U.S.: Activists videotaping animal abuse may be tried as terrorists

   Law enforcement officials are fond of finding new uses for anti-terror laws. For some time the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI has suggested that activists carrying out undercover operations on farms to reveal animal abuse should be tried as terrorists.
  The act under which activists could be charged was originally called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. Note that it was the enterprises not the animals being protected! Now the act is called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. The penalties associated with conviction under the act are much more severe than for crimes that activists have sometimes committed such as trespass and theft (of animals).
    An example of  the activism involved is exhibited in the actions of  the Group Gourment Cruelty. The group went to a fois gras farm and videotaped how the ducks were overfed and also took a few ducks. The group said these were acts of Civil Disobedience protesting the cruelty to the ducks. The leader of the group did not object to the trespassing charges taking them as a reasonable price to pay for his civil disobedience. However, he considers it outrageous to classify any such act as terrorism.  However, that seems to be exactly what some law enforcement officials and the law want to call it. For much more see this article