Greenpeace defeats draconian attempt by Bush to silence them

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Argh, fear not mateys, you’re safe from the scourge that is “sailormongering”* so long as Bush is in the White House.

In a vindicitve attempt to show those blasted treehuggin’ Greenpeace-niks not to try any shenanigans so long as he’s the President, the Bush Administration dredged up the bizarrest of laws to try and punish the entire Greenpeace organization after two of its activists boarded a ship off Miami that was carrying illegally-felled mahogany from the Amazon. Was Bush all up in arms about the illegally-felled trees? Was that seen as the threat worthy of spending our tax dollars to stem?

Of course not. That would have denied him another opportunity to be blatantly hypocritical:

During a speech on February 14, 2002, President Bush made a commitment to combat illegal logging in developing countries. He ordered Secretary of State Colin Powell to develop an initiative to end this serious problem which “destroys biodiversity and releases millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

However, Greenpeace uncovered evidence that the United States was continuing to receive over $10 million worth of shipments after the Brazilian moratorium on mahogany exports.

On April 12, 2002, in an effort to have an illegal mahogany shipment seized by the U.S. and to call attention to the issue, Greenpeace activists boarded the APL Jade, the ship carrying the mahogany, to hang a banner reading “President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging.” The action was aimed at calling at calling on the President to return all mahogany shipments from Brazil and to investigate companies that continue to buy it.

So Greenpeace was agruably helping Bush live up to his promise.

However, rather than prosecuting the importers of the illegal mahogany, the Justice Department filed criminal charges against Greenpeace itself in July 2003.

After the “climbers” were arrested and prosecuted (something they were clearly prepared to do to make their point), however, the Bush Administration decided to rachet up the ante.

(via Reuters) Never before have U.S. authorities criminally prosecuted an advocacy group for civil disobedience, rather than the individual activists involved in a protest.

Two Greenpeace members were actually charged and pleaded guilty after the incident. But 15 months later, prosecutors targeted the entire organization with a grand jury indictment.

The law used to take Greenpeace to court has also drawn attention, and civil rights advocates say its obscurity suggests the case is one of revenge for Greenpeace’s criticism of President Bush’s environmental policies.

But, alas, cooler heads have prevailed. Today we learn that

A Florida judge has dismissed an attempt to prosecute Greenpeace for protesting against mahogany shipments. […] The judge threw out the prosecutors’ case for lack of evidence.

And so, the good guys win one, despite Bush’s “best” efforts.

*”The bizarre law was originally designed to discourage owners of inns and brothels from boarding ships, as they are about to enter port, in order to lure the sailors into their establishments. It has only been used twice in its history.”

12 thoughts on “Greenpeace defeats draconian attempt by Bush to silence them”

  1. You see, Greenpeace is against us. And Greenpeace is against mahogany smugglers. So mahogany smugglers are with us. Ipso facto.

  3. Sidereal, I have just realized that if I see you have commented on a thread I’ll click on it just to see what you’ve said. Which I don’t do for many people. You do such cool comments.
    (OT. But I hope Edward won’t mind.)

  4. Odd that Greenpeace would be charged, but the recipients of the mahogany weren’t. Seeing that it was manifestly (no pun) an illegal shipment and all.
    Something stinks, here. It may or may not be hypocrisy, but it’s stinky, nonetheless.

  5. I actually find it rather disturbing to think the smugglers did not get prosecuted. The way it’s phrased suggests they were not (but that’s Greenpeace’s text, so I take it with a grain of salt), but none of the other reports I can find mention the fate of the crew of the APL Jade.

  6. There’s no mention I could find, either. But it’s damned odd that they could make it through customs with an illegal cargo like that. Especially nowadays. If Greenpeace can produce something resembling evidence, it ought to have been sufficient to warrant a search. I believe Customs can do that without anything resembling due process, so even shaky evidence ought to have been enough.
    OTOH it’s possible that Greenpeace has serially annoyed Customs to the point that they deliberately let it slide. That’s not a nice thing to think, but they pissed off France enough so that it got one of their ships scuttled.

  10. “Never before have U.S. authorities criminally prosecuted an advocacy group for civil disobedience, rather than the individual activists involved in a protest.”
    Well, except for pro-life groups under RICO.

  11. Hardly a good parallel, Sebastian.
    Greenpeace activists were attempting to prevent a crime under US law.
    RICO was used by pro-choice litigators to prosecute groups advocating violence against medical workers and women seeking abortions.
    The issue of free speech is an important one, but somehow I feel less sympathetic to people advocating bombing clinics or shooting doctors than I do to people trying to prevent the illegal felling of protecting trees.

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