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Daniel McGowan - Another "War on Terrorism" Victim
By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 2 of 7 page(s)
McGowan was victimized by "green scare," a term likely first used in 2002, referring to legal and extralegal government actions against animal liberation and environmental activists. The Spirit of Freedom prisoner support network defines it as "tactics the government and (their enforcement agencies use) to attack ELF/ALF (Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front members) and specifically those who publicly support them."
The term also refers to the 2005 arrests, indictments and convictions from the FBI's Operation Backfire (OB) against alleged ELF/ALF activists - charging them with damaging property, conspiracy, arson, and using destructive devices. The FBI included these organizations among their top domestic threats, calling them "eco-terrorists."
The 2001 USA Patriot Act created the federal crime of "domestic terrorism," broadening the definition and applying it to US citizens as well as aliens. It let OB target McGowan on December 7, 2005 when federal agents arrested him at the WomensLaw.org office, then imprison him in the "terror wing" of lower Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC).
On the same day, New York Indymedia reported:
"Federal marshals arrested six environmental activists (today) in a series of coordinated raids in four states in apparent response to a string of arsons in Oregon and Washington attributed to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), including simultaneous attacks in 2001 at the University of Washington's Urban Horticulture Center and the Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon. Daniel McGowan, 31, was arrested in New York City. Authorities also stated that there will be more arrests, with at least one indictment immediately outstanding."
McGowan was held pending his extradition to Eugene, OR for his arraignment. Without evidence, prosecutors alleged he was an ELF member, a group dedicated to saving the earth pro-actively. More recently it abandoned arson as "a dangerous and irrational strategy," and now works "within the system (to) "build consensus and public support (for) a better world and future." Its unofficial motto: "ELF Resistance Forever....Live on....No Evil."
The evening of his arrest, agents raided McGowan's apartment seizing computers, personal photographs, tax records, textbooks, school work, videotapes, DVDs and more. The next day, he appeared in US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, after which he endured a two week odyssey taking him to federal detention facilities in Oklahoma, California and Sheridan, Oregon.
After his January 25, 2006 hearing, he was released on $1.6 million bail, spent the next seven months under house arrest, on November 9 pled guilty to minor charges, then on June 4, 2007 was sentenced (without trial) to seven years in prison - for offenses warranting no more than a fine and suspended sentence.
Charges in "United States of America v. Daniel Gerard McGowan" and Twelve Other Defendants
After initially being charged on December 19, 2005, a superseding May 18, 2006 indictment (against him and 12 others) accused them of "willfully and knowingly conspir(ing) and agree(ing) to commit the following offenses against the United States:"
Count 1
-- "On or about January 2, 2001, at Glendale, Douglas County, Oregon," four of the defendants, including McGowan, "unlawfully and willfully caused and aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, and procured the malicious damaging and destroying, by means of fire and an explosive, of a building and other real and personal property used in interstate commerce and used in activities affecting interstate commerce, namely, a building and its contents located at Superior Lumber Company (in) Glendale, Douglas County, Oregon;"
-- these same defendants "traveled in separate vehicles to a predetermined staging area....where they dressed in dark clothing and put on their radio earpieces and masks;"
-- they "traveled to Superior Lumber Company building, set up lookouts, positioned the 'pick-up' vehicle, placed the time-delayed incendiary devices, and returned to the staging area;"
-- there they disposed of their dark clothing; and
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