# The Corporate Push to Criminalize Speech

An episode of [Drilled](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1439735906), 29 Aug 2023, 33 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/pdrl.fm/3e5572/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/9a7ab5ee-ce11-48ff-a544-b3ec00ea9b1e/3538c815-acb1-4ac9-a0dc-b3ec00efa832/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f82f371-6316-4ea6-a108-b3ec00ea9b2d

There's a lot of discourse happening about free speech in the context of "cancel culture", but precious little coverage of the global push to criminalize protest, particularly environmental and climate protest. We examine how extractive industries began agitating governments to crack down on protest, what tactics they use, and why they've been effective. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:11] Speaker 1: Now you might think of the Mounties as kind of
[0:13] Speaker 1: like Dudley do, right, They always get their man. They
[0:16] Speaker 1: ride around in the musical ride with their red jackets.
[0:20] Speaker 1: The Mountains make no mistake. They are a vicious colonial militia.
[0:26] Speaker 1: They were formed in order to break the backs of
[0:30] Speaker 1: the indigenous resistance on the prairies, to open up the
[0:32] Speaker 1: land to railways and western expansion by settlers. And they
[0:37] Speaker 1: are still doing that job here on the colonial frontier
[0:40] Speaker 1: in Northern VC, except these days they have helicopters and
[0:44] Speaker 1: attack dogs and all the rest of it.
[0:49] Speaker 2: The response from the authorities, like the police, whenever that
[0:52] Speaker 2: I say protests against oil companies, it's always different from
[0:57] Speaker 2: how they respond to other protests.
[0:59] Speaker 3: After about two hours of a standoff, they just line
[1:03] Speaker 3: up the riot squad and just marched the mean you know,
[1:07] Speaker 3: I remember them performing together. Reminded me a bunch of
[1:10] Speaker 3: that have puffed up turkeys. I went and then went
[1:13] Speaker 3: in and surrounded all these poor kids and started arresting
[1:16] Speaker 3: them and moving on.
[1:18] Speaker 4: So technically the investigation is still on and I can't
[1:23] Speaker 4: plan around it. I can't, and I don't know when
[1:28] Speaker 4: it's going to end, So I don't know how long
[1:31] Speaker 4: it will take.
[1:33] Speaker 5: When the former colonies acquired independence. In the advent of dicolonization,
[1:38] Speaker 5: largely after the Second World War and the advent of
[1:43] Speaker 5: the United Nations, the former imperial powers needed a legal
[1:47] Speaker 5: system to protect the economic interests of their corporations.
[1:53] Speaker 6: When I went to surrender.
[1:55] Speaker 7: To the FBI, I thought it was going to be kind.
[1:58] Speaker 6: Of a straightforward, more of a like a clerical matter.
[2:02] Speaker 8: But I ended up being put into shackles and taken
[2:06] Speaker 8: into custody for a good part of the day without
[2:10] Speaker 8: a lot of explanation of.
[2:12] Speaker 6: What was happening or why that was necessary. That was
[2:17] Speaker 6: Kainda Gata in Canada, Fine Faced Dunamini in Nigeria, David
[2:22] Speaker 6: Shubridge in Australia, Disha Robbie in Bangalore, Marcos, Oriana and Chile,
[2:27] Speaker 6: and Joanna Altman Smith in the US. Across the globe,
[2:31] Speaker 6: people advocating for climate action, whether they're students showing up
[2:35] Speaker 6: protests or lawyers arguing in court, are being retaliated against
[2:41] Speaker 6: by industries and politicians that feel threatened by that advocacy.
[2:48] Speaker 6: I'm Amy Westerwald, and over the next several months we
[2:51] Speaker 6: will be following this trend across borders, looking at everything
[2:55] Speaker 6: from the history of environmental protest and the suppression of it,
[2:59] Speaker 6: to the way think tanks help to push legislation that
[3:02] Speaker 6: criminalizes protests, to tactics used by both corporations and law enforcement,
[3:09] Speaker 6: from infiltrating movements to stripping environmental organizations of their nonprofit
[3:14] Speaker 6: status and labeling protesters domestic terrorists. For land and water
[3:21] Speaker 6: defenders around the world, being labeled a criminal can have
[3:25] Speaker 6: severe personal consequences, from social isolation to post traumatic stress,
[3:31] Speaker 6: to years of incarceration, and, at the extreme end, assassination.
