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The Intercept
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Intercept
How the FBI and Big Ag Started Treating Animal Rights Activists as Terrorists
As COVID raged across northern California in March 2020, a pair of farm industry groups were worried about a different threat: animal rights activists. Citing an FBI memo warning that activists trespassing on factory farms could spread a viral bird disease, the groups wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom to argue that their longtime antagonists were more than a nuisance. They were potentially terrorists threatening the entire food chain. 'The safety of our food supply has never been more critical, and we must work together to prevent these clear threats of domestic terrorism from being realized,' the groups wrote. A coalition of transparency and animal rights groups on Monday released that letter, along with a cache of government documents, to highlight the tight links between law enforcement and agriculture industry groups. Activists say those documents show an unseemly relationship between the FBI and Big Ag. The government–industry fearmongering has accelerated with the spread of bird flu enabled by the industry's own practices, they say. The executive director of Property of the People, the nonprofit that obtained the documents via public records requests, said in a statement that the documents paint a damning picture. 'Transparency is not terrorism, and the FBI should not be taking marching orders from industry flacks.' 'Factory farms are a nightmare for animals and public health. Yet, big ag lobbyists and their FBI allies are colluding to conceal this cruelty and rampant disease by shifting blame to the very activists working to alert the public,' Ryan Shapiro said. 'Transparency is not terrorism, and the FBI should not be taking marching orders from industry flacks.' Industry groups did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, the FBI defended its relationship with 'members of the private sector.' 'Our goal is to protect our communities from unlawful activity while at the same time upholding the Constitution,' the agency said in an unsigned statement. 'The FBI focuses on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security. The FBI can never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity.' The dozens of documents trace the industry's relationship with law enforcement agencies over a period stretching from 2015, during James Comey's tenure as FBI director, to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the more recent outbreak of bird flu, also known as avian influenza. Animal rights activists have long said that federal law enforcement seems determined to put them in the same category as Al Qaeda. In the 2000s, a wave of arrests of environmental and animal rights activists — who sometimes took aggressive actions such as burning down slaughterhouses and timber mills — was dubbed 'the Green Scare.' The law enforcement focus on animal rights groups continued well after Osama bin Laden's death, news clippings and documents obtained by Property of the People show. In 2015, a veterinarian with the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate told a trade publication, Dairy Herd Management, that eco-terrorists were a looming threat. 'The domestic threat in some ways is more critical than international,' Stephen Goldsmith said. 'Animal rights and environmental groups have committed more acts of terrorism than Al Qaeda.' Four years later, emails obtained by Property of the People show, Goldsmith met with representatives of a leading farm trade group, the Animal Agriculture Alliance, at a government–industry conference. The meeting happened in April 2019, and within weeks the AAA's president was warning Goldsmith in an email about planned protests by 'by the extremist group Direct Action Everywhere,' a Berkeley-based group that conducts 'open rescues' of animals. Within months, the FBI was touting the threat from animal rights groups in stark terms in an official communication: the intelligence note partially produced by Goldsmith's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. The August 2019 note written with the FBI Sacramento field office said activists were accelerating the spread of Virulent Newcastle disease, a contagious viral disease afflicting poultry and other birds. The note claimed that activists were failing to follow proper biosafety protocols as they targeted different farms, and could spread the disease between farms on their clothes or other inanimate objects. While the note did not point to genetic testing or formal scientific analysis to back up this assertation, it said the FBI offices had 'high confidence' in their assessment. Activists have rejected the idea that they are not following safety protocols, pointing to protests where they have donned full-body disposable suits. The most withering criticism of the FBI note may have come from another law enforcement agency, however. Four months after the FBI document came out, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center rebutted the idea that activists were spreading disease. Those activists, the Bay Area-based fusion center said in the note to local law enforcement, were nonviolent and posed a 'diminishing threat to law enforcement.' Citing the activists' use of safety precautions and U.S. Department of Agriculture research, the