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Greenpeace Guilty Of 'Sailor Mongering'?

Mighty_Emperor

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Greenpeace fights charges of conspiracy in Miami case


By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES



It's been more than 100 years since the federal government prosecuted anyone for "sailor mongering," the criminal act of luring sailors with promises of prostitution and liquor off of ships and into port.

But that's the charge facing environmental group Greenpeace USA after members boarded a container ship near the Port of Miami without permission to protest illegal shipments of mahogany from the Amazon.

The two members of Greenpeace who actually boarded the vessel last year plus four others pleaded no contest and spent a weekend in jail, but the U.S. Attorney's Office obtained a grand jury indictment against the entire organization in July on conspiracy charges.

The obscure 1872 law forbids the boarding of "any vessel about to arrive at the place of her destination, before her actual arrival" and carries a ,000 fine.

If found guilty, the organization faces "unprecedented supervision" by the federal government of future activities and protests, which frequently target the Bush administration, said Nancy Hwa, Greenpeace spokeswoman. The group's tax-exempt status is also at risk.

At a pretrial hearing today in the U.S. District Court Southern District of Florida, attorneys for Greenpeace will ask that the charge be dropped, arguing it sets a dangerous precedent that threatens the First Amendment right to peaceful protest. A trial is set for January.

"Instead of prosecuting the smugglers, the Justice Department wants to brand Greenpeace a criminal operation," said John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA.

Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International, said Attorney General John Ashcroft should be targeting criminals who trade in the illegal mahogany market.

"Seventy percent of Brazilian mahogany is destined for the U.S. market, most of it illegal," Mr. Leipold said. "This is what Ashcroft should be stopping."

"Greenpeace will resist this overreaching by Mr. Ashcroft's Justice Department," Mr. Passacantando said.

The Justice Department referred comment to Matt Dates in the Florida U.S. Attorney's Office, who did not return phone calls.

On April 12, 2002, the activists boarded the M/V APL Jade with a banner reading "President Bush: Stop illegal logging" but were arrested by the Coast Guard before they could unfurl their message. The activists wanted authorities to search the ship and seize the timber.

In a press conference yesterday, civil liberties and environmental groups sided with Greenpeace and called on the government to dismiss the suit.

"Permitting the selective prosecution of a group like Greenpeace merely because the government disagrees with their point of view would irreparably harm the free-speech rights of all Americans," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way.

"Protecting the right to disagree with the government is what the First Amendment is all about. Indeed, it is profoundly patriotic to engage in peaceful dissent when you think the government is wrong," Mr. Neas said.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031211-105742-9875r.htm
 
Emperor said:
Protecting the right to disagree with the government is what the First Amendment is all about.

Lawyerly misdirection. No-one disputes Greenpeace's right to disagree with the government, nor to express that disagreement in a legal, orderly manner that doesn't violate the rights of others. Therein lies the problem. The ship that was boarded didn't belong to Greenpeace. Greenpeace violated the rights of the owners and operators of the ship.

The fact that the law in question is an obscure one seems rather less important in light of GP's past behaviour. They've long made a practice of skirting just as close to the edge of the law as was possible, and of using any obscure loophole that would benefit them. This time they screwed up. If it's fair for one side to exploit the letter of the law at the expense of tis spirit, then it's fair for both sides.
 
Well if there's going to be one law for everyone, why should the GP guys get prosecuted while the shipers of illegally logged wood get away with it (and make a nice profit)?
 
Greenpeace make a fuss for publicity - and good for them, say I.

I'm having a very nice day dream now about the murdered souls on the spirit of the Rainbow Warrior offering, erm, adult entertainment in exchange for live wood.

(sorry)

Jane.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Well if there's going to be one law for everyone, why should the GP guys get prosecuted while the shipers of illegally logged wood get away with it (and make a nice profit)?

If they actually were smuggling wood (or anything else) then indeed they should be prosecuted. If Greenpeace had information that the law was being broken, then they should have taken that to the proper authorities. When it comes to stuff like investigating and punishing smugglers, boarding ships, etc., I'm a whole lot more comfortable seeing that done by properly constituted government authorities than by self-appointed groups.
 
Emperor said:
an obscure law of 1872 law forbids the boarding of "any vessel about to arrive @ the place of her destination, before her arrival* and carries a k fine"

so us customs can legaly be chaged with this law then?
 
