COUNTERING THE THREAT,
A Handbook for Environmental Activists

A joint project of the Western States Center
and the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment.

This handbook is intended to provide basic information for environmental activists to counter the threats and intimidation that they often face. Activists are encouraged to contact the resource references for further assistance as needed. Additional copies of this handbook are available from the Western States Center or the Northwest Coalition.

The Western States Center is a nonpartisan research and educational institute based in Portland, Oregon, that monitors key issues and trends in eight Western states: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The Center has studied the anti-environmental lobby as a social and political force since 1992.

The Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment is a coalition of organizations formed in 1987 to address the issues of bigotry and extremism in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.

INTIMIDATION: A SERIOUS PROBLEM

Intimidation of activists is an ongoing problem. Attacks on environmental advocates have come in many forms ranging from violent assaults and arson to threats, telephone harassment, and name-calling. Whatever form it takes, harassment is intended to make you hesitate before taking a public stand, compromise your principles, or quit your activism altogether.

This booklet presents positive ways to deal with and overcome harassment, including what to do when you are a target of harassment, how to increase your personal and organizational safety, legal recourse available, who is doing the harassing, and how to build an effective community response to harassment. The Western States Center, in coordination with religious, civil rights, and environmental organizations, has established a program to counteract harassment. The telephone number to report an incident and request additional information is 503-228-8859.

Harassment may feel very personal, but it is really a political act committed by your opponents in order to silence and intimidate community activists like yourself and your allies. You should not feel guilty or ashamed if you are harassed; instead, talk about it with your friends and colleagues and seek their support. When a community hides in the face of harassment, it gives in to political bullies and leaves its members unprotected. While we might wish harassment would simply go away, the best way to stop it is to organize against it.

HARASSMENT AND INTIMIDATION

What are harassment and intimidation?

The following are real examples of harassment and intimidation:

• A man who was critical of clear-cut logging in his town received a death threat on the phone the day his letter to the editor was published.
• A woman was threatened by a man with a hangman's noose after she testified at a public meeting on local environmental laws.
• A Native American activist reported a series of obscene phone calls and hang-up calls after he was quoted in the paper on the environment.
• A woman had pictures of her home with her address and phone number listed on them posted around town, encouraging people who opposed her stance on environmental issues to "visit" her and her family.
• An environmentalist had the brakes on her car "sabotaged." No one was hurt, although the brakes went out while her daughter was driving on the freeway.
• Women and men have been threatened with job loss or refused jobs because of their advocacy of clean air and water in their communities.

What to do when you are the target of harassment:

• Harassment is often an act of desperation and may indicate that you are being effective. There are many positive ways to respond to this kind of intimidation.
• Take steps to protect yourself and family. Report incidents to the police or county sheriff, and find out your case number for future reference.
• Document harassment through video or audio recordings, photographs, or a written account. Establishing a "paper trail" will be helpful with law enforcement or the press.
• Talk about the incident within your organization and seek its support; it is an organization's responsibility to take care of its members.
• Contact other organizations who are allies in your community to develop a constructive public response such as a signature ad in the local paper, a public rally, or a meeting with law enforcement and elected officials.
• Contact the Western States Center at 503-228-8859 and report the incident.
• Urge local elected officials, clergy, and law enforcement to publicly condemn all forms of political intimidation and harassment.

Ways to protect yourself:

• If threatened in a public place, collect names, phone numbers, or license plate numbers of witnesses the police can contact for testimony.
• If you receive a threatening call on your answering machine, immediately remove the tape and save it. Put a notepad by the telephone and keep a log of harassing or threatening calls. Many locations now have caller ID services available. Contact the telephone company regarding features such as *69 (last-call return) or *57 (call trace).
• If you receive a threatening letter, handle it as little as possible. Put the envelope and each page of the letter in separate see-through plastic bags. Make copies of the letter and ask the police to check the original for fingerprints. If the letter was delivered by U.S. Mail, you may also want to report the incident to your Postmaster.
• Don't waste your time worrying about phone taps, or imagining that strange clicks or hums or other noises indicate a tap. Many taps are virtually impossible to detect.
• Don't include your address in your telephone directory listing. Consider getting an unlisted personal number.