[3:36] Speaker 6: Most serious repercussions fall on populations that are already routinely criminalized,
[3:41] Speaker 6: particularly people of color and indigenous people, especially in places
[3:46] Speaker 6: that have experienced colonialism in its most brutal forms. Criminalization
[3:51] Speaker 6: also impacts the broader climate and environmental movements, draining them
[3:55] Speaker 6: of vital resources and key organizers. Ultimately, our ability to
[4:00] Speaker 6: avoid the worst outcomes of the climate crisis depends on
[4:04] Speaker 6: the success of people organizing to protect the land and water.
[4:09] Speaker 6: To edit this series, we've brought on a reporter who's
[4:11] Speaker 6: been covering this issue longer than most, Alleen Brown. You
[4:15] Speaker 6: might recognize her name from her last gig at the Intercept. Now,
[4:19] Speaker 6: Alleen is an independent investigative reporter, contributing to lots of
[4:23] Speaker 6: different publications and publishing her own newsletter too, called Eco Files.
[4:28] Speaker 6: Working with Allen and with reporters on almost every continent,
[4:32] Speaker 6: we'll be bringing you stories that help to trace the
[4:34] Speaker 6: roots of this trend. We're going to highlight successful fights
[4:37] Speaker 6: against it as well and humanize activists that the media
[4:41] Speaker 6: has helped to vilify and dehumanize for far too long.
[4:46] Speaker 6: You might remember us talking about how this trend has
[4:49] Speaker 6: unfolded in the US in previous episodes, where we've covered
[4:53] Speaker 6: the rollout of so called critical infrastructure laws that increase
[4:57] Speaker 6: both the fines and jail time associated with trespassing near
[5:01] Speaker 6: anything deemed critical infrastructure, which can include anything from a
[5:05] Speaker 6: pipeline to a road. Environmental defenders sometimes use tactics like
[5:11] Speaker 6: non violent direct action or civil disobedience to prevent the
[5:15] Speaker 6: construction and operation of polluting projects that can involve physically
[5:19] Speaker 6: standing in the way of construction equipment or trespassing on
[5:23] Speaker 6: private property. More rarely, some activists physically damage equipment. These
[5:29] Speaker 6: acts cost companies money, and sometimes they lead to arrest
[5:33] Speaker 6: under existing trespass or vandalism laws, but in recent years,
[5:37] Speaker 6: corporations have been pushing for new laws specifically designed to
[5:42] Speaker 6: punish and prevent disruptive environmental protests. These laws add additional
[5:47] Speaker 6: jail time and fines to those already existing trespass and
[5:50] Speaker 6: vandalism laws. The first step towards passing those laws is
[5:55] Speaker 6: defining so called critical infrastructure and making sure that the
[6:00] Speaker 6: definition of critical infrastructure includes harmful projects like new fossil
[6:05] Speaker 6: fuel developments. Framing those projects as critical to the security
[6:10] Speaker 6: of a community or to the country helps to underpin
[6:13] Speaker 6: the efforts to frame opponents of dam's minds, oil pipelines,
[6:18] Speaker 6: or coal plants as criminal threats worthy of harsh laws.
[6:23] Speaker 6: Independent researcher Connor Gibson has been following that trend for
[6:27] Speaker 6: more than five years.
[6:31] Speaker 9: So last time we talked it was I want to say,
[6:35] Speaker 9: late twenty twenty one, early twenty twenty two, and it
[6:39] Speaker 9: sounds like in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three
[6:43] Speaker 9: some more of these fossil fuel backed anti protest bills
[6:47] Speaker 9: have been making their way through state legislatures. So I
[6:51] Speaker 9: want to have you first start with a little bit
[6:52] Speaker 9: of like a lay of the land.
[6:56] Speaker 6: With these new laws that have come into the.
[7:01] Speaker 10: Sure, I think coming out of twenty twenty, I believe
[7:06] Speaker 10: the count was seventeen laws or seventeen states with laws
[7:10] Speaker 10: that upped the penalties for nonviolent acts of protests, usually
[7:17] Speaker 10: extremely targeted at fossil fuel infrastructure protest and protests at
[7:22] Speaker 10: fossil fuel construction sites. And obviously we're talking about the
[7:26] Speaker 10: protests over the Keystone Excel pipeline, the Dakota Access pipeline,
[7:30] Speaker 10: and Bayou Bridge and the Enbridge Line three pipeline. Those
[7:33] Speaker 10: are the main things that the industry had in the
[7:37] Speaker 10: crosshairs when they were devising this strategy to make nonviolent
[7:42] Speaker 10: trespass a very serious felony charge rather than a less
[7:48] Speaker 10: serious misdemeanor, as well as a lot of bills that
[7:51] Speaker 10: target organizations with conspiracy charges and fines if they're affiliated
[7:55] Speaker 10: with these people, in order to broaden that shilling effect.