Greenpeace are fab. In these days of apathy and theres-nothing-you-can-do type attitudes, I thank God that someone is prepared to stand up and be counted, and actually do something. And yes, I am a paid-up member.
The US government would very much like to muzzle Greenpeace. They don't like to be reminded of the truth - that our present way of life in the rich West is totally unsustainable and environmentally-destructive.
That said, I guess the root of the problem is that a lot of people are perfectly willing to buy mahogany, knowing the environmental and human cost of it, but thinking that's nothing to do with them.
Joining Greenpeace is a great way to register one's opposition not only to the environmentally-destructive ways of the West, but also more generally the way the West does things, in terms of Third World exploitation, animal exploitation, militarism, arms sales, and the like. I hope more people will join them.

Big Bill Robinson
 
Only one man died aboard the Rainbow Warrior: Fernando Pereira who returned to the ship - against orders - to retrieve his camera gear after the first explosion. He drowned after the second charge detonated.

Here is a link to Greenpeace's own site with an account of the sinking.

It is not specifically stated in the news story whether the ship was carrying the produce of illegal logging.

maximus otter
 
Ashcroft uses obscure 1872 law to prosecute Greenpeace

Bay Area nonprofits and anti-war leaders are fuming about what they see as an attempt by the Justice Department to clamp down on peaceful dissent by filing criminal charges against a group for the nonviolent actions of its followers.

Local activists are closely watching a case winding through the federal courts in Miami. There, a federal prosecutor has dusted off a 19th century law designed to prevent bar owners from luring sailors ashore with booze and prostitutes to file charges against Greenpeace in connection with an April 2002 case in which two activists tried to hang an anti-President Bush banner on a container ship headed into port.

The sign-hangers and four other Greenpeace activists pleaded no contest last year to misdemeanor charges and were sentenced to time served. Now it's their 32-year-old parent organization's turn in court.

If convicted of conspiring to illegally board a ship, Greenpeace could be sentenced to five years' probation and a $10,000 fine, and be required to allow federal probation officers to oversee certain parts of its organization.

While it's not uncommon for individuals to be charged in such cases, activists say this is the first time an advocacy organization has faced criminal penalties for its followers' actions. With 2004 promising to be a huge year of street activism -- from the presidential political conventions to the anti-war movement to the re-energized abortion debate -- advocacy groups from Operation Rescue to the American Civil Liberties Union say the Justice Department is using this tactic to chill criticism of the government.

They're particularly puzzled that prosecutors invoked an 1872 "sailor mongering" law from an era when whorehouse and tavern owners would jump aboard ships illegally to lure sailors onto shore with promises of women and booze. Until the Greenpeace case, the statute had been used only twice, the last time in 1890. A Justice Department spokesman said a trial could begin in May.

"The problem is that the Bush administration is responding to political criticism with criminal prosecution," said David Bookbinder, an attorney with the Sierra Club in San Francisco, one of the progressive heavy hitters to file a court brief in support of Greenpeace. "People are going to be real, real leery about exercising their First Amendment rights."

Federal officials say there was no political motivation behind the decision by U.S. Attorney Marcos Jimenez to prosecute. "Politics plays no part in our prosecutorial decisions," said Matt Dates, special counsel for public affairs for the U.S. attorney's south Florida office. "We base our decisions solely on the facts of the case."

On April 12, 2002, two Greenpeace activists boarded the APL-Jade as it entered the Port of Miami-Dade, believing it was carrying 70 tons of mahogany illegally imported from the Amazon. The activists were arrested before they could unfurl a banner that read, "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging." Greenpeace alleges that the mahogany was eventually delivered to a South Carolina port. Federal officials had no comment.

Fifteen months later, a Miami federal grand jury indicted Greenpeace on one count of illegally boarding the ship and another of conspiracy to commit that act.

What most frightens activists on both sides of the political spectrum are the penalties that could be invoked, ranging from stripping the organization of its tax-exempt status to allowing federal officials to view its records -- including everything from membership rolls to internal communications.

