Between Orwell and McCarthy: The crucifixion of Marie Mason

See http://supportmariemason.org

from supportmariemason.org, 22 April 2009:

by Henry Reed
from Fifth Estate #380, Spring 2009

Fifth Estate contributor Marie Mason was sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison on February 5 in a Lansing, Michigan federal courtroom, after pleading guilty to two acts of eco-sabotage. (See also Summer and Fall 2008 Fifth Estates.) Mason is now serving the longest sentence of any environmental activist in the US; an appeal is currently underway. Her sentence was one of the latest in a string of recent arrests and convictions of environmental and animal liberation activists, which has been dubbed the Green Scare.

Throughout the Green Scare, environmental and animal liberation activists have been charged with inflated sentences (often Life in prison), and have been publicly and legally labeled “terrorists” — though no one has been hurt in their acts of economic sabotage. The term Green Scare is an allusion to the Red Scare of the ’50s, when Communists were persecuted on the basis of new laws targeting them for their beliefs and not their actions, and creating a climate of panic and hysteria in an attempt to intimidate supporters and sympathizers.

A mother of two, Mason lived and worked in the Detroit area for most of her life. Like the late Earth First! (EF!) organizer, Judi Bari, she was part of a generation of radicals who worked to link the environmental and labor movements, and was jointly active in both EF! and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It was this alliance which led to the initial success of the anti-globalization movement such as at the 1999 anti-WTO demonstration in Seattle. Mason was an editor of the Industrial Worker, the IWW newspaper, and a musician who recorded a neo-folk album, Not For Profit, with fellow EF!er Darryl Cherney in 1999. She also worked with numerous political as well as traditional charity groups.

Three Fifth Estate staffers attended her hours-long sentencing hearing, which marked a new and radically severe change in how the federal prosecutors and judges are handling these cases. The outrageous sentence Mason received should initiate a rethinking of the strategies for those resisting the Green Scare, as well as those who advocate economic sabotage as a tactic.

Mason was never offered a full non-cooperating plea agreement by the government, as was the case with many other Green Scare arrestees — allowing them to plea guilty and perform a debriefing about their own actions, without requiring them to implicate other activists. After refusing to cooperate with authorities and name other activists, Mason was eventually offered an 11th hour plea agreement for a sentence in the 15–20 year range. It stipulated only that she confirm statements that her ex-husband, Frank Ambrose, had already made.

Both Mason and Ambrose eventually admitted to committing 14 acts of property destruction together. One of these actions, an attempt to destroy the Nestle-owned Ice Mountain bottled water pumping station, had always been denied by Mason, and activists close to her speculate that she was forced to accept guilt for it in order to accept the plea bargain. (It is a common police tactic to force defendants to accept blame for unsolved crimes in order to close investigations.)

In the preceding years, Mason and Ambrose had been questioned multiple times by authorities, summoned to grand juries, and forced to surrender DNA evidence; at one point authorities attempted to affix a GPS tracking unit to Mason’s car. (See Spring 2008 Fifth Estate.)

In early 2007, however, something happened, and Ambrose became an informant for the FBI. He traveled around the Midwest, spying on activists (including many working in legal groups) and tape-recording their conversations with a concealed wire. He filed for divorce the day that Mason was arrested. While he was on bond, Ambrose circulated emails attempting to entrap even more activists. He was eventually sentenced to nine years in prison (four more than requested by the prosecution), and has offered to give workshops to law enforcement officials about Earth Liberation Front (ELF) organization and security culture. Aren Burthwick and Stephanie Fultz, who were charged with participating in one action with Mason and Ambrose, were also sentenced in February. Burthwick received 14 months, while Fultz was placed on probation for two years and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. Apparently both have also cooperated with authorities...

[rest of the article here]

Bookmark/Search this post with:

delicious | digg | reddit | newsvine | furl | google | yahoo | technorati