[7:59] Speaker 10: In twenty twenty two, there was one state that joined
[8:02] Speaker 10: the trend, and that was Alabama. But in twenty twenty three,
[8:06] Speaker 10: now the trend has had a resurgence and two new
[8:12] Speaker 10: states already passed laws this year. The first was Utah
[8:17] Speaker 10: and as of yesterday. A bill that was finalized in
[8:22] Speaker 10: Georgia is now on the governor's desk, and I imagine
[8:26] Speaker 10: that will not be vetoed in the state of Georgia.
[8:29] Speaker 10: So if my count is correct, we now have twenty
[8:33] Speaker 10: states with these kinds of anti protest laws on the books.
[8:38] Speaker 6: That was Gibson bringing me an update in April twenty
[8:41] Speaker 6: twenty three. Four months later, another state joined their ranks,
[8:45] Speaker 6: bringing the total to twenty one states. Those laws began
[8:49] Speaker 6: to proliferate in the wake of the Standing Rock protests,
[8:52] Speaker 6: which began in twenty sixteen and continued into twenty seventeen.
[8:57] Speaker 6: Activists were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was being
[9:01] Speaker 6: built to transport oil from the back in oil fields
[9:03] Speaker 6: in North Dakota to southern Illinois. It posed a threat
[9:07] Speaker 6: to water resources because it was running beneath the Mississippi
[9:11] Speaker 6: River and the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
[9:15] Speaker 11: Criminal book gets your money somewhere else.
[9:19] Speaker 6: In the wake of those protests, fossil fuel lobbyists helped
[9:23] Speaker 6: to write new legislation targeted at criminalizing pipeline protests and
[9:28] Speaker 6: then spread it through the American legislative Exchange Council or ALEC.
[9:32] Speaker 6: ALEC is a nonprofit group that connects state legislators to
[9:36] Speaker 6: industry groups and helps to draft and distribute industry friendly legislation.
[9:42] Speaker 3: Is really because we have seen more and more dangerous
[9:45] Speaker 3: and struct attacks going in progress.
[9:49] Speaker 6: This tape is not the greatest. But that's Derek Morgan,
[9:52] Speaker 6: who is the Senior VP of Public Affairs for the
[9:55] Speaker 6: American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers at the time, a trade
[9:59] Speaker 6: group group representing the interests of refinery and pipeline companies,
[10:03] Speaker 6: speaking at a conference about the critical infrastructure legislation that
[10:07] Speaker 6: his group helped to write. Today, he is the executive
[10:11] Speaker 6: vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think
[10:14] Speaker 6: tank that has also helped to vilify environmental protesters and
[10:18] Speaker 6: fight against climate action. Like others who support these sorts
[10:22] Speaker 6: of laws, Morgan paints things like sabotaging engines and construction
[10:27] Speaker 6: machinery as dangerous. But anti protest legislation is only one
[10:32] Speaker 6: way that governments or industries are trying to suppress environmental protest.
[10:38] Speaker 6: We're going to be back with a global look at
[10:40] Speaker 6: other tactics in just a minute after this quick break.
[10:45] Speaker 6: I MM Welestervelt and this is a new series from
[10:48] Speaker 6: the teams behind Drilled and Damages. The Real free speech
[10:53] Speaker 6: threat stay with US. Labeling protesters as terrorists has proven
[11:11] Speaker 6: to be an effective tactic for decades. It's a term
[11:15] Speaker 6: that has the power to transform someone using nonviolent tactics
[11:19] Speaker 6: to protect their ancestral homeland into a threat deserving the
[11:23] Speaker 6: attention of a nation's highest law enforcement or even military officials.
[11:29] Speaker 6: It also comes with sentencing enhancements that can dramatically increase
[11:33] Speaker 6: the jail time someone serves if convicted. The label often
[11:36] Speaker 6: requires first redefining the term violence to cover harm to
[11:41] Speaker 6: property in the US that was underway by the eighties.
[11:45] Speaker 6: Among the initial targets were Earth First anti logging activists
[11:49] Speaker 6: because they deployed monkey wrenching tactics like sitting in trees
[11:53] Speaker 6: to stop them from being cut down and sabotaging logging equipment.
[11:57] Speaker 6: Here's Jeremy Walker, a professor at the U University of Technology,
[12:01] Speaker 6: Sydney who researches various things related to the obstruction of
[12:05] Speaker 6: climate action.
