Opinion ID: 1435629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: SHAC Website

Text: SHAC's primary organizing tool is its website, through which members coordinate future protests. It also publishes information about protests that have previously taken place. The website includes a page dedicated to the concept of direct action, which all parties concede is a type of protest that includes the illegal activity in this case. With regard to its position on the use of direct action, SHAC stated the following on its website: We operate within the boundaries of the law, but recognize and support those who choose to operate outside the confines of the legal system. Big business has shown time and time again their lack of concern for ethics, instead focusing their attention on their profit. Often, simply targeting said business proves fruitless. However, as above ground activists have successfully targeted [Huntingdon]'s financial pillars of support, underground activists have too targeted [Huntingdon]'s pocketbooks. Unidentified individuals as well as underground cells of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front have engaged in economic sabotage of [Huntingdon] and their associates. They have also spent their time directly intervening and liberating the animals who are slated to die inside of [Huntingdon]. Animals have been liberated from breeders as well as the laboratories themselves. SHAC does not organize any such actions or have any knowledge of who is doing them or when they will happen, but [SHAC] encourage[s] people to support direct action when it happens and those who may participate in it. (J.A. at 775.) The website often posted the organization's accomplishments, which lauded both legal and illegal protest activity. The illegal activity included, among other things, a break-in at the Huntingdon lab in New Jersey, during which protestors broke windows and liberated 14 beagles, in addition to overturning a worker's car; detonating a stink bomb in the Seattle office of a Huntingdon investor; destroying Bank of New York ATMs, windows, and other property; sinking a yacht owned by the Bank of New York's president; launching repeated paint attacks in the New York offices of a Huntingdon investor; and rescuing dogs and ferrets from a Huntingdon breeder farm. The website also posted anonymous bulletins of successful, but illegal, protest activities. One such bulletin stated Late last night, August 30th, we paid a visit to the home of Rodney Armstead, MD and took out two of his front windows... gave him something to labor over this Labor Day weekend. Rodney serves as an officer and agent of service for Medical Diagnostic Management, Inc., a scummy little company [associated with Huntingdon]. Any ties with [Huntingdon] or its executives will yield only headaches and a mess to clean up. (J.A. at 935.) The name and home address of Dr. Armstead followed. This bulletin was prefaced by SHAC's statement that it was excited to see such an upswing in action against Huntingdon and their cohorts. From the unsolicited direct action to the phone calls, e-mails, faxes and protests. Keep up the good work! Similar bulletins included photographs of extensive vandalism at the homes of people indirectly affiliated with Huntingdon, such as employees of Bank of New York. These bulletins almost always contained a disclaimer that all illegal activity is done by anonymous activists who have no relation with SHAC. (J.A. at 1233.) The SHAC website also posted a piece called the Top 20 Terror Tactics that was originally published by an organization that defends the use of animals in medical research and testing. With its standard disclaimer about SHAC not organizing illegal activity, SHAC re-published the list on its website. Some of the tactics included abusive graffiti, posters, and stickers on houses, cars, and in neighborhoods of targeted individuals; invading offices, damaging property, and stealing documents; chaining gates shut or blocking gates with old cars to trap staff on site; physical assaults against the targeted individuals, as well as their partners, including spraying cleaning fluid into their eyes; smashing windows in houses when the occupants are home; flooding houses with a hose attached to an outside tap inserted through a letterbox or window while the home is unoccupied; vandalizing personal vehicles by gluing locks, slashing tires, and pouring paint on the exterior; smashing personal vehicles with a sledgehammer while the targeted individual is inside; firebombing cars, sheds and garages; bomb threats to instigate evacuations; threatening telephone calls and letters, including threats to injure or kill the targeted individual, as well their children and partners; abusive telephone calls and letters; ordering goods and services in the targeted individual's name and address; and arranging for an undertaker to collect the target's body. Following the list, the SHAC website stated, Now don't go getting any funny ideas! (J.A. at 780.) The website had a series of links dedicated to educating activists on how to evade investigators. These links were entitled, Ears and Eyes Everywhere, Dealing with Interrogation, When an Agent Knocks, and Illegal Activity. In these sections of the website, SHAC advised its protesters to never say anything over the phone, email or in your house or car that you wouldn't want the authorities to hear. If you need to discuss sensitive information, do it in a remote location. Burn anything with sensitive information on it. ... Visit www.pgp.com and download an email encryption program to protect your email conversations. (J.A. at 1512.) PGP stands for pretty good privacy, and that encryption device was generally effective at protecting e-mail conversations from outside monitoring. (J.A. at 3095-99.) PGP is also used to erase data from hard drives. The software was found on eight of the nine computers at SHAC's de facto headquarters where three Defendants also lived. Through its website, SHAC also invited its supporters to engage in electronic civil disobedience against Huntingdon and various companies associated with Huntingdon. Electronic civil disobedience involves a coordinated campaign by a large number of individuals to inundate websites, e-mail servers, and the telephone service of a targeted company. Electronic civil disobedience also includes the use of black faxes, repeatedly faxing a black piece of paper to the same fax machine to exhaust the toner or ink supply. SHAC sponsored monthly electronic civil disobedience campaigns on the first Monday of every month. SHAC reminded its supporters that electronic civil disobedience is illegal, so supporters should only participate if they are like Martin Luther King and are ready to suffer the consequences ... or if [the supporters] want to live to fight another day, do the electronic civil disobedience from a public computer that cannot be traced. ... (J.A. at 835.) Another way that SHAC encouraged the use of electronic civil disobedience was through its Investor of the Week feature, which highlighted a company associated with Huntingdon by publishing the company's contact information. SHAC told its supporters to Take advantage of pay phones! Especially with toll free numbers! [sic] (J.A. at 788.) The website also provided a link to a black fax for their personal use. Alternatively, the website noted that supporters could just use black paper to give your target's fax machine a run for its money ... or ink! ( Id. ) The website explained how a supporter could block his phone number so that it would not appear on the fax or telephone line's caller identification. In addition, the website explained how to prevent the targeted company's servers from blocking e-mails, and provided a link to encryption devices that mask the sender. One specific example of SHAC's coordination of electronic civil disobedience was an e-mail from shacuse@envirolink.org that was disseminated on October 26, 2003. The subject line of the e-mail was Electronic Civil Disobedience, and it advised SHAC supporters that on the following day, SHAC's website would provide a link to the SHAC-Moscow website where electronic civil disobedience will be taking place. The e-mail stated that participation is mandatory, and that by taking part in the coordinated electronic civil disobedience, supporters would help ... halt the ever important web medium for particular companies sponsoring Huntingdon. Participation would also send[] a loud message that no silly injunctions or crooked politicians can derail the campaign to close Huntingdon. (J.A. at 2615.) [4] At trial, the government presented evidence that the cyberattacks against Huntingdon caused the company's computer systems to crash on two separate occasions, resulting in $400,000 in lost business, $50,000 in staffing costs to repair the computer systems and bring them back online, and $15,000 in costs to replace computer equipment.