http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/new...ion/7636503.htm

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Posted on Mon, Jan. 05, 2004



Greenpeace case said to test free speech

BY ANN W. O'NEILL
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - (KRT) - The cargo ship Jade, carrying 70 tons of mahogany harvested from the Brazilian rain forest, lowered a 50-foot ladder over its side about three miles off Miami Beach on the afternoon of April 12, 2002. A harbor pilot climbed on board to steer the 965-foot ship into the Port of Miami.

Two uninvited visitors followed.

Scott Anderson, 28, and Hillary Hosta, 29, expert "climbers" hired by the environmental group Greenpeace, leaped from a pair of Zodiac inflatable boats and clambered up the ladder, toting a banner with the message: "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging."

So began a routine protest resulting in a prosecution that, legal experts say, threatens to chill free speech and profoundly change the rules of peaceful protest.

The ship's radio crackled, "This is Greenpeace. We are conducting a peaceful demonstration alongside your ship. We are protesting cargo from Brazil. We also have personnel on your ship."

Hosta and Anderson were stopped before they could unfurl the banner. By nightfall, six Greenpeace activists were under arrest. Anderson and Hosta, along with four others, spent the weekend at the Federal Detention Center in Miami.

They pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor, an obscure charge of "sailor-mongering," and paid fines ranging from $100 to $500.

Normally, that would have been the end of it, "another day at the office for Greenpeace," said Scott Paul, 38, one of the arrested demonstrators.

It was just the beginning. In July, some 15 months after the arrests, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Greenpeace itself. It was the first time a public interest organization has faced criminal charges over the protest activities of its members, the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council and the American Civil Liberties Union said in court briefs.

In December, Greenpeace asked U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan to dismiss the charges. The case "implicates the fundamental rights of all Americans to engage in peaceful protest," Greenpeace attorney Jane Moscowitz argued in court papers.

Jordan indicated he would rule in early 2004 and, depending on his decision, a trial could follow in May.

For the government, United States of America vs. Greenpeace Inc., is a test case. For Greenpeace and other activist groups, it could be a disaster.

If convicted, Greenpeace could be fined $10,000 and placed on five years' probation, which the group says would chill its activism. By being required to report to a federal probation officer, Greenpeace says it would face unprecedented government scrutiny of its tactics and membership rolls.

A criminal conviction also could cost Greenpeace its tax-exempt status, the group's lawyers argued. They said the government is trying to put Greenpeace out of business.

"They're trying to silence us," said Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace, which has offices in Washington and San Francisco.

Federal prosecutors in Miami say politics played no hand in the case. Greenpeace broke the law, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Elliott argued in court papers. "The heart of Greenpeace's mission is violation of the law," Elliott wrote.

According to the indictment, Greenpeace supplied money and people for the protest. A Greenpeace corporate credit card was used to rent the rafts and small boats used to intercept the Jade.

Greenpeace does not advocate violence, but group members won't hesitate to confront corporations and governments it considers abusers of the environment.

Its supporters have built a pile of coal outside Vice President Cheney's Washington residence, protested near missile bases, issued investigative reports and even inspected Iraqi nuclear facilities.

Greenpeace began in 1971 and now claims more than 250,000 individual supporters. "Perhaps the most iconic image of Greenpeace is activists in small inflatable boats, venturing into the path of large harpoon-firing ships in an effort to save a hunted whale and inspire reforms to protect whales worldwide," Greenpeace lawyers wrote in court papers.

A dozen environmental and civil rights groups have sided with Greenpeace, some filing briefs urging the judge to dismiss the case. In its brief, the ACLU said the criminal case "indicates a sea change" in federal policy, raising "a red flag of suspicion that the government has targeted Greenpeace … for its political speech."

The case also is alarming other defenders of free speech, who think the charges are intended to muzzle critics of the government.

"I consider the Greenpeace case to be one of the most chilling attacks on the First Amendment that we've seen in decades," said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has written about the case.

The Greenpeace prosecution is moving forward at a time when edgy law enforcement officials have zero tolerance for acts of civil disobedience. The city of Miami also is facing criticism and threatened lawsuits over an allegedly heavy-handed police response to protests at November's meetings of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

None of Greenpeace's supporters deny the need to protect ports in a post-Sept. 11 world. But, said John Passacantando, the group's executive director, "This was an entirely peaceful action." He asserted that Attorney General John Ashcroft is "hiding a political agenda" behind national security concerns.

"Ashcroft's attack on Greenpeace fits within the Bush administration's larger agenda, exemplified by the Patriot Act," he said. "The administration is hell-bent on stifling dissent in America, much the way Sen. Joe McCarthy did in the 1950s."

The indictment accuses Greenpeace of promoting the unauthorized boarding of a ship headed to port under an obscure 1872 law prohibiting "sailor mongering."

The law was enacted to keep brothel employees from jumping aboard ships to lure sailors to port with lusty offers of liquor and prostitutes. It has been used just twice - in New York in the 1870s, and in Oregon in the 1890s. Even then, the courts found it awkward and archaic and the law gathered dust in obscurity.

Now, after 113-years, the sailor mongering statute has been revived for a case that pits the Justice Department against the Bush administration's most vocal environmental critic. It was Greenpeace, after all, that staged the first post-inaugural protest at the president's Texas ranch, hoisting a banner on a Crawford water tower with the message, "Bush: The Toxic Texan. Don't Mess with the Earth."

"The administration has always been antagonistic toward Greenpeace and has found a way to crack down on Greenpeace through the guise of national security," law professor Turley said. "You don't see them going after pro-life groups or NRA groups."

Activists are routinely arrested under long-established "rules of engagement" for peaceful civil protest; they expect to be jailed, considering it a "badge of honor," Turley explained. But by filing charges against Greenpeace Inc., federal prosecutors stepped into uncharted territory.

"Until the federal indictment, this episode was a routine example of civil disobedience, essentially a sit-in on the high seas," said Bruce S. Ledewitz, who teaches First Amendment law at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University.

The case sets a bad precedent, Ledewitz said, noting that a conviction against Greenpeace "could be used to go after anyone" who disagrees with the government. The targets, he added, could change with the inevitable swing of the political pendulum.

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© 2003 South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Visit the Sun-Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun-sentinel.com

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.


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© 2004 KRT Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sunherald.com

About damn time!

If I was to board a ship illigally, don't you think I would be prosecuted?

Apperantly free speech is defined differently when you are an environmental extremist. Same thing as with the CBD head whacko, trespassing is considered free speech in their world. It really isn't much of a surprise considering they don't respect private property rights nor think anyone should have them.

Doesn't apply to the envir-nazi-terrorists, the law I mean.

I would have tossed them in the ocean.

Question: If the ship owner/captian had SHOT him could he claim self-defense?
"I thought he was trying to hijack my ship. I had to defend myself!"



The Pastor

We'll the issue isn’t the folk's who jumped on the ship that just simple trespass, and Individually cited.

The big issue is green peace as an organization, and the charge they face as an organization!

Individuals can be arrested and charged for whatever, here the org. is charged for arranging the action, a real border line, and this sword could cut both ways, something to think about

Well, just think about it in a slightly different way...

If the ASA were to organize a group ride in the closure don't you think the ASA would be shut down quick???
(at least that's what they keep saying)

The Pastor

Isn't the charge something along the lines of "soliciting a felony"? Would RICO statutes apply? (an orginized crime group)

No, I understand the issues... but I think they've been skirting the law for far too long. It's time this stuff gets into court and we decide as a society just what we are going to accept from corporations/orginizations.

The Pastor