[12:07] Speaker 12: One of the key activists in California was a woman
[12:11] Speaker 12: called Judy Barry. Judy Barry was very successful in mobilizing
[12:16] Speaker 12: you know protests people to come and actually occupy logging
[12:21] Speaker 12: operations and getting the way. And the problem with Judy
[12:25] Speaker 12: Barry was that she was very good at speaking to
[12:28] Speaker 12: the logging company's employees and the unions, and the classic
[12:32] Speaker 12: tactic that was used against environments, of course, saying, oh,
[12:34] Speaker 12: they just want to take your jobs away. But she
[12:36] Speaker 12: managed to win the forestry unions on side and work
[12:40] Speaker 12: with them towards a kind of you know, proposing a
[12:43] Speaker 12: kind of forestry plan. And then at some point Judy
[12:46] Speaker 12: Barry with a partner, got into their car and a
[12:49] Speaker 12: bomb exploded in their car. And interestingly enough, the local
[12:56] Speaker 12: police were quickly put off the case, and someone came
[13:00] Speaker 12: from the FBI and they charged Judy Barry. They said
[13:05] Speaker 12: that they accused her of carrying a bomb to blow
[13:07] Speaker 12: something up, and that her own bomb had gone off
[13:10] Speaker 12: and disabled her.
[13:12] Speaker 6: Barry spent the next few decades maintaining her innocence, asking
[13:16] Speaker 6: the police to investigate what she and her fellow activist
[13:19] Speaker 6: Gerald Churney said was clearly an assassination attempt, and fighting
[13:24] Speaker 6: to force the FBI to preserve the evidence that proved it.
[13:28] Speaker 6: Barry died in nineteen ninety seven, so she wasn't alive
[13:31] Speaker 6: to see the FBI and Oakland police eventually pay Earth
[13:35] Speaker 6: First four point four million dollars for violating their constitutional rights.
[13:41] Speaker 6: But even when activists get justice, or when the charges
[13:44] Speaker 6: don't stick in the first place, accusations of terrorism can
[13:48] Speaker 6: keep people tied up in court for years and have
[13:51] Speaker 6: a general chilling effect on activism. Painting environmentalists as terrorists
[13:56] Speaker 6: took off again in the US with the Earth Liberation
[13:59] Speaker 6: Front and Animal Liberation Front in the nineteen nineties and
[14:02] Speaker 6: early two thousands. Both groups used vandalism and in some cases,
[14:07] Speaker 6: arson to get their point across. Here's Earth Liberation Front
[14:12] Speaker 6: activist Daniel McGowan explaining it in a twenty eleven Frontline documentary.
[14:19] Speaker 6: You saw the mills.
[14:22] Speaker 3: Are you going into the forest and you stumble upon
[14:24] Speaker 3: a clear cut like it just blew me away.
[14:28] Speaker 6: Just the arrogance of it. I was like, man, this
[14:33] Speaker 6: is butchered.
[14:36] Speaker 11: You know.
[14:36] Speaker 6: It made me think, like, why are we being so gentle?
[14:39] Speaker 12: Why are we so gentle in our activism when this
[14:41] Speaker 12: is what's happening.
[14:42] Speaker 13: You know.
[14:43] Speaker 6: Other LF activists would explain over the years that they
[14:47] Speaker 6: realized that in some cases, burning down a building or
[14:50] Speaker 6: breaking machinery accomplished something that letter writing and other types
[14:54] Speaker 6: of political activism had failed to do for years, shut
[14:58] Speaker 6: down the activity they were trying to protest. By the
[15:02] Speaker 6: time ELF was at its most active, industry groups had
[15:06] Speaker 6: already spent years sharing information on environmental activists and the
[15:10] Speaker 6: movement in general with the FBI and pressuring the agency
[15:14] Speaker 6: to take stronger action against eco sabotage. But it wasn't
[15:18] Speaker 6: until nine to eleven and the launch of a global
[15:21] Speaker 6: war on terrorism that the label of eco terrorists really stuck.
[15:26] Speaker 6: It's a theme that has repeated itself in other places.
[15:29] Speaker 6: When governments cracked down on so called terrorists, environmental defenders
[15:33] Speaker 6: are often netted in the process. The FBI spent decades
[15:38] Speaker 6: hunting down ELF activists. At one point, the Earth Liberation
[15:43] Speaker 6: Front and the Animal Liberation Front were deemed the country's
[15:46] Speaker 6: primary domestic terrorism concern. Activists from those groups were placed
[15:52] Speaker 6: on the FBI's Most Wanted liss right along with Osama
[15:55] Speaker 6: bin Laden. Bin Laden, of course, was wanted in connection
[16:00] Speaker 6: with the September eleventh attacks that killed nearly three thousand people.
