January 18. 2012
Page 9
My Right as an Animal Rights Activist
in prison, and ordered to pay $1
million in restitution to the lab for
increased security, management
time spent dealing with protests,
and legal fees incurred ob
taining injunctions against
me and other protesters.
Incidentally, I'd been plan
ning to focus on free speech
when I got to law school.
Needless to say, now that I've
finished serving my sentence at
the federal prison in Danbury,
Conn., I'm more than a little
wary of continuing my activism,
as I fear that my speech may
once again be deemed terror
ism.
That's why, as a plaintiff in a
lawsuit filed by the Center for
Constitutional Rights in Massa
chusetts on Dec. 15, I've asked
a federal court to strike down
the Animal Enterprise Terror
ism Act as an unconstitutional
Free speech is
not terrorism
by L auren G azzola
I was three weeks
away from taking the
law school admissions
test in 2004 when I
w as a rre ste d and
charged with domestic terror
ism.
I hadn't hurt anyone or van
dalized any property. In fact, the
indictment didn't allege that I'd
com m itted any independent
crime at all, only that I'd "con
spired" to publish a website that
advocated and reported on pro
test activity against a notorious
animal testing lab in New Jer
sey.
In March 2006, I was con
victed of "animal enterprise ter
rorism," sentenced to 52 months
infringement on free speech.
This law punishes anyone who
causes the loss of property or
profits to a business or institution
that sells animals or animal prod
ucts, or to any business "con
nected to" an animal enterprise.
In short, it recasts as "terror
ism" one of the primary pur
poses of protest and provides
special protection to a particular
class of businesses.
This is no surprise. The Fur
Commission USA, the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association,
United Egg Producers, Pfizer,
G laxoSm ithK line, and other
pharmaceutical companies, all
o f which are protested by animal
rights activists, lobbied heavily
for the Act.
The campaign I was involved
in when I got arrested was enor
mously successful. Dozens of
investors, customers, and ser
vice providers abandoned the
New Jersey lab. It nearly went
out o f business several times,
due in no small part to vigorous
protests around the country.
The speech on our website
was indeed controversial. When
anonymous activists liberated 14
b e a g le s from the lab , we
cheered. When protesters dem
onstrated outside lab em ploy
ees' homes, we applauded.
This is the First Amendment's
strength, not its limit. The First
Amendment doesn't just protect
uncontroversial speech. It pro
tects speech that's unpopular,
contentious, and even shocking.
As the Supreme Court recog
nized more than 60 years ago,
speech may "best serve its high
purpose when it induces a condi
tion of unrest, creates dissatis
faction with conditions as they
are, or even stirs people to an
M H M 0K 4M H Ì
ger.
The animal rights movement
will continue to induce unrest, as
have countless other protest
movements throughout history,
and as the Occupy movement is
doing today. But creating unrest
isn 't terrorism . Unrest is the
growing pain of extending rights,
expanding compassion, and cre
ating a better world.
When the government pro
tects powerful corporate inter
ests from powerful social move
ments, America abandons its
high purposes, and we resign
ourselves to conditions as they
are.
Lauren Gazzola served 40
months in the federal prison in
Danbury, Conn, fo r publish
ing a website that advocated
and reported on protest activ
ity against an animal testing
lab.
■ M R M H n H N M H M M N M
Dr. King’s Voting Rights Legacy under Attack
New barriers to
voting a wake
up call
by
M arc H. M orial
On M onday, Jan.
16, A m eric a c e l
ebrated what would
have been the 83rd
birthday of Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. The day was marked
from coast-to-coast with pa
rades, speeches, and pilgrimages
to the new King Memorial on the
National Mall.
But in the midst of this out
pouring of praise, there is a sin
ister movement afoot to undo
one of Dr. King’s hardest fought
victories, the removal of discrimi
natory barriers to voting and the
passage of the Voting Rights
Act signed into law by President
Lyndon Johnson in 1965.
In Dr. King’s day, billy clubs,
cattle prods and guns kept
African Americans away
from the polls. Today, new
voter restriction laws on the
books or in the works in at
least 34 states could deny
the right to vote to more
than five million Americans this
year.
These laws include new photo
ID requirements, elimination of
early voting, bans on voting by
out-of-state college students, and
rollbacks of voting rights for ex
felons who have paid their debts
to society. Florida has even
eliminated voting on the Sunday
before Election Day which has
traditionally been a day when
flnrtlanit (PbstrDtr
Established 1970
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African-American churches or
ganized “souls to the polls’’ drives
for their congregations.
The mostly Republican pro
ponents of these new laws claim
they are meant to prevent wide
spread fraud, the casting of bal
lots by people who are not le
gally eligible to vote. But both
the Bush and Obama Justice
Departments have looked and
not found significant voter fraud
in American elections.
Let’s be clear, the real reason
behind this spate of new laws is
to suppress the votes of people
likely to support progressive can
d idates and issues, A frican
A m erican s, L atin o s, young
people, the elderly and people
with disabilities. This is uncon
scionable. It is un-American.
And it dishonors the sacrifices
of generations of A m ericans
who have fought and died to
extend the right to vote to every
citizen.
Fortunately, a growing num
ber of Americans are fighting
back. On Dec. 10, the National
U rban L eag u e jo in e d the
NAACP and a coalition of civil
rights groups at a “Stand for
Freedom” march and rally at the
United Nations to protest this
blatant attack on voting rights.
Attorney General Eric Holder
has also expressed concern about
the legality of some of these new
laws. Recently, the Justice De
partment struck down a voter
ID law in South Carolina and
Holder promises to continue to
monitor these attempts and stop
them when they violate the law.
But beating back these ef
forts will require citizen vigilance
and action.
In a recent speech at the LBJ
Library and Museum in Austin,
Texas, Holder urged Americans
to speak out and raise awareness
about what’s at stake. He called
on our political parties to resist the
temptation to suppress certain
votes in the hope of attaining elec
toral su ccess, and urged
policymakers at every level to
reevaluate our election systems,
and to reform them in ways that
encourage, not limit, participation.
We agree. We must not let
the hard-won voting rights se
cured by Dr. King, John Lewis,
LBJ and so many others slip
away.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer o f
the National Urban League.
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