Civil Liberties: The Line Dividing Environmental Protest and Ecoterrorists

With worldwide environmental degradation, environmental groups around the globe are seeking to exercise freely their right to protest and redress national and regional governments as well as multinational corporations. However, given the recent increase in terrorist activities, many countries are now seeking to create specific policies in an attempt to combat terrorism. For these policies to be effective, a transnational working definition of terrorism is needed to ensure which acts are clearly defined as terrorism and which are not. However, problems arise because many countries have become wary of any political opposition to the government, even a peaceful protest. Moreover, the definitions of terrorism are ambiguous and often do not accurately reflect the many different components of terrorism. This ambiguity has led to various interpretations of terrorism, which subsequently has led to a strain on civil liberties, most notably the ability to address one's government without being labeled a terrorist. This same ambiguity in definition has caused many environmental groups to be labeled as hostile by authorities and even by the terrorists themselves.

Competing socially constructed definitions of the concept of terrorism can render it useless or charge it with multiple social and political meanings. The current literature on environmental terrorism and eco-terrorism defines these terms through a variety of perspectives. These include legal definitions interpreted by international governments and those defined within a historical context.¹ Attempts to discern what does or does not constitute environmental terrorism by assigning acts to a distinct category have been undertaken. D. M. Schwartz seeks to do this by devising a scheme that distinguishes which types of environmental damage can be labeled "terrorism" and which "environmental terrorism."² In Schwartz's scheme, the main concerns are whether or not the destruction breaches national or international interests during times of war or peace, the specific type of destruction, and the definition of terrorism by the group acted upon.³ This type of classification system allows the person or group making such a determination to categorize specific activities by general type, such as deliberate or accidental in times of war and peace, but it ultimately recognizes that any labeling will depend on the definition of terrorism.⁴ In the absense of universal definitions, countries adopted their own in a rush after 9/11, resulting in a blurring of the line between acts of terrorism and acts of protest. Since no official policy exists, an opportunity arises to develop an effective international counterterrorism policy that does not sacrifice individual civil liberties. Although the term "environmental terrorism" focuses on risk to natural resources—that is, valuable resource areas such as bodies of water, agricultural areas, forest sites, mineral and petroleum resources, and ecologically diverse areas—the concept of environmental security has been overused to the point of dilution.⁵

Defining the Terms

When introduced during the French Revolution, "terrorism" had a positive connotation in common usage. In fact, some argued that terror was good and served a functional purpose for the state.⁶ Maximilien Robespierre stated that "terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe and inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue."⁷ However, world leaders of the twenty-first century do not view terror as a virtue, but rather a collective assault against the state, which it (the state) must summon all of its resources to defeat.

It has been suggested that Colin Powell's declaration that America is "at war" against terrorism, a struggle which by its nature should involve patient secrecy and covert intelligence, positions terrorists in a win-win situation if they succeed in provoking an armed response while positioning the United States in the unenviable role of "trying to eradicate cancer cells with a blowtorch."⁸

Terrorism, as with other concepts of perception, is defined by individuals and governments with differing points of view; the rhetoric of war (as noted in the above quote) only adds to the confusion and limits the options available for [End...