fusion center said that 'animal rights activists are probably not responsible' for any of the Virulent Newcastle disease outbreaks. Emails obtained by Property of the People suggest that the FBI regularly shared information with the Animal Agriculture Alliance, as both sought to spotlight the threat of animal rights activists. As new animal disease outbreaks occurred, the activists were regularly cast as potential vectors. The nonprofit trade group, based in Washington, D.C., describes itself as an organization that defends farmers, ranchers, processors, and other businesses along the food supply chain from animal rights activists, on whom it regularly distributes monitoring reports to its members. The industry's concerns grew in 2020, as activists created a nationwide map of farms, dubbed Project Counterglow, that served as reference for locating protest sites. The AAA's president, Hannah Thompson-Weeman, sent out an email to industry leaders hours after the map was published. 'This is obviously extremely troubling for a lot of reasons. We are contacting our FBI and DHS contacts to raise our concerns but we welcome any additional input on anything that can be done,' she said. In multiple emails, Goldsmith, the FBI veterinarian, distributed to other FBI employees emails from the AAA warning about upcoming protests by the activist outfits, including Direct Action Everywhere. Another email from a local government agency in California showed that the AAA sent out a 'confidential' message to members in June 2023 asking them to track and report 'animal rights activity.' The trade group provided members with a direct FBI email address for reporting what it called ARVE: 'animal rights violent extremists.' The AAA was not the only industry group using the FBI as a resource. The March 2020 letter to Newsom casting activists as potential terrorists was penned by the leaders of the California Farm Bureau Federation and Milk Producers Council. Those groups did not respond to requests for comment. As the bird flu outbreak ramped up in 2022 and beyond, the industry's claims that animal rights activists could spread disease were echoed by government officials, emails obtained by Property of the People show. Animal rights activists say the claims by law enforcement and industry groups that activists are spreading disease have had real-world consequences. In California, college student Zoe Rosenberg faces up to 5-and-a-half years in prison for taking part in what movement members describe as an 'open rescue' of four chickens from a Sonoma County farm. 'It's always a shocking thing when nonviolent activists are called terrorists.' Rosenberg, a member of Direct Action Everywhere, has been identified by name in monitoring reports from the Animal Agriculture Alliance. For the past year and a half, she has been on an ankle monitor and intense supervision after prosecutors alleged in a December 2023 court hearing that she was a 'biosecurity risk' because of ongoing bird flu outbreaks. Rosenberg said last week she was taken aback by the similar allegations contained in previously private emails between law enforcement and industry. 'Instead of taking responsibility for what they are doing, they are trying to blame us. Of course, it's always a shocking thing when nonviolent activists are called terrorists or framed as terrorists,' she said. 'It just all feels backwards.'
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrat Rebecca Cooke launches bid to unseat Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin battleground seat
WASHINGTON – Rebecca Cooke is hoping the third time really is the charm. The Eau Claire Democrat will launch another campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden in the state's 3rd Congressional District after losing her previous bid by just under three points this past November. It will be her third consecutive run for the western Wisconsin House seat. 'I think there needs to be a check on this administration's worst instincts, and Derrick Van Orden is somebody that is like a talking head for those folks,' Cooke told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week. 'I think that we need to hold people accountable and really put their feet to the fire.' She plans to formally announce her campaign at a farm in Chippewa Falls on Tuesday morning. The move officially kicks off the 2026 race for Wisconsin's tightest battleground district. Cooke, who fell to Van Orden by about 2.8 points last cycle but ran ahead of the top of her ticket in the process, is the only Democrat to announce a run so far. She first ran for the seat in 2022 but placed second in the Democratic primary that year. Cooke, 37, told the Journal Sentinel this week that she believes key issues like health care costs and women's reproductive rights 'only are going to get exemplified' under the first two years of the Trump administration. She pointed to recent cuts to agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the new administration's tariffs on top trading partners as developments that will significantly impact Wisconsin farmers and businesses. More: Tony Evers slams congressional Republicans for not pushing back on Trump tariffs Last year, Cooke campaigned as a moderate Democrat seeking to take on 'Big Ag' and make health care more accessible. Those issues are still prominent, she said. 'I think there's just a finer point to that, and I know they're not going to get better,' she said of her top campaign issues. 