Activists under siege in Indiana

By Steven Higgs

Bloomington, Indiana, Aug. 1— Add Scott Wells’ name to the growing list of Indiana environmental activists to find themselves face to face with government agents. The Monroe County Councilman last week was questioned by the FBI and ATF about last month’s fire at Pedigo Bay, an under-construction housing development for the rich and powerful on the shores of Lake Monroe.

The feds’ interest in Wells was spawned by accusations at this month’s council meeting, made by a radical property-rights activist, that Wells knew the fire was going to occur, knew who was going to commit it, and did nothing to prevent it. But there has been no evidence produced to support the allegation, whatsoever. What’s more, history suggests it’s just the latest effort by wealthy developers and their allies to slow the growing citizen revolt against developer domination of Monroe County’s democratic institutions.

“I’ve been talking about the truth,” Wells said at the Farmers Market on Saturday. “The power of the truth scares the hell out of them. The truth burns ‘em.”

The truth Scott Wells has been pursuing for almost a decade now is the real story behind developer efforts to thwart this community’s clear and unambiguous desire to stop development in the watershed of its only source of drinking water — Lake Monroe.

“That’s my mission,” says Wells, a 47-year-old school teacher who also lives in the watershed, “to protect our water supply.”

Wells’ mission dates to 1993, when he opposed the Gentry East development along Ind. 446. Three years later, in 1996, he won a “Frontline Award” from the Hoosier Environmental Council for spearheading efforts to pass a county ordinance that restricts density and implements slope restrictions on developments in the Lake Monroe and Griffy watersheds.

Throughout these and other fights, Wells earned the nickname “bulldog” for his tenacity and determination. He also received death threats.

“They’ve been trying to silence me all along,” he says. “But they’re not going to do it.”

In 2000, Wells ran for an at-large county council seat and received more votes than any of the six candidates running for three seats. He was then appointed to the Monroe County Plan Commission, where he doggedly pursued environmental violations at Pedigo Bay, a luxury home development on the southern shores of Lake Monroe.

Like practically every major development in this community over the past two decades, engineer Steve Smith’s footprints are all over Pedigo Bay. He owns property adjacent to the development. Even though Smith only owned a minority interest in the development, the mailing address for project developer PB Estates LLC is the Smith Neubecker office. In a May 25 letter to “community leaders,” Smith announced he had assumed majority control.

That announcement came one day after Pedigo Bay received the latest in a series of citations and fines from the county plan department for environmental violations at the development. To date, the county has fined PB Estates more than $40,000. Among the infractions are failures to submit and implement erosion-control plans. Smith is a member of the county drainage board, which is charged with protecting topsoil and public waterways from erosion.

On June 27, an arsonist set fire to one of the homes being built at Pedigo Bay. Smith said the home, with an estimated value of $725,000, was going to be his.

Even before the fire was officially ruled arson, pro-development forces, news stories and editorials in the Herald-Times pointed the finger at Wells in particular and environmentalists in general for “fanning the flames” that led to the fire.

According to a July 11 Herald-Times editorial, a reporter was tipped off just before the July 9 council meeting that “something was going to come out at the meeting that would turn the place on its ear.” County resident Kevin Shiflet then distributed a legal-looking, signed and notarized “affidavit” that, according to the Herald-Times, clearly implied “that Wells knew in advance about the fire and who was going to set it.”

In the document, Shiflet asserts that Wells told him he knew the fire was “going down” and that he’d talked to “deep throats number one, two and three” on the phone about it. Given that the document has absolutely no legal significance whatsoever and is backed up by no substantive evidence, the Herald-Times concluded “the most plausible real purpose of the affidavit was to harm Wells by impugning his credibility and reputation.”

Upon releasing the document, Shiflet asked Wells, “What did you know and when did you know it?” That was followed by calls from right-wing extremists like Franklin Andrew and Leo Hickman for Wells’ resignation from the plan commission. Subsequently, a bumper sticker asking, “What did Scott Wells know and when did he know it?” was surreptitiously stuck on the bumper of Wells’ vehicle.

Within a week of Shiflet’s public accusation, Wells, who adamantly denies the charges, was summarily summoned to an interview with federal agents to answer what effectively amounted to variations on that very theme.

“They’re trying to take me out permanently; they’re trying to silence me,” Wells says, agreeing that the true objective is to ruin his name. “Your reputation is all you have. If you don’t have your reputation, you don’t have anything.”

