501derful.org
In what was clearly glossed over in our current war on terrorism, the FBI has recently said that eco-terrorism — acts of violence in protest of harm to animals or to the environment — is the United States’ No. 1 terrorism threat from inside its own borders. Not sure how many of the Bio-Tech companies we want to work with use animals in their experiments, but it’s something we should we aware of as an orginization.
The FBI estimates that domestic eco-terrorism has caused $110 million in property damage since 1976. Gary Perlstein, a professor of criminal justice at Portland State University, points out that the figure excludes lost research, increased security costs, lost productivity and abandoned grants. About 1,100 criminal acts have been committed in the name of animals or the environment since 1976, the FBI says.
While I wouldn’t dismiss this, it makes me think, “How soon we forget.” In 1995 Tim McVeigh killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City by blowing up the Federal Building. Soon after that we learned that there were militias armed to the teeth in parts of the US with political orientations similar to McVeigh’s. Have they gone away? I doubt it. Has the FBI forgotten about them?