[16:04] Speaker 6: By contrast, neither the Earth Liberation Front nor the Animal
[16:08] Speaker 6: Liberation Front ever killed anyone, but the FBI justified chasing
[16:13] Speaker 6: after them by accusing them of a sort of economic
[16:16] Speaker 6: terrorism that kept logging and mining and animal agriculture companies
[16:21] Speaker 6: afraid that they might be the next target, that theirs
[16:24] Speaker 6: might be the next building set ablaze.
[16:31] Speaker 13: Jess's home was rated by the FBI, and then two
[16:34] Speaker 13: years later a federal Grand Jurian dieded Jess on multiple
[16:38] Speaker 13: charges and she was placed on house arrests, and in
[16:42] Speaker 13: her sentencing hearing in twenty twenty one, she received an
[16:45] Speaker 13: eight year prison sentence.
[16:48] Speaker 6: This is Charlotte Grubman, a researcher, abolitionist, and organizer for
[16:53] Speaker 6: the Free Jess Team. Jess is Jessica Resnachek, who's been
[16:57] Speaker 6: in jail for two years now and was laid as
[17:00] Speaker 6: a domestic terrorist for using welding tools to pierce above
[17:04] Speaker 6: ground valves along the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa. Many
[17:09] Speaker 6: of the Ochetti Shakuwan water protectors that launched the fight
[17:12] Speaker 6: to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline also faced harsh sentences
[17:17] Speaker 6: and violent police tactics and bore the trauma of watching
[17:20] Speaker 6: their homeland transformed into a militarized zone. With armored personnel carriers,
[17:25] Speaker 6: attack dogs, helicopters flying above, and an army of police,
[17:30] Speaker 6: National Guard members and ex military private security guards, all
[17:33] Speaker 6: working together to protect the pipeline. But Resnachek was one
[17:37] Speaker 6: of the only pipeline opponents actually convicted for terrorism.
[17:42] Speaker 13: And she was a domestic terrorism enhancement and was ordered
[17:45] Speaker 13: to pay three point two million dollars to Energy Transfer Partners,
[17:49] Speaker 13: which owns the Dakota Access pipeline in restitution.
[17:54] Speaker 6: Another activist who joined Resnachek in the sabotage, Ruby Montoya,
[17:58] Speaker 6: received a similar sentence. However, in the midst of the
[18:01] Speaker 6: grueling prosecution, Montoya flipped her defense, arguing that she'd been
[18:06] Speaker 6: coerced into these actions. It's an often overlooked but common
[18:11] Speaker 6: feature of criminalization. Under pressure from the state, movement members
[18:15] Speaker 6: at times turn against their former collaborators and friends, causing
[18:20] Speaker 6: painful and deeply personal divisions within the movement and particular communities.
[18:27] Speaker 6: The trend of labeling environmental defenders terrorists is only continued
[18:32] Speaker 6: after Standing Rock. This year, forest defenders protesting a police
[18:37] Speaker 6: training facility being built in Atlanta, a facility the activists
[18:41] Speaker 6: called copp City, were charged as domestic terrorists under a
[18:45] Speaker 6: Georgia law that was initially designed to respond to mass killings.
[18:50] Speaker 6: They included nine people whose arrest warrants accused them of
[18:54] Speaker 6: little more than trespassing in the woods where the facility
[18:58] Speaker 6: is scheduled to be built and associating with a group
[19:01] Speaker 6: called Defend the Atlanta Forest to Cobb County. Warrants claim
[19:06] Speaker 6: that the Department of Homeland Security classified Defend the Atlanta
[19:09] Speaker 6: Forest as a domestic violent extremist group. They used that
[19:14] Speaker 6: supposed classification to justify the charges against the activists. However,
[19:20] Speaker 6: DHS has claimed that they did not label Defend the
[19:23] Speaker 6: Atlanta Forests as a violent extremist group. This winter, the
[19:28] Speaker 6: criminalization of the Atlanta activists took a tragic turn.
[19:33] Speaker 7: One activist was killed by police in January, and now
[19:36] Speaker 7: officials are accusing others of being quote domestic terrorists. The
[19:40] Speaker 7: use of that charge is alarming civil liberties and human
[19:43] Speaker 7: rights groups across the country.
