Communications

SHAC 6 Sentenced
Improved Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act Passes Senate

SHAC 6 Sentenced

Six members of Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC) convicted earlier this year for their roles in a campaign of intimidation against Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) have been sentenced to prison. Their convictions were the first under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. HLS is a New Jersey company that conducts FDA mandated safety tests on animals. SHAC is an informal alliance of activists who have sought to shut down the company because it conducts animal testing.

Judge Anne E. Thomas handed down sentences ranging from six years in prison for its leader, Kevin Kjonaas, to one year in prison for Darius Fullmer, who researched targets. SHAC itself was served a judgment for $1,000,001 in restitution. However, because SHAC is considered defunct, the six defendants will be required to pay the fine.
SHAC orchestrated its campaign against HLS via a website, which asserted that part of SHAC’s mission was to “operate outside the confines of the legal system.” The site listed personal information about HLS employees ranging from their names, addresses and phone numbers to the churches they attend, and the names and schools of their children. Posted along side this information were “Top 20 Terror Tactics,” anonymous boasts of illegal activity, and the exhortation “Go Get Them.”

This incited followers to make thousands of threatening phone calls, faxes and e-mails; overturn cars; hold demonstrations outside employees’ homes at all hours of the day and night; and spray-paint homes and driveways with abusive language and obscenities. One employee’s child was so traumatized by these kinds of actions that he crouched behind his front door with a kitchen knife and promised to protect his mother from “the animal people.” According to the US District Attorney, the website also encouraged “firebombing cars and bomb hoaxes; and … threats to kill or injure someone’s partner or children.”

The defendants claim they were exercising free speech. U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said “There is nothing legitimate about inciting violence and intimidation against innocent people.”

Improved Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act Passes Senate
Late in evening on its last day before adjourning to campaign, the Senate approved the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) by unanimous consent. It is hoped that the House will to take up the bill when Congress returns for a lame duck session following the November election. S. 3880, co-sponsored by Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was a revised version of Inhofe’s earlier legislation, S. 1926. S. 3880 included language clarifying that the bill was not intended “to prohibit any expressive conduct … protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

Drafted with the advice of Department of Justice and FBI experts, the AETA would provide protections to those who work with animals by addressing the new tactics of animal extremists. Some extremists had adapted their strategy to exploit loopholes in existing laws by focusing their efforts not on primary targets such as animal research facilities, but rather on secondary targets such as researchers, other employees and their families, or tertiary targets such as companies that are customers or suppliers. The recent attempted firebombing of a UCLA researcher’s home demonstrates the extremes to which some activists are willing to go, and why this legislation is needed.

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