— Published with Permission of FreeRangeReport.com —
“…perpetrating acts of terrorism under the U.S. Patriot Act, including destruction of an energy facility, destruction of hazardous liquid pipeline facility, arson and bombing of government property risking or causing injury or death, arson and bombing of property used in interstate commerce, and depredation of government property; and (xiii) drug-trafficking.”
As a result of organized occupations, vandalism, and violent protests which lasted for months, developers of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) suffered massive financial losses and extensive environmental damage on private lands. Groups and individuals involved with the protests ranged from Hollywood elites, to presidential candidates, to extreme green groups like Greenpeace and Earth First. The protest camps were dismantled only with the onset of the North Dakota winter, and the election of Donald Trump. But even as construction of the pipeline resumed, smaller direct attacks continued.
The environmental damage, mountains of trash and human filth, and abandoned dogs left behind when the protesters abandoned their efforts, as well as ongoing destructive acts of vandalism, have added time and immense costs to the completion of a relatively small section of the pipeline that would transport Bakken crude oil to a storage terminal in Illinois.
Half a year following the large protests, DAPL developers, Energy Transfer Partners, launched a counter-offensive in the courts, and filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace, Earth First, and 20 unnamed individuals they claim are responsible for ‘billions of dollars in damage.’ The lawsuit, filed in District Court in North Dakota, asserts that the named parties participated in acts of Eco-terrorism, extortion, destruction of property, misinformation campaigns, fraud and other forms of criminality. The lawsuit’s preliminary statement reads:
This case involves a network of putative not-for-profits and rogue eco-terrorist groups who employ patterns of criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation to target legitimate companies and industries with fabricated environmental claims and other purported misconduct, inflicting billions of dollars in damage. The network’s pattern of criminal and other misconduct includes (i) defrauding charitable donors and cheating federal and state tax authorities with claims that they are legitimate tax-free charitable organizations; (ii) cyberattacks; (ii) intentional and malicious interference with their targeted victim’s business relationships; and (iv) physical violence, threats of violence and the purposeful destruction of private and federal property. Energy Transfer is the latest legitimate business targeted by this network.
In July of this year, a Canadian timber company filed a similar lawsuit against Greenpeace using the United States’ RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) statute. In that case, Greenpeace is accused of running a protection racket, which means the group used threats of various kinds in coercing the company to meet its demands. Bloomberg Business reported:
In keeping with RICO, the suit holds that Greenpeace has run something like a protection racket by threatening the company’s corporate customers with boycotts if they don’t cut ties with Resolute over these issues. Resolute says it has lost $100 million in revenue because of such threats—the basis of its damages claim. The company also accuses Greenpeace of fraudulently inducing “many millions of dollars” in donations from “regular working-class people who have been duped” into believing their money prevents forest loss, climate change, and caribou suffering.
The Energy Transfer lawsuit makes a similar claim of extortion by Greenpeace and other ‘eco-terrorist organizations.’ It states:
Over several decades, certain once legitimate not-for-profit groups have been corrupted by money raised from individuals and a network of foundations and special interests willing to “contribute” to advance their own political or business agendas. More recently, many smaller, more violent eco-terrorist organizations and radicalized individuals have begun exploiting the same lucrative business model using the proliferation of web-based fundraising tools to make money, much of which is diverted for personal gain and not used to further any environmental cause.
3. In its simplest form, this model has two components: (1) manufacturing a media spectacle based upon phony but emotionally charged hot-button issues, sensational lies, and intentionally incited physical violence, property destruction, and other criminal conduct; and (2) relentlessly publicizing these sensational lies, manufactured conflict and conflagration, and misrepresented “causes” to generate funding from individual donors, foundations, and corporate sponsors. These putative “environmental” groups accept grants and other consideration from foundations and special business interests who use the groups’ environmental mantle to advance their own ulterior agendas.
But the DAPL lawsuit takes the argument further, using the 2002 Patriot Act as a basis for applying a legal definition of ‘terrorism’ to the radical greens’ activities. Violations of the Patriot Act are cited 9 times in the lawsuit, and they include:
- The Enterprise, through Earth First! and Red Warrior Camp, knowingly funded, controlled, directed, and incited acts of terrorism in violation of the U.S. Patriot Act, including attempted and actual destruction of an energy facility and arson on government property and aimed at interstate commerce…
- …violating or otherwise funding, directing, controlling, and intentionally inciting acts of terrorism that violate the U.S. Patriot Act, including damaging or attempting to damage an energy facility and committing arson on federal property and on private property used for interstate commerce…
- …radical eco-terrorist organizations, incited, activated, and funded by the Enterprise’s disinformation campaign, hijacked (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe) SRST’s peaceful protest and engaged in a campaign of trespass, violence, arson, and property destruction — including on federal land — in violation of the Patriot Act…
- …perpetrating acts of terrorism under the U.S. Patriot Act, including destruction of an energy facility, destruction of hazardous liquid pipeline facility, arson and bombing of government property risking or causing injury or death, arson and bombing of property used in interstate commerce, and depredation of government property; and (xiii) drug-trafficking.
- The Enterprise directly incited and perpetrated acts of terrorism in violation of the U.S. Patriot Act, including (i) attempted and actual destruction of the pipeline; (ii) arson of property used in interstate commerce, including the pipeline, construction equipment, and private and public property; (iii) arson and bombing of federal property including during attacks on law enforcement; and (iv) damaging federal property, including by burning federal lands and leaving 835 dumpsters of trash and debris at protest camps.
- …fund acts of terrorism under the U.S. Patriot Act as alleged in this Complaint, including but not limited to the use of illicit funds from fraudulently induced donations to fund destruction of the pipeline and arson on construction equipment that caused delays in construction, harm and destruction to construction equipment and the pipeline…
- …the perpetration of acts of terrorism under the U.S. Patriot Act, including destruction of an energy facility, destruction of hazardous liquid pipeline facility, arson and bombing of government property risking or causing injury or death, arson and bombing of property used in interstate commerce, and depredation of government property;
For decades, various green groups enjoyed a certain public image as harmless do-gooders, and instances of Eco-terrorism were relatively infrequent. In recent years, however, having been glamorized by a fawning enviro-media complex, and emboldened by the Obama presidency, radical greens’ acts of aggression and eco-terrorism have risen to an unprecedented level. But as Greenpeace and its ilk have caused enormous financial, property and public relations damage to resource-based companies, the job creators have chosen to fight back.
Even with a reluctant and molasses-slow Congress, the Trump Administration is purging cabinet agencies of ideological radicals and globalist, one-world devotees. Most importantly, the Energy Transfer lawsuit seem to indicate that the Patriot Act is being used less as a surveillance tool to track law-abiding citizens, than it is a legal tool with which to prosecute real-life terrorists.
