PerspectiveDHS Listed Climate Activist Group as “Extremists” Alongside Mass Killers
A group of environmental activists engaged in civil disobedience targeting the oil industry have been listed in internal Department of Homeland Security documents as “extremists” and some of its members listed alongside white nationalists and mass killers. Those listed are five members of Climate Direct Action who formed what has been dubbed the Valve Turners, after closing the valves on pipelines in four states carrying crude oil from Canada’s tar sands on 11 October 2016. It was described as the largest coordinated action of its kind and for a few hours the oil stopped flowing.
A group of environmental activists engaged in civil disobedience targeting the oil industry have been listed in internal Department of Homeland Security documents as “extremists” and some of its members listed alongside white nationalists and mass killers, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.
The documents were obtained through a FOIA request by the pro-transparency organization Property of the People (the organization’s motto: “The records of government are the property of the people. It’s time we reclaim them.”)
Adam Federman writes in the Guardian that five members of Climate Direct Action formed what has been dubbed the Valve Turners, after closing the valves on pipelines in four states carrying crude oil from Canada’s tar sands on 11 October 2016. It was described as the largest coordinated action of its kind and for a few hours the oil stopped flowing.
Federman writes that members of the Valve Turners were
profiled in the New York Times magazine and featured in a recent documentary titled The Reluctant Radical. Their trials have also tested the willingness of courts to allow climate activists to make use of the necessity defense – the idea that a criminal action is justified if it helps to prevent greater future harm – as part of a legal strategy.
But the group’s actions attracted the attention of the DHS.
In a recent intelligence bulletin evaluating domestic terrorism threats between 2018 and 2020, the department included the Valve Turners and described the group as “suspected environmental rights extremists”.
The document also listed two of the group’s members alongside violent white supremacists and other extremists who have engaged in mass killings, including the man behind the racist 2015 slaying of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
The document obtained by the not-for-profit Property of the People through a Foia request defines domestic terrorism as “any act of violence that is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources” and that is intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government body.
The DHS document notes that there has been an uptick in “sabotage attacks” conducted by anarchist extremists, environmental rights, and animal rights extremists against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 at the height of the pipeline protest. The Water Protector Legal Collective, a legal support organization, says that nearly 800 activists have been tried on a variety of North Dakota state charges, in relation to the pipeline protests.
