KEYSTONE COPS VS. ECO-SABOTEURS.

Long Island, NY
1-17-01
via OgNet

Federal investigators on Long Island were already feeling slighted after being thrown out of a local District Attorney's office because of past political and personality conflicts. Then they were forced to subpoena records from the local police in what was supposed to be a joint investigation of a series of recent "eco-sabotage" incidents on Long Island related to the underground Earth Liberation Front.

The escalating personal and institutional power struggle has left the federal and local authorities at war with one another, while the ELF actions have continued unabated, racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs to developers. Needless to say, news of the ongoing inter-agency strife is sure to amuse and reassure the eco-saboteurs and their supporters, who aim to inflict real economic damage on individuals and corporations who take actions that threaten the environment and the remaining undeveloped lands.

The Earth Liberation Front is an underground resistance movement that has cost tens of millions of dollars to developers and other economic targets across the country and abroad since it was named in Leeds, England in the mid 1990's.

ELF been very active on Long Island recently, claiming more than a half-dozen significant acts of eco-sabotage during the past year. ELF operatives on Long Island have chosen to take direct action on the issue of "suburban sprawl," so most of the local cases have involved the night-time burning of new luxury homes and "monkeywrenching" of construction equipment in Suffolk County.

Ironically, news of the schism among the authorities came on the same day that they made their first public move in any of the cases, seizing computer files and other potential evidence from a Long Island teenager suspected in a recent arson case. This incident, which involved the burning of a truck and other construction equipment, was not initially identified as being connected to the ELF(which has usually made a point of clearly identifying itself with graffiti at the time of their actions).

This truck-burning incident was later attributed to the ELF in an anonymous communication to the movement's new website, EarthLiberationFront.Com. It appears that the authorities are identifying it as ELF-related on that basis only, at least until they examine the potential evidence that they seized today. The Long Island teen became a suspect after an anonymous tip to the police by someone claiming knowledge of his involvement in the truck arson.

The new website, EarthLiberationFront.Com, promises to provide a public face for the underground ELF, whose "members" apparently operate in small autonomous groups, with no direct contact among them in order to avoid infiltration or detection. This radically de-centralized structure makes it difficult to verify claims of responsibility -- but more importantly to the saboteurs it has also proven quite adept at thwarting police and prosecutors -- at least so far.

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By Og.

Og has De-Coded and Re-Formatted this information from the mainstream news reports: It is now suitable for use by the Open-Minded.

For more background, here's a mainstream press report on the breakdown in relations between the feds and the local cops in LI ELF investigation situation:

www.newsday.com/news/daily/elf117.htm

Here's a mainstream press report on the teenage kid who under investigation in a possibly ELF-inspired arson on Long Island:

www.newsday.com/news/daily/arso117.htm

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