"It's always a concern when there's a concerted effort by the government to curb peaceful political protest," said Troy Newman, president of the anti- abortion group Operation Rescue West, which has not filed a friend of the court brief. "Greenpeace and Operation Rescue may not be on the same page philosophically, but we use some of the same tactics. . . . I plan on following Howard Dean or whoever the Democratic (presidential) nominee is around the country (in a truck featuring photos of aborted fetuses), and I don't want to be inhibited."

'A dangerous precedent'

While the legal fees won't be onerous to an organization like Greenpeace, which had $21.7 million in revenue in 2002, experts say a long court fight could sink smaller organizations.

"This is setting a dangerous precedent when you're politicizing a law for a purpose for which it is never intended," said Stephen Zunes, an associate professor of history at the University of San Francisco and an expert on social movements. "It's (also) somewhat of a stretch to be using a law that hasn't been used for 100 years.

"If the federal government is going to do that, it has a chilling effect, as people are going to wonder what obscure law they're going to dust off next."

That chill is spreading to advocacy organizations across the political spectrum. Major actions are planned this year at everything from national political conventions in Boston and New York to a June biotechnology conference in San Francisco. Abortion-related demonstrations will be held in Washington, D.C., and anti-war demonstrations will mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

It's chilliest at Greenpeace. Organizers there haven't canceled any events or curbed their criticism of the Bush administration, but are keeping a low profile lately.

"We're erring on the side of caution," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Nancy Hwa. "(The case) is casting a shadow over our activities. We don't want to do anything that the prosecution is likely to use against us."

Anti-war organizers such as Richard Becker of San Francisco, whose International ANSWER was at the forefront of coordinating peace demonstrations over the past 18 months, called the Miami prosecution "part of the crackdown on dissent that's been going on after Sept. 11." The group has called on the FBI to release internal memos concerning what it suspects was federal surveillance of Oct. 25 demonstrations that drew 100,000 in Washington, D.C., and 20,000 in San Francisco. Last week, California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer wrote a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller saying the agency's "Joint Terrorism Task Force should not be used to collect intelligence on the lawful activities of American dissenters."

Prosecution could backfire

Julian Bond, an advocate of nonviolent civil disobedience from his days as a civil rights leader, said prosecuting organizations such as Greenpeace could backfire on the federal government.

"When you force out the moderate leadership of a movement, you often get a more radical one in its place," Bond said. "This is an important case. If there was no civil disobedience in this country, we would still be sitting in the back of the bus, still not allowed to sit at lunch counters."

The Miami case is leading some activists to move more covertly -- and remain unaffiliated -- when committing civil disobedience. Some are opting for the guerrilla tactics used by Direct Action to Stop the War, the shadowy network that coordinated thousands of activists who paralyzed downtown San Francisco in March after the United States invaded Iraq.

Bay Area Direct Action activists were among the key organizers in street protests at last month's Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami, where they were met by more than 40 law enforcement agencies.

But if federal prosecutors tried to go after Direct Action itself, "there would be nothing there," said organizer Patrick Reinsborough. "We don't have an office or an organization or anything. We're individually targetable, that's about it.

"Still, this is scary," Reinsborough said, "because if the federal government is willing to go after Greenpeace, they're willing to go after anybody."

E-mail Joe Garofoli at [email protected]
 
U.S. Takes Greenpeace to Court in Unusual Trial

Thu May 13, 2004 12:42 PM ET

By Michael Christie

MIAMI (Reuters) - Greenpeace, charged with the obscure crime of "sailor mongering" that was last prosecuted 114 years ago, goes on trial on Monday in the first U.S. criminal prosecution of an advocacy group for civil disobedience.

The environmental group is accused of sailor mongering because it boarded a freighter in April 2002 that was carrying illegally felled Amazon mahogany to Miami. It says the prosecution is revenge for its criticism of the environmental policies of President Bush, whom it calls the "Toxic Texan."

Sailor mongering was rife in the 19th century when brothels sent prostitutes laden with booze onto ships as they made their way to harbor. The idea was to get the sailors so drunk they could be whisked to shore and held in bondage, and a law was passed against it in 1872. It has only been used in a court of law twice, the last time in 1890.

Greenpeace says the decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute the organization rather than just the activists who boarded the APL Jade freighter is a sea change in policy, and a conviction would throttle free speech everywhere.