[19:46] Speaker 6: Some have argued that framing the forest defenders as terrorists
[19:50] Speaker 6: laid the groundwark for police to kill the forest defender
[19:53] Speaker 6: Manuel Paes di Dan, known as Tortugita. An autopsy showed
[19:58] Speaker 6: they were shot more than fifty d times as part
[20:02] Speaker 6: of a police raid on the Forest Defenders Camp. These
[20:13] Speaker 6: sorts of things are not just happening in the US,
[20:15] Speaker 6: of course.
[20:16] Speaker 8: We get contacted by climate activists all over the world.
[20:21] Speaker 6: This is Betsy Apple, a longtime human rights lawyer and
[20:24] Speaker 6: the executive director of a new nonprofit started solely to
[20:28] Speaker 6: deal with this whole global backlash against environmental advocacy. It's
[20:33] Speaker 6: called the Climate Legal Defense Network.
[20:36] Speaker 8: But right now we're working on providing support legal support
[20:41] Speaker 8: to people in Uganda and Tanzania, in the DRC, Democratic
[20:47] Speaker 8: Republic of the Congo, in Liberia, and a little bit Mozambique,
[20:53] Speaker 8: in Canada, in Brazil, we just hired a new person
[20:58] Speaker 8: to do this work.
[21:00] Speaker 14: In the Philippines.
[21:02] Speaker 8: We've provided some advice in Vietnam, fair amount of work
[21:05] Speaker 8: in Europe as well, in the UK and France, in Poland,
[21:11] Speaker 8: a little bit in Germany. And it's an ever expanding list.
[21:15] Speaker 6: And they're not all people getting arrested at protests applesos.
[21:19] Speaker 6: Both the tactics being used and the people they're targeting
[21:22] Speaker 6: are expanding.
[21:24] Speaker 8: The use of the word activists is perhaps ill advised
[21:28] Speaker 8: because there are lots of people who are advocating on
[21:31] Speaker 8: behalf of the climate and in supportive climate justice and
[21:37] Speaker 8: in supportive just transition to renewable and sustainable energy sources,
[21:42] Speaker 8: who don't even consider themselves to be activists.
[21:45] Speaker 14: So these people range from lawyers to journalists, to scientists,
[21:52] Speaker 14: to moms and dads to kids, to sort of ordinary
[21:57] Speaker 14: citizens all around the world who are afraid of what
[22:03] Speaker 14: we've done to our planet and who feel like they
[22:05] Speaker 14: need to take some sort of action to try to
[22:10] Speaker 14: address climate change.
[22:12] Speaker 6: In fact, in some cases, labeling someone as an activist
[22:15] Speaker 6: is another way to silence or blunt their speech, particularly
[22:20] Speaker 6: when that label is applied to journalists, academics, or lawyers.
[22:24] Speaker 8: There's the sort of obvious stuff, the easy stuff for
[22:27] Speaker 8: people to understand when a protester is out in the streets.
[22:32] Speaker 8: For example, this past May, there were the Total which
[22:38] Speaker 8: is a giant French oil company which is involved in
[22:42] Speaker 8: lots of bad fossil fuel projects which contribute significantly to
[22:47] Speaker 8: climate change. Totel had its annual general meeting in France
[22:52] Speaker 8: in May and lots of people went into the streets
[22:55] Speaker 8: to protest Hotel's actions all over the world, and some
[23:01] Speaker 8: of those people are likely to be prosecuted for criminal
[23:06] Speaker 8: activity for protesting illegally. So that's a kind of clear
[23:09] Speaker 8: and easy example of the ways in which people who
[23:12] Speaker 8: are taking action to support the climate are the subject
[23:17] Speaker 8: of legal process. But then there are the less obvious
[23:21] Speaker 8: experiences that people have of the law. For example, you
[23:25] Speaker 8: have four, actually now five people who were advocating for
[23:33] Speaker 8: renewable energy policy in Vietnam and were arrested for tax
[23:39] Speaker 8: evasion and are in jail and have been criminally convicted
[23:45] Speaker 8: for tax evasion, which seems like it has nothing to
[23:50] Speaker 8: do with the climate, but in fact it's a way
[23:53] Speaker 8: that the Vietnamese government has been able to weaponize the
[23:57] Speaker 8: law against people who whose activities they don't like in
[24:02] Speaker 8: the context of the climate. And then I guess a
[24:05] Speaker 8: third example would be you have a youth activist in
[24:10] Speaker 8: Western Canada and British Columbia who is a.
[24:14] Speaker 14: Citizen of a South.
