandi said, ``Non-violence is the
greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the
mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.'' We
support direct action within the confines of the law to promote the
protection of animals, and we strive to operate within a framework of
common ethics.
Our belief is that good animal care is in everyone's interest.
Respecting those with differing opinions, we inform the public about
animal-related causes--and most importantly, we seek to relieve the
avoidable pain and distress suffered by any species.
While our community is diverse, we aim to work together to
accomplish a variety of goals on behalf of the animals. By raising
awareness, we believe we can advance animal welfare standards around
the world. The humane treatment of animals is a key step toward
creating a more peaceful society.
Sincerely,
American Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals.
Animal Care and Welfare/SPCA.
Animal Welfare Institute.
Society for Animal Protective
Legislation.
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