'In fact, they will probably get worse.' Another factor motivating Cooke is her performance this past November. She gained about 9,000 more raw votes in the district than former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the 3rd District to President Donald Trump by 7.4 points, and about 5,000 more votes than Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who lost the region to Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde by about 4 points, though won statewide. Van Orden and Republicans, for their part, have noted Van Orden defeated Cooke in 2024 by a nearly identical margin to his victory over Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff in 2022 — about 11,000 votes — despite a higher turnout last year. A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee this week called Cooke 'a deeply radical and sleazy political activist who remains out-of-touch with Western Wisconsin.' 'Wisconsinites rejected proven loser Rebecca Cooke last year and will do the same in 2026,' said Zach Bannon, the NRCC spokesman. Still, some Democrats have pointed to Cooke's November performance as evidence the district is in play for the party in 2026. Top national Democratic groups like House Majority PAC have signaled they'll continue to focus on the 3rd Congressional District after spending millions more than their Republican counterparts there in 2024. The looming question now is whether other Democrats plan to jump into the race. Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge told the Journal Sentinel this week she is seriously considering a run, but no other Wisconsin Democrat has publicly expressed interest in running for the seat. A source close to Pfaff, who defeated Cooke in the 2022 Democratic primary, told the Journal Sentinel that the Onalaska Democrat initially ruled out another run for the district but has since received encouragement to mount a new campaign from others in the party. Stevens Point state Rep. Katrina Shankland, who lost to Cooke in last year's heated Democratic primary, said she will not run again this cycle. Regardless, Cooke is seen as a front-runner in the race. 'When someone comes off of a strong race and is able to raise a lot of money and get a lot of endorsements, they clearly are in the lead position to run,' said Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, one of Van Orden's loudest detractors who initially supported Shankland last cycle. 'I understand people want to have their strongest candidate forward,' Pocan said. 'I think Becca proved to be a strong candidate.' Cooke raised more than $6.3 million last cycle to Van Orden's $7.6 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports, and she gained the support of members of Congress like the congressional moderate Blue Dog Coalition. A number of top Democrats in both Wisconsin and Washington, including those in leadership positions, encouraged her to consider another run following her loss. This week, Cooke said Democratic unity will be 'critically important' in 2026, noting she spent millions in last year's bitter Democratic primary that saw Cooke and Shankland trade public jabs. She slammed Van Orden for not scheduling in-person town halls to hear from constituents and said getting into the race early 'allows us to check him and to check this administration.' 'It takes time to build a movement,' Cooke said. 'And it's something that we've been doing for some time.' This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Democrat Rebecca Cooke launches bid to unseat Derrick Van Orden
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Riley announces bipartisan agriculture bills
Congressman Josh Riley, D, NY-19, on Thursday announced two new bipartisan initiatives that he will lead in upcoming negotiations on the Farm Bill. According to a news release from his office, Riley's proposals "will direct funding to the rural communities that need it most and ensure the next generation of producers has the support they need to continue Upstate New York's proud agricultural legacy." 'For too long, family farms in small towns all across Upstate New York have been sold out to special interests who spend millions lobbying on behalf of the Big Ag monopolies,' Riley said. 'I'm fighting to change that by supporting the next generation of Upstate farmers with the tools they need to grow our food and strengthen our economy.' The Strengthening Rural Cooperatives and Communities Act reauthorizes and expands funding for rural cooperative development grants, "which are a lifeline for many rural small businesses, farmers, and cooperatives," the release stated. The bill provides local producers in economically distressed communities with technical assistance, training, and capital access. Riley is introducing the bill alongside California Republican David Valadao. Riley's second bill, The Future FARMERS Act, reauthorizes more than $40 million in grants and fellowships for food and agricultural sciences education "to support the next generation of Upstate New York's agricultural leaders," the release stated. Riley is introducing the bill with Iowa Republican Randy Feenstra. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, Riley "is working to protect family farms and ensure local Upstate farmers get their fair share," the release stated. "In just his first two months in office, he has already championed bipartisan efforts to lower costs, strengthen dairy farm resilience, stop price gouging, boost family farms, and stop the spread of avian flu." Riley also recently launched the Upstate Agriculture Advisory Board to provide recommendations and input for his work on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Riley launches Upstate Agriculture Advisory Board