The attacks on Scott Wells are chilling enough in and of themselves. But when taken in the broader context of the post-9/11 erosion in civil liberties and sensational pre-9/11 media coverage of “eco-terrorism,” they are ominous indeed.

Consider the case of environmentalist John Blair, president of the Evansville-based Valley Watch, a former Pulitzer Prize winning photographer and one of the state’s highest profile environmental leaders for more than a quarter century.

In the post-9/11 rush to squelch Americans’ freedom of assembly and expression, Blair was jailed in February for walking down the street in Evansville carrying a sign to protest Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy policy. Cheney was in Evansville stumping for 8th District Republican Congressman John Hostettler, one of the House’s “Environmental Dirty Dozen,” an obsequious political flack for the fossil-fuel industry.

“Tonight I was arrested for nothing more than exercising my rights as a citizen in what I thought was a free country,” Blair wrote on Feb. 6 in a piece published in CounterPunch. Blair was not part of any formal protest. He was neither belligerent nor confrontational. “It is clear that I was singled out only because I had a sign,” he wrote.

The last image many citizens saw on Evansville television that evening was Blair staring out the window of a squad car as he was being taken to jail. The disorderly conduct charges against him were increased at his arraignment the next day to Resisting Law Enforcement, which carried a maximum sentence of a year in jail. All charges ultimately were dropped.

“They kept me in jail until Cheney was gone, then they let me out,” Blair said in a recent interview. “I don’t know if it was their intention, but it certainly appeared that they just wanted to silence protest.”

While Blair is preparing to sue the city of Evansville for violating his constitutional rights, he readily admits that his recent experience with government authority pales in comparison with that of former Bloomington activist Frank Ambrose. “What they did to Frank, that was appalling,” he said.

Almost a year to the day before Blair’s arrest in Evansville, the FBI and state and local authorities raided Frank Ambrose’s Owen County home, seized his computer and other personal belongings, including family pictures, and charged the former Purdue University swimmer with spiking trees in Yellowwood State Forest.

Ambrose had been the face man for a growing, aggressive, direct-action movement for environmental responsibility in Bloomington and Monroe County. He spoke out at public meetings. He helped organize and lead protests in the city and in the woods. He publicly embarrassed the mayor and other public officials.

Ambrose did all of this at a time when the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility for another arson on a luxury home under construction in the Lake Monroe watershed and the Yellowwood tree spiking. To say law enforcement was under pressure to make an arrest is an understatement of cosmic proportions. In a public discussion in Bloomington seven months before Ambrose’s arrest, an ELF spokesman from Oregon claimed the shadowy group was responsible for more than $30 million in damage nationwide without a single person being caught.

After his arrest, Ambrose was effectively silenced. He dropped out of public view. His political activities ceased. In September 2001, prosecutors announced the charges against him were being dismissed. They offered no explanation for the decision.

Blair, who publicly defended Ambrose on environmental discussion lists and through other venues, doesn’t speculate on why the authorities did what they did. But he’s unequivocal on the ultimate result of their actions.

“Nobody wants the FBI to come knocking on their door,” Blair says. “To come down hard on somebody like they did on him, whether they had any evidence or not, they get their desired results, which is everybody falling in line. They completely chilled protest in Indiana through the treatment they gave him.”

Source: Counterpunch

Two years later, RNC protesters still harassed and prosecuted

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 31— On Aug. 1, two years after Philadelphia’s breach of civil rights during the Republican National Convention (RNC) protests, the city continues to maliciously prosecute those that chose to speak out about societal and political problems like excessive incarceration and a “justice” system that disproportionately affects people of color and the poor. Additionally, the city has used civil suits filed against it to offensively employ tactics of harassment and privacy invasion. This is accomplished in large part by an insurance policy given to the city by RNC ad-hoc host committee Philadelphia 2000, covering them for violence and misconduct.

Despite over 95% of the hundreds of cases stemming from the RNC protests having been thrown out of court, the city of Philadelphia is vigorously prosecuting some of the last and most significant cases. One of the more high profile cases involves then-Police Commissioner John Timoney accusing three young men of violent behavior. Known as the Timoney -3, this case is a clear example of the city’s zeal to over-prosecute. Although many of their charges, including felonies, were thrown out in 2001, the Philadelphia District Attorney (DA) recently won an appeal that reinstated them. The three defendants are due to go to trial on Oct. 9, 2002 in Common Pleas Court. One of the defendants, Camilo Viveiros, is a low-income housing activist working mainly with elderly and disabled tenants.

