"Anna" Goes to Elle

More awesomeness, this time from the pages of Elle: 'The Believers', by Andrea Todd (May 2008). Todd's article profiles "Anna", an FBI informant whose testimony -- along with two other accused turned co-operating witnesses, Zachary Jenson and Lauren Weiner -- has proven crucial to convicting Eric McDavid on September 27 last year of "conspiracy to destroy property by means of fire or explosives". Eric -- who's scheduled to be sentenced on May 8, 2008, and faces up to 20 years in jail -- is one of a number of victims of the US Government's Green Scare campaign against the radical environmental movement in the United States, and in particular the 'Earth Liberation Front', which the FBI has deemed to be a terrorist grouping, and Public Domestic Terrorist Enemy #1 (see John Vidal, 'The green scare', The Guardian, April 3, 2008) on account of the fact that individuals and small groups acting in its name have caused millions of dollars damage to a number of environmentally-damaging projects over the last decade or so.

Naturally, there's been 3/4 of 2/3 of fuck-all in the Australian media about the Green Scare, but a scan of Todd's article is available at veganxjen's livejournal and as a PDF at Worcester Indymedia. You can also read an analysis of Anna's case on Portland IndyMedia: What the Elle? When corporate media tackles anarchism, the FBI, informants, and the ELF (April 23, 2008): "Perhaps Andrea Todd deserves a little credit. She was, after all, attempting to write an article about someone who lies for a living. Getting true, accurate information from such a source can be difficult at best, impossible at worst."

See also : Nicky Hager, 'Private investigators still digging on West Coast', Sunday Star Times, April 20, 2008, regarding attempts by a Kiwi energy corporation to spy on local activists opposed to their destruction of Happy Valley.