[24:16] Speaker 8: Asian country, but he's been a student in Western Canada
[24:21] Speaker 8: and he was a real climate leader in trying to
[24:25] Speaker 8: stop the destruction of old growth forests and the expansion
[24:30] Speaker 8: of fossil fuel infrastructure in Canada. He's been arrested multiple times,
[24:35] Speaker 8: and after his most recent arrest, the Canadian government decided
[24:38] Speaker 8: that they were going to deport him back to his
[24:42] Speaker 8: home country, where he indeed may face legal peril there.
[24:48] Speaker 8: So he's actually experiencing not only criminal process, but he's
[24:53] Speaker 8: experiencing immigration problems as a result of his climate activism.
[25:00] Speaker 6: In Central America, human rights defenders have argued that repression
[25:03] Speaker 6: of land and water defenders can start with defamation within
[25:07] Speaker 6: a community, often on social media. Sometimes that defamation is
[25:12] Speaker 6: ceded by outside interests. Once it starts on social media,
[25:16] Speaker 6: it can escalate to inflated criminal charges that force people
[25:20] Speaker 6: to go into hiding, and in some case it culminates
[25:24] Speaker 6: in an assassination made to look like an accident or
[25:28] Speaker 6: everyday crime. In places where the justice system is plagued
[25:32] Speaker 6: by corruption and impunity rules, the assassination may be shrugged
[25:36] Speaker 6: off by the state country by country, case by case.
[25:40] Speaker 6: We've watched over the past few years as governments influenced
[25:44] Speaker 6: by extractive industries cracked down on protests against those industries.
[25:49] Speaker 6: In some places it's been the norm for decades.
[25:53] Speaker 11: There were threats, you know, constant surveillance following people, and
[26:01] Speaker 11: in these struggles, many people were assassinated, many people were wounded,
[26:06] Speaker 11: amongst them my mother, Berta Casseres. She was murdered in
[26:10] Speaker 11: twenty sixteen.
[26:12] Speaker 6: Berta Casseres was fighting against dams and mining projects in
[26:17] Speaker 6: Honduras when she was killed. Although Cassettis's murder in twenty
[26:21] Speaker 6: sixteen was initially framed as just a robbery gone wrong,
[26:25] Speaker 6: in twenty twenty two several executives from the company that
[26:29] Speaker 6: was building the damn Caseis was protesting against were convicted
[26:33] Speaker 6: of organizing her murder and sentenced to thirty to fifty
[26:37] Speaker 6: years in prison. As in Barrie's case and many others,
[26:42] Speaker 6: justice was a long time coming for Cassetis. What happens
[26:46] Speaker 6: in a lot of environmental defenders cases is that irreparable
[26:49] Speaker 6: damage is caused long before any kind of justice is served,
[26:54] Speaker 6: and even when justice does come, damage to the movement
[26:57] Speaker 6: in general, and the chilling effect that these sorts of
[27:00] Speaker 6: actions have on protest and criticism and free speech in
[27:04] Speaker 6: general has set in. In some countries, Fossil fuel and
[27:09] Speaker 6: mining interests are just such a big part of the
[27:11] Speaker 6: economy and have been for so long that some politicians
[27:14] Speaker 6: are more concerned about angering the companies leading those industries
[27:18] Speaker 6: than whatever backlash they may face for stripping citizens of
[27:22] Speaker 6: their rights. This is fine faced nominee talking about how
[27:26] Speaker 6: that plays out in Nigeria.
[27:28] Speaker 2: When there is a protect against oil company because they
[27:30] Speaker 2: have the resources they pay to the security operatives to
[27:34] Speaker 2: go and dislaunch the people that have come to carry
[27:37] Speaker 2: out protests against them, and as a result of that,
[27:41] Speaker 2: you have them abusing the rights of the people in
[27:45] Speaker 2: the process of that.
[27:47] Speaker 6: And here's former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison showing just
[27:51] Speaker 6: how in the pocket of industry some politicians can be.
[27:55] Speaker 15: A new braid of radical activism is on the match
[28:01] Speaker 15: apocalyptic in Town Brooks and I compromise all or nothing,
[28:06] Speaker 15: alternative views not permitted. A dogma the pit cities against
[28:14] Speaker 15: regional Australia, one that cannot resist sneering at wealth creating
[28:20] Speaker 15: and job creating industries.
[28:24] Speaker 6: In France, long thought of as a bastion of rebellion,
[28:28] Speaker 6: a raised fist and solidarity with protest movements everywhere, industrial
[28:33] Speaker 6: agriculture interests have been leaning on the government to deal
[28:37] Speaker 6: with water protector protests.