“The money that has been spent prosecuting frivolous cases including my own,” says Viveiros, “is money being taken from worthy and much-needed community based programs in Philadelphia.”

City takes advantage of insurance policy

The Philadelphia Daily News (PDN) reported on Feb. 15, 2001 that Philadelphia 2000 — headed by David L. Cohen — purchased an insurance policy for the city in order to protect them from various civil rights violations. According to FEC filings, the insurance policy was purchased for $777,411 and was funded in part from a donation by Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. (owners of the Inquirer and the Daily News) to Philadelphia 2000 for over $200,000. The umbrella policy purchased from American International Group (AIG) covers an undisclosed amount of legal fees currently being used by the city in its defense of civil suits. Estimates on fees billed to date are well over $2 million. A policy rider purchased from Lexington Insurance of Boston, MA has liability limits of $3 million covering the city for such things as assault and battery, false arrest, wrongful detention, and malicious prosecution.

“Knowing that they were not liable, the police and city of Philadelphia conspired to suspend the rights of thousands of people during a national political campaign,” claims Danielle Redden of R2K Legal.

City’s law firm racks up
millions in legal fees

One of Philadelphia’s most prestigious law firms, Hangley, Aronchick, Segal & Pudlin, is defending the city against civil suits for rights violations. Due to the firm’s financial and human resources, they have been able to go on the offense despite their defensive position. Subpoenas and depositions used include demands to turn over computer hard drives, e-mail correspondence, as well as membership lists of political organizations. People were questioned about prominent anarchist activists with no connection to the RNC protests. In an especially unusual move, the city’s lawyers deposed legal council for the plaintiffs on the grounds that they co-conspired with their clients to disrupt the RNC. Organizations subpoenaed include the Ruckus Society; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF); Kensington Welfare Rights Union; American Friends Services Committee (Quakers); and the R2K Legal Collective.

Possible puppet warehouse
civil suit settlement
The puppet warehouse civil suit is one of various suits brought against the city in the aftermath of the RNC protests. Of the over seventy people arrested in the preemptive warehouse raid, all had their charges dismissed. Filed on Aug. 1, 2001, the suit involves twenty-four plaintiffs and makes claims of wrongful arrest, lack of due process and other rights violations. PDN reported on July 5, 2002 that, “the city is secretly trying to settle federal civil-rights lawsuits.” According to court records uncovered by PDN, $72,000 is due to be awarded to two local organizations after deducting legal fees. Also reported by PDN is a “strict confidentiality agreement” to keep details of any settlement secret.

“Despite settlement information recently being made public,” says Kris Hermes of R2K Legal, “the city’s desire for secrecy is yet another attempt to control the will of activists and shield any criticism of wrongdoing.”

Source: R2K Legal Collective

Corporate scandals to cost billions, hurt markets worldwide

By Emad Mekay

Washington, DC, Aug. 2 (IPS)— Corporate scandals will cost the United States economy billons of dollars, could delay a stock market recovery by a year and will produce a global loss of trust in the free market, says a new study by a leading economic think tank.

Besides pummeling the stock markets, the accounting frauds at corporate giants Enron, WorldCom and others will have spillover effects throughout the economy, affecting employment, inflation, and foreign investment in the United States, says the study by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

The effects will possibly be felt beyond US borders, it adds.

“Our assumptions about the costs of the scandal suggest that the economic price that we will pay will be fairly large and may last for a prolonged period of time,” write the authors of the report, ‘The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall: An Estimate of the Costs of the Crisis in Corporate Governance.’

A Labor Department report released Friday seems to vindicate the study. It says only 6,000 jobs were created this month, way below the anticipated figure of 60,000.

Earlier this week, figures revealed that the US economy grew at an annual rate of 1.1 percent during April, May and June — much slower than the five-percent growth during the previous three months.

The Brookings report attributes much of the current problems to the two largest bankruptcies in US history: telecommunications giant WorldCom in July and Enron in December 2001.

On Thursday, FBI agents in New York arrested WorldCom’s former chief financial office and its chief controller for their alleged role in the $3.9 billion accounting fraud.

