Last month the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told the Senate that animal rights extremists, along with eco-terrorists, pose one of the most serious and fastest-growing national terrorist threats. Unlike such organizations as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), PETA takes no credit for such actions as torching laboratories. But it does support them both vocally and financially.
?Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes,? Newkirk has said. ?I will be the last person to condemn ALF.? PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich says ?blowing stuff up and smashing windows? is something PETA doesn?t do ?but I do advocate it.?
PETA has donated to the Earth Liberation Front, a certified terrorist group that, according to the FBI, along with the ALF and other ecoterror groups has committed more than 1,200 criminal acts causing more than $110 million in damage. It paid $70,200 to an ALF activist convicted of burning down a University research laboratory. During sentencing, the federal judge implicated Newkirk in the crime.
Individual victims of PETA campaigns have usually been afraid to fight back, lest they draw more attention to the charges against them. But Covance may be setting a new trend.
Its initial reaction to the allegation was anything but denial. Rather, ?If and when we receive these materials, we will immediately review the allegations? it said, and ?thoroughly examine the complaint to determine if there are any credible issues we need to address."
Only after this review did the company file suit against PETA for fraud and conspiring to harm its business. The suit also demands that PETA and its infiltrator hand over the full set of tapes, so we can see what was left on the cutting room floor.
It?s about time that somebody hit back at these fanatics who compare the deaths of broiler chickens to the Holocaust. ?I?m getting a sense that institutions that chose not to sue in the past because didn?t want to draw attention to themselves are really saying now, ?Enough already!?? Trull told me. ?That?s encouraging because bullies only pick on you if you think they won?t fight back.?
Michael Fumento (mfumento - at - pobox.com) is author of BioEvolution: How Biotechnology is Changing Our World, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, and a nationally syndicated columnist with Scripps Howard News Service.