In case you haven’t seen it yet, the North Carolina Legislature has ratified a law that makes trespass on a power generating utility property a felony.
This is how effective direct action in the climate movement is becoming.
In the spring Greenpeace organized a coal smokestack occupation of a Progress Energy facility near Asheville, NC. A couple of days later, they occupied the front of Duke Energy’s headquarters in Charlotte. Then in May, they organized a coal train blockade on tracks going into another Progress Energy Facility outside of Charlotte.
This legislation comes on the heels of the Duke-Progress merger and as Greenpeace campaigner Robert Gardner has recently said it is being passed to “further insulate Duke Energy from public protest.”
In Raleigh-Durham, Croatan Earth First! has been building a campaign against the state’s burgeoning fracking industry. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to employ direct action tactics as well.
Writer Will Potter has been talking about these corporate strategies to stop direct action from impacting their bottom line for quite some time. Corporations don’t like us negating their profits and as we become more effective in our work, we’ll see more and more of this criminalization of protest.
In other business sectors, like industrial agriculture, industry with shadowy legislative front groups like the American Legislative Exchange Commission (or ALEC) has introduced state legislation targeting undercover investigations at factory farms. The FBI itself has referred to such undercover investigations as “terrorism.” Climate activist Tim DeChristopher, who derailed a federal land auction to save pristine Utah wilderness, received two years in federal prison and has been denounced as a terrorist on the floor of the Utah Legislature (who passed similar legislation in response to DeChristopher’s actions). The FBI visits Texas climate activists with no criminal record and even after no crimes have been committed based on anonymous complaints from industry.
It’s a little bit ridiculous, but also telling how much we’re scaring them.
And what’s that old saying? “When you outlaw protest, only outlaws will protest.” Well, when you outlaw climate protest, only climate outlaws will protest. Expect more, North Carolina, expect more.
Some questions:
1. How far do such laws impact 1st Amendment rights. I know there are legitimate restrictions on what the public can do on private property, but where is the line? Do private property rights trump the 1st Amendment to the Constitution? Where are the “strict constitutionalists” on this one? Isn’t this big government interfering with the individual rights? Or is this merely an extension of Citizens United where corporations are taking rights away from individuals?
2. Why aren’t right-wing militia groups being prosecuted for threatening national security? Do 2nd Amendment rights then trump 1st Amendment rights (people can threaten the government with guns, but not with words)???
Keep up the good work, North Carolinians!