[28:40] Speaker 16: It was at twelve thirty that we saw the gendame
[28:44] Speaker 16: coming to face the Blue convoy and they were driving
[28:49] Speaker 16: quads with motorcycle helmets on it and weapons, and when
[28:56] Speaker 16: they fully faced, the convoy of the quad's got off
[29:03] Speaker 16: to face the protestors.
[29:06] Speaker 6: As you'll hear in an upcoming episode, the centuries old
[29:09] Speaker 6: standoff between colonizers and indigenous peoples adds another dimension to
[29:13] Speaker 6: this fight.
[29:14] Speaker 17: In most countries, there are certain moments that really stand
[29:17] Speaker 17: out when you see, like there's a sign behind that
[29:20] Speaker 17: says protected wetland that has an Emberge symbol on it,
[29:24] Speaker 17: there's a DNR officer standing in front of it, and
[29:26] Speaker 17: then there's just this like gaping scar that's been placed
[29:30] Speaker 17: into the earth right next to it, clearly destroying that wetland,
[29:35] Speaker 17: you know, and there's the DNR right there and telling
[29:37] Speaker 17: you to step back.
[29:40] Speaker 6: But while the context and particulars may vary from place
[29:43] Speaker 6: to place, there are a lot of commonalities too. Suppression
[29:47] Speaker 6: tactics that just keep popping up almost everywhere that protests
[29:51] Speaker 6: are happening, and.
[29:53] Speaker 11: Surveillance, weaponize litigation and legal strategies, security operates, tax evasion
[30:00] Speaker 11: and being got charged with sedition because it was seen
[30:02] Speaker 11: as a big conspiracy rico.
[30:10] Speaker 6: Hovering above all the tactics and strategies and details is
[30:15] Speaker 6: a global face off. Governments are being asked to choose
[30:19] Speaker 6: between protecting the public, fighting for the common good, or
[30:23] Speaker 6: protecting capital, and so far, by and large, they're choosing
[30:28] Speaker 6: to protect capital and arrest the citizens who threaten it.
[30:37] Speaker 6: Today we released the first two episodes of this series.
[30:40] Speaker 6: Go listen to the other one. It's an interview with
[30:43] Speaker 6: youth climate activist Disha Ravi in Bangalore about her experience
[30:47] Speaker 6: becoming the face of radical activism in India and being
[30:51] Speaker 6: charged with conspiring against the government at just twenty two
[30:55] Speaker 6: years old. One key part of the effort to criminalize
[30:59] Speaker 6: environmental as activism is to dehumanize the activists themselves, to
[31:03] Speaker 6: paint them as fringe radicals living on the edge of society,
[31:08] Speaker 6: threatening us all from the shadows. It's important in that
[31:12] Speaker 6: context to tell the real stories of the very relatable
[31:16] Speaker 6: and often quite inspiring humans who are devoting their time
[31:20] Speaker 6: and energy, and in many cases putting their lives on
[31:23] Speaker 6: the line to protect the future of the next generation.
[31:27] Speaker 6: We've got a lot of stories for you in this series.
[31:31] Speaker 6: Come back next week for more. The Real Free Speech
[31:36] Speaker 6: Threat is a cross border reporting project from our newly
[31:39] Speaker 6: expanded drilled global team. Our senior editor for the series
[31:44] Speaker 6: is Alan Brown. Sarah Entry is our senior producer and editor.
[31:49] Speaker 6: Martin Saltz Ustwick is our sound designer. He also composed
[31:53] Speaker 6: original music for this episode. Peter Duff is our audio engineer.
[31:59] Speaker 6: Jeff Dembicky the Anna Kujual Mazzini, Lindall Rollins, and Marlow
[32:03] Speaker 6: Starling contributed reporting to this episode. Our fact checker is
[32:08] Speaker 6: wu dan Yan. Our first Amendment attorney is James Wheaton.
[32:13] Speaker 6: Matt Fleming created the series artwork. You can check out
[32:16] Speaker 6: more reporting for this series and corresponding print stories at
[32:20] Speaker 6: drilled dot Media. If you'd like to support our work,
[32:24] Speaker 6: please leave us a rating or review. You can also
[32:28] Speaker 6: sign up for our weekly newsletter and upgrade to a
[32:32] Speaker 6: paid newsletter or a podcast subscription to fund more reporting
[32:37] Speaker 6: and get access to ad free and early episodes, as
[32:40] Speaker 6: well as bonus content. Thanks for listening, and we'll see
[32:44] Speaker 6: you next week.

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