It would also be a sharp blow against Brazilian efforts to halt the trade in a hardwood so precious it is known as "green gold." It yields fatter profit margins than cocaine and is blamed for the destruction of vast swathes of the Amazon.

"Illegal logging goes on and they're bringing it to Miami and making loads of money, and we're going to trial," said Sara Holden of Greenpeace International.

The case is unprecedented, not just because of the bizarre nature of the crime.

Six Greenpeace activists were charged after the 2002 protest in choppy waters off Miami, pleaded guilty and sentenced to time served -- the weekend they spent in jail.

But U.S. prosecutors were not satisfied, and 15 months later came up with a grand jury indictment of the entire organization for sailor mongering.

FREE SPEECH CONCERNS

U.S. prosecutors argue Greenpeace did something like that when two "climbers" clambered aboard the Jade to hang a sign demanding, "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging."


------------------

If convicted, Greenpeace could be placed on probation, and pay a ,000 fine.
As significant as the prosecution itself, are the implications, free speech campaigners say.

Not once since the Boston Tea Party have U.S. authorities criminally prosecuted a group for political expression.

"It's ominous," said attorney Maria Kayanan of law firm Podhurst Orseck, which worked with the American Civil Liberties Union on a "friend of court" brief to back a Greenpeace demand that the government reveal who ordered the prosecution.

"It will be very chilling because advocacy groups whose members chose to engage in acts of protest which happen to violate the law will be loathe to act at all."

Greenpeace hopes to focus on mahogany during the trial, which will begin on Monday with jury selection in the U.S. District Court in Miami, under Judge Adalberto Jordan.

In one line of defense, its attorneys will argue that the activists were highlighting a crime, and giving Washington an opportunity to live up to its commitment to protect mahogany as a signatory to global treaties listing the wood as endangered.

Greenpeace Amazon campaigner Paulo Adario said a mahogany tree could be bought in the Amazon for . Once turned into dining tables and chairs for sale in New York or London, that same tree could be worth as much as 0,000.

Along the way, Amazon Indians are driven from their villages, officials bribed and activists assassinated.

Country-sized chunks of rain forest fall to chainsaws as other loggers take advantage of the roads the mahogany hunters carve to get at less valuable woods that would not otherwise have been worth trying to reach.

"Mahogany is a red wood, it's red like blood, it's red like shame," Adario said by phone from the Amazon port of Manaus. "The U.S. government should help us to change at least the shameful color of mahogany (but) they are prosecuting us."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=5135881

Emps
 
Update (and closure on the loop ...).

The trial was held, and the charges were dismissed.

Judge Dismisses Greenpeace Charges
Thursday, May 20, 2004; Page A14

MIAMI, May 19 -- A federal judge dismissed criminal charges Wednesday against the environmental group Greenpeace, ending an unusual case that drew the ire of free-speech advocates and critics of the Bush administration.

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The activist group, known for its high-profile demonstrations, was criminally charged after two members were caught in April 2002 boarding a ship off Miami Beach that they believed was carrying 70 tons of illegally imported Brazilian mahogany.

The activists spent a weekend in jail. But the case became a national cause celebre when the U.S. attorney's office here took the unprecedented step of seeking a criminal indictment of the organization itself, using an obscure 1872 law intended to dissuade brothel owners from boarding ships to lure sailors with prostitutes and liquor. The law had not been used in 113 years.

Greenpeace's attorneys did not have to offer up evidence to counter the charges on Wednesday because U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan in Miami dismissed the case shortly after the prosecution presented its last witness following 1 1/2 days of testimony.

"The Bush administration and its allies are bent on chilling dissent," said John Passacantando, Greenpeace's executive director. "This is clearly a big victory for America's tradition of free speech."

Scott Anderson, a third-grade teacher from Moab, Utah, who was one of the two activists arrested in connection with boarding the cargo ship in 2002, said, "The checks and balances system worked. The message is: You cannot pick on advocacy groups."

Carlos B. Castillo, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Marcos Daniel Jimenez, said the verdict would not alter the office's approach to handling protest cases.

"The U.S. attorney's office remains undeterred in prosecuting those persons who illegally attempt to board ships at the Port of Miami or otherwise threaten port security," he said.

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40993-2004May19.html?noredirect=on
SEE ALSO: http://articles.latimes.com/2004/may/20/nation/na-greenpeace20
 
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