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – Congressman Josh Riley is continuing to support Upstate New York farmers as he forms a committee focused on agricultural success. On Friday, Riley announced the launch of the Upstate Agriculture Advisory Board. The committee, which is made up of farmers, producers, elected officials, and local stakeholders, aims to provide advice, recommendations, and input for Riley's work on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee. There are 18 members on the board including Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo. The committee held its first meeting on February 20 to discuss the needs, priorities, and current economic conditions for growers and producers across Upstate New York. 'For too long, DC politicians have ignored the voices of the hard-working farmers who put food on our tables and drive our economy,' said Riley. 'I'm proud to launch the Upstate Agriculture Advisory Board so our community—not just the Big Ag monopolies—are heard and have a seat at the table.' Congressman Riley is one of just two New Yorkers on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, which writes a Farm Bill every five years. This legislation allocates vital funding for crop insurance, conservation initiatives, rural development, and food assistance programs like SNAP. Riley says that through his Upstate Agricultural Advisory Board, he will ensure that the priorities of Upstate farms are front and center in the FY2025 Farm Bill. Riley launches Upstate Agriculture Advisory Board Rolled-over tractor-trailers, other weather-related accidents in Cortland County Friday Support for Binghamton Firefighter's family continues to pour in Sick of winter? Spring weather predictions released by NOAA Co-owner of Pete's Legacy Diner passes away at age 64 Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. should handpick vaccine scientists, former adviser says
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should recruit scientists who want to seek proof that vaccines cause autism, one of his past advisers said at a POLITICO event Wednesday. Del Bigtree, who was Kennedy's communications director during his presidential campaign and now leads a group promoting Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' movement, dismissed widely replicated studies finding no link to autism because he alleged that they were conducted by scientists who wanted to find that result. 'Get scientists who say, 'I think I can prove vaccines do cause autism,'' he added. 'If they can't pull that off, now you have a true safety profile.' Bigtree's comments were part of a full-throated assault on regulatory agencies he painted as servants of 'Big Ag, Big Food and Big Pharma.' During POLITICO's First 100 Days: Health Care event, Bigtree said the regulatory system Kennedy now leads as secretary of Health and Human Services has long approved 'poisons' produced by industry for public consumption. He urged Kennedy to root out corporate influence at HHS. That would defy long-standing Republican deference to private business. Bigtree said federal agencies should not be funded by industries, suggesting Kennedy's advisers are pushing for major reforms to the current user fee system at the HHS agency that oversees food and drugs, the FDA. 'Finally we have someone at the head of HHS not owned by these corporations,' Bigtree said of Kennedy. 'I think he's looking for the right type of people.' During Kennedy's confirmation hearings, he refused to disavow his past statements drawing the autism link, telling senators he would not take away anyone's vaccines, but would pursue research and 'radical transparency' on vaccine science. Bigtree said Kennedy should review HHS employees' histories to see whether they worked for industry and also vet their views about the causes of chronic disease. Kennedy has said he believes unhealthy food and chemicals in the environment are responsible for increases in such conditions. 'Robert Kennedy Jr. has to sit down with the team and bring people and say, 'What have you done over the last four years,'' he said. 'If they're not producing real results and good science, maybe there's a better job for them somewhere else.' Hiring scientists more skeptical of industry and of existing vaccine science would help restore the public's flagging trust in the government's health care bureaucracy, Bigtree said, adding that he thought Kennedy could safely downsize HHS' 80,000-person staff. The Trump administration, at the behest of Elon Musk and his government efficiency campaign, fired thousands of HHS workers last week. Bigtree said he didn't think Kennedy had provided input into those decisions but suggested there was still more to do. Bigtree, who founded a group that criticizes vaccines, the Informed Consent Action Network, endorsed Kennedy's comments Tuesday to HHS staff that nothing was off limits for review. Though Bigtree isn't part of the administration, he serves as a powerful leader of the MAHA movement. Its broad grassroots base put pressure on senators to confirm Kennedy, jamming Senate phone lines and filling confirmation hearings.