Ways to protect your organization:

• Don't throw internal memos, membership lists, or sensitive information about your organization's finances into the trash. Shred or burn confidential information. Get locking filing cabinets for your office.
• If someone that you do not know calls asking for a lot of information about your work or organization, take their name and number and ask to call them back. Check the phone book to see if the number is legitimate. Do the same if an unknown person calls claiming to be a reporter.
• Check with knowledgeable people in your area about alarm systems, outdoor lighting, surveillance cameras, locks on doors and windows, and other security measures to protect against break-in.
• Lock computers to desks and store back-up computer files in a safe place out of the office such as a safety deposit box, or with another member of your organization. Make sure computers have anti-virus software.
• Collect reliable information about the extremist groups that are operating in your area. Be prepared, not paranoid.

(Information on personal and organizational security provided in part by Sheila O'Donnell, Ace Investigations, PO Box 1633, Pacifica, CA 94044.)

---

LEGAL RECOURSE

Sometimes harassment is a crime. When a crime has been committed, law enforcement is required to step in and investigate the incident. When the perpetrator is caught, it will expose the motive for the harassment, and send a message to others that harassment will not be tolerated.

Examples of criminal acts committed against activists:

• A woman who was repeatedly threatened over the telephone recorded the calls, had the perpetrator charged, and successfully prosecuted for a misdemeanor crime of telephone harassment.
• Two men were charged with assault because they attacked an activist at home after his organization had protested logging operations near their town.
• A man was charged and prosecuted for trespassing when he damaged buildings and property on private land where an environmental conference was convened.

Investigate the laws in your state regarding telephone harassment, criminal trespassing, assault, criminal mischief, battery, and menacing. The law library located at the county court house is open to the public and a clerk may be able to help you to understand the definitions of legal terms and criminal acts.

Know your rights!

If you have been harassed, contact city police or the county sheriff and explain the situation. The county or city attorney will be able to explain if the act is criminal. Knowledge of applicable laws in your state may help persuade law enforcement to pursue your case. In cases where you believe local law enforcement is not taking a prosecutable case seriously, contact state police, the State Attorney General, or your local representatives. Remember, an organized response is more powerful than acting alone! Work with your allies to urge law enforcement to investigate.

Where can you find a lawyer?

Some lawyers will take your case on a contingency basis if you decide to sue a suspected harasser in civil court. Contact the Bar Association or the National Lawyers Guild office in your state and explain your case to them. They may be able to refer you to a lawyer.

---

WHO IS DOING THE HARASSING?

Some harassment comes from individuals affiliated with extremist organizations. The following are cases of harassment committed by members of militias and "wise use" organizations:

• A man collecting signatures for a ballot initiative was threatened with "tar and feathers" by the local militia leader.
• An armed militia member marched back and forth in front of an environmental activist's home.
• Christian Patriots left anti-Semitic and threatening messages on an environmentalist's answering machine.
• Extreme "property rights" proponents warned an environmentalist that if he came to a public meeting again, he should "wear a bulletproof vest."
• A leading member of a "wise use" organization was convicted of telephone harassment for threatening a woman and her family.

Many right-wing extremists believe the U.S. Government and the United Nations are part of a global conspiracy to destroy American democracy. They believe that environmentalists are partners in this conspiracy and therefore target them for harassment. Militias and Christian Patriots have been able to stir up additional anger against environmentalists by blaming them for job loss in rural communities.

Christian Patriots are extremists often associated with white supremacists who want to form a white, Christian nation based on selective and erroneous interpretations of the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. Militias are the paramilitary arm of the Christian Patriot movement. "Wise Use" is a network of anti-environmental and "property rights" groups with ties to extremists, and strong backing from resource and development industries (such as mining, timber, and real estate).

