Not quite two weeks ago, a group of protesters locked themselves to the entrance of Devon Towers in Oklahoma City, while a few others unfurled a Hunger Games inspired banner inside. They were protesting Devon Energy's participation in the Keystone pipeline project. There are really two stories here: 1) how this local television station covered the story by focusing on the protesters and pretty much ignoring why and whom they were protesting; and 2) using anti-terrorist laws to intimidate would be environmental protesters.
TV Coverage Ignores Reason For The Protest
Tulsa's Channel 9 report focused on the protesters. The target, other than Devon Towers, is never mentioned. The closest they come to explaining the reason for the protest was the term "anti-fracking protesters" and giving the names of the organizations sponsoring the protest: "Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance and Cross Timbers Earth First."
The reporter, Lisa Monahan, says,
"although they had nothing to say to authorities, the protestors had plenty to say about their agenda."
What was that "plenty to say about their agenda"?
"I don't know if I was scared, but I was angry."
That's it. That's all there is. Nothing about the agenda. Zilch. Was the agenda in the original piece and cut by the station editors? We don't know. It sure makes reporter Monahan look bad.
Channel 9 concludes the report with the list of charges that included:
"Biological attack by throwing an agent or substance"
According to one of the protesters, Eric Whelan,
"the black substance was simply glitter, it was just to make good pictures and video and to make it pretty."
The Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance website tells us the glitter fell from the banner and gives us more explanation about the protesters' target and agenda:
"Devon Energy is a key player in the deadly tar sands industry. And though Devon Energy has been touted as practicing the safest and greenest form of tar sands extraction, the form of extraction that Devon practices, steam assisted gravity drainage, emits 2.5x the greenhouse emissions as open mining according to the Pembina Institute. Additionally, since 80% of tar sands reserves lie too deep within the earth to mine, this type of extraction will utilize 30x more land area than open mining.
“I’m opposed to the industry’s blatant disregard for human wellbeing in the pursuit of profit,” said Cory Mathis of Austin, TX—one of the activists locked down inside Devon. “These industries poison countless communities, often deceive and coerce folks into signing contracts, and when that doesn’t work, they use eminent domain to steal the land. Texas and Oklahoma have long been considered sacrifice zones for the oil and gas industry, and people have for the most part learned to roll over and accept the sicknesses and health issues that come with the temporary and unsustainable boost in employment.”
TransCanada Teaching Police And FBI How To Use Terrorism Laws To Prosecute Protesters
Vice.com puts this into a larger context of TransCanada training police and FBI on how to use anti-terrorism laws to prosecute environmental protestors.
"When they got to jail, they found out they were being charged with a "terrorism hoax," a state felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Their attorney, Doug Parr, has been involved in dozens of protest cases like this one in Oklahoma and Texas. In other arrests, protesters have faced trumped-up charges, but this is a radical escalation. "I've been practicing law since the 1970s. Quite frankly, I've been expecting this," Parr said. "Based upon the historical work I've been involved in, I know that when popular movements that confront the power structure start gaining traction, the government ups the tactics they employ in order to disrupt and take down those movements."
TransCanada has been putting pressure on law enforcement to do exactly that. In documents obtained by Bold Nebraska, the company was shown briefing police and the FBI onhow to prosecute anti-pipeline protesters as terrorists.
In Ohio, the Athens County Emergency Management Agency recently held a training drill that involved a fake anti-fracking group. The scenario was meant to prepare emergency first responders for a terrorist attack. Focusing the training on non-violent environmentalists caused such an uproar that the county had to issue a public apology.
The above two screenshots from KWTV show two of the protesters being interviewed.
These two protesters look terribly normal (if you're white and middle class) and non-threatening. But here is another set of pictures that Channel 9 says were the four who were arrested. It takes these clean cut white kids (yeah, we're profiling here) and makes them look a lot edgier. I'm not sure if this image was from the television station or from the police. In either case, it's problematic.
Both the shoddy coverage of the protest - focusing on the protesters and not giving any reason for the protest (other than 'anti-fracking' protesters) or the actual target - AND charging the protesters using anti-terrorism laws both trivializes those laws and paints the protesters as terrorists in the public eye.
And it contradicts law makers' assurances that anti-terrorism laws won't be abused. At least here, unlike with NSA data gathering, we don't need a whistle-blower to risk his future, to find out about the misuse.
[Original version posted at What Do I Know?]