The report says the bankruptcies symbolize a broader crisis in corporate governance and that their impacts on consumption and investment could shave up to $42 billion off the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

A conservative assumption is that “at least half of the drop” in the stock market’s value since March can be attributed to the Enron crisis, and that “roughly 80 percent” of the decline since June 2002 can be attributed to WorldCom and subsequent scandals.

“Several months down the road, Enron symbolizes the opening of a deep and dark Pandora’s box, the end of which seems nowhere in sight,” the report says.

Consumption will be dampened by the so-called “wealth effect” — feeling poorer, consumers will spend less, which discourages investment and employment. Anticipation of less consumer spending will also cause firms to slow investment.

The report also says that revelations of subsequent accounting scandals, including Xerox, and Bristol Myers-Squibb, will start sending negative signals to other parts of the world about the free market economy.

“Until recently, US accounting and other corporate management standards served as a ‘gold standard’ for many developing economies, and our stock market as the ‘best of breed’ example of a developed equity market,” it says. “Yet in recent months, the turn to the market has also met increasing public frustration in these countries.”

Wall Street also appeared unreceptive to last month’s buoyant speeches by President George W. Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and the Senate’s unanimous approval of a bill to reform accounting and corporate governance.

“Part of the problem stems from the public perception that the scandal is situated at the center rather than the periphery of the system,” says the report. “It hinges on companies misreporting their earnings, skewing the price-earnings ratio, a measure which is at the core of most decisions investors make about where and when to invest.”

Almost 50 percent of US households own some form of stock, says the report.

The broad-based Wilshire 5000 Index, which tries to capture all publicly traded US companies, shows that the market lost seven trillion dollars from its peak on Mar. 24, 2000 to July 18, 2002.

The report says without action to correct the problems, investors and consumers may not respond to words of comfort from officials and executives.

“In short, investors want more than words. They want earnings figures they can trust, as well as evidence that those figures are on their way up,” it says.

The authors say that investors are likely to take a “wait and see” attitude. Based on past stock price downturns, that period is likely to be at least a year, and “perhaps substantially longer than that.”

“Recognition of these costs should give impetus to new reforms in accounting and corporate governance, reforms which in turn can restore a sense of security in our stock market so that the costs are short-lived,” concludes the study.

NATION BRIEFS

Iowa town illegally approved Wal-Mart
The new Wal-Mart Supercenter in Decorah, Iowa is scheduled to open Oct. 16. Opponents of the 184,000-square- foot store hope it never does.

On July 31, the Iowa Court of Appeals decided the Decorah City Council illegally allowed Wal-Mart to build the large store on a flood plain.

Wal-Mart filled the area with dirt to prevent flooding, but critics complain that the runoff will flood the northeast Iowa community and surrounding farmland.

The appeals court reversed a district court ruling that supported the city’s actions that allowed the store’s construction. The higher court sent the case back to the district court to be worked out, saying the city overstepped its authority. Wal-Mart says it has 30 days to appeal and ask the Iowa Supreme Court to hear the case.

Wal-Mart could be forced to raze all or part of the multimillion-dollar store, a Wal-Mart spokesperson acknowledged.

Other remedies could include seeking a special-use permit or paying a fine to allow the store to remain open, according to the Decorah City Attorney.

The citizens opposing the retailer feel the appropriate action would be for the building to come down, according to their attorney. (Des Moines Register)

‘Attempted’ crimes bill
under attack by lawyers, police
Defense attorneys and police, often at odds on criminal justice matters, have a surprisingly unified message for Congress: back off a plan to create thousands of new crimes.

The House voted last week to make any attempt to break a federal law a punishable act. The proposal, approved with little notice in Washington, could cause headaches around the country, say lawyers and law enforcement officers, including the Fraternal Order of Police.

The bill was passed against a backdrop of high-profile prosecutions in terrorism and corporate scandals.

Supporters contend it modernizes the law and will add to prosecutors’ arsenal.

US citizens can already be punished in most states for attempted crimes, like attempted murder. And they can be penalized under some federal crime laws even when they don’t complete the deed.

The House plan, which has come under heavy criticism, would create a broad category of “attempted” federal crimes. Critics say it creates a hazy type of crime, open to interpretation by prosecutors and juries. “What’s the next step, mind-reading probes?” Marcia G. Shein, a federal criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta, asked. (AP)