---

BUILDING SUPPORT AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Harassment succeeds when it goes unchecked and those targeted decide to stop their work. Here are steps you can take to build a strong community response and protect community members:

Get the facts about incidents of harassment in your area.
• Discuss the harassment openly within your organization, and seriously address people's fears and concerns.
• Respect the wishes of those who have been harassed, and work with them to develop responses.
• Create a strategy for working with the media. Submit opinion pieces and letters to the editor denouncing harassment as an attempt to silence people and damage our democratic process. Consider running a signature ad in your local paper where all the signatories publicly support democracy. If the paper is not covering incidents of harassment, identify a sympathetic reporter and pitch your story to her or him. You might also want to set up a meeting with your local editorial board.
• Meet with law enforcement. If a crime has been committed, make sure they are investigating and ask them to increase patrols around homes of people targeted or threatened.
• Your organization can take the moral high ground and appeal to the community's sense of fairness and the freedoms guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Organize a public rally with diverse participation that supports free speech and public safety. Gather representatives from clergy, civic organizations such as the League of Woman Voters, the business community, political parties, labor unions, health professionals, and others to publicly denounce the harassment. Call upon all groups and individuals to uphold civility and the principles of democracy. Some of these groups may not necessarily support your views on the environment. They just need to support the idea that your organization has the right to speak out without being threatened, attacked, or otherwise harassed.
• In sensitive cases where a target of harassment does not want publicity due to fear of reprisal, groups can still work quietly with law enforcement and local officials to make sure the case is thoroughly investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted.
• Support the democratic process; we all have the right to free speech and assembly.

When you organize in the community you may also make new contacts who will become long-term allies. For example, an environmental group that worked on cleaning up local rivers called for community support because it was being harassed. At the rallies to denounce harassment, members of the environmental group met leaders of a farm workers organization that was working to diminish the use of pesticides on local farms. After they worked together to stop harassment, these two groups found they had a common interest in promoting alternatives to pesticides for the benefit of the workers and the environment.

Build bridges to other organizations before a crisis develops. Too often people do not see how environmental issues affect them. Think of ways to frame your issues as community concerns. Craft a simple message that will have broad appeal. If you are working on cleaning up rivers, show how this will provide benefits to recreationists as well as families who drink the water in the cities and suburbs. A successful campaign could ally you with anglers, hikers, parents, health care professionals, and businesses that value clean water.

Do not let your organization become isolated from the rest of the community. A diverse network of allies can provide crucial support if harassment becomes a problem. Opponents of environmentalism will attempt to isolate you by organizing resource workers, businesses, hunters, anglers, off-road recreationists, churches, and politicians. It is important to seek out opportunities to work with various groups in your community and engage them in ways that build community support for your work.

---

RESOURCES

For more information on community organizing:

• Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, PO Box 21428, Seattle, WA 98111-3428 206-233-9136 http://www.nwb.net/nwc
• Western Organization of Resource Councils, 2401 Montana Ave., Billings, MT 59101 406-252-9672 http://www.worc.org
• Western States Center, PO Box 40305, Portland, OR 97240 503-228-8866 http://www.westernstatescenter.org

For more information on organized bigotry and extremists:

• Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, PO Box 21428, Seattle, WA 98111-3428 206-233-9136 http://www.nwb.net/nwc
• Coalition for Human Dignity, PO Box 21266, Seattle, WA 98111 206-233-9775
• Montana Human Rights Network, PO Box 1222, Helena, MT 59624 406-442-5506
• Western States Center, PO Box 40305, Portland, OR 97240 503-228-8866 http://www.westernstatescenter.org

For more information on computer safety:

• OneNorthwest, 1601 Second Ave., Suite 605, Seattle, WA 98101 206-448-1008


Computer viruses:
http://www.onenw.org/html/virus.shtml
Online security covering email, email lists, Web sites and passwords:
http://www.onenw.org/html/security final.shtml

---

© 1997 Western States Center/Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment. All rights reserved. Material herein may not be reproduced without permission of Western States Center or the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment.

© 2004, Western States Center
Modified on December 1, 2004