Daniel McGowan
Encyclopedia
Daniel Gerard McGowan is an American
environmental and social justice activist who was arrested and charged in federal court on multiple counts of arson
and conspiracy
, relating to the arson of Superior Lumber company in Glendale, Oregon
on January 2, 2001 and Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon
on May 21, 2001 claimed by the Earth Liberation Front
(ELF). McGowan was facing a minimum of life in prison if convicted when he accepted a non-cooperation plea agreement, pleading guilty on November 9, 2006. His arrest is part of what the US government has dubbed Operation Backfire
.
and grew up in Queens
, New York City
, and was graduated from Christ the King Regional High School
. He has worked on many activist issues including military counter-recruitment
, demonstrations against the Republican National Convention
, the Really Really Free Market
, and the support of prison
ers such as Jeff Luers and others. McGowan was a graduate student earning a Master's degree in acupuncture
, and was an employee of WomensLaw.org, a nonprofit group that helps women in domestic abuse situations navigate the legal system.
. Stanislas Meyerhoff agreed to be a federal cooperating witness almost immediately upon arrest and interrogation. On December 22, William "Avalon" Rodgers was found dead in his cell in Flagstaff, Arizona, from an apparent suicide
.
At first, those arrested were indicted separately with certain individuals facing numerous trials for each separate alleged incident. On January 20, federal prosecutors, the head of the FBI, and US Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales
held a press conference announcing a sweeping 65-count indictment, including two conspiracy charges, against 11 individuals relating to 17 different incidents in Oregon, Washington and California. In addition to the six people arrested on December 7, the Oregon indictment
also named Jonathan Paul, Suzanne Savoie, Joseph Dibee, Rebecca Rubin and Josephine Overaker.
The Oregon indictment charged certain defendants with arson, attempted arson, and using and carrying a destructive device. The destructive device charge, 18 USC 924(c), carries a 30-year mandatory sentence and a life sentence for a second conviction of the charge.
On June 28, the government arraigned Nathan Block, Joyanna Zacher, Daniel and Jonathan Paul on a new 65-count superseding indictment. All four pleaded not guilty.
" indictments have elicited concern, from activists, that authorities have "cracked the super-secrecy of ALF and ELF". Alternative media
organizations have condemned the arrests, some calling them a "witch-hunt
", "aimed at disrupting and discrediting political movements". Activists, alluding to the Red Scare
, claim the operations are "fishing expedition[s]" carried out "in the midst of 9/11 McCarthyism
. The FBI disputes these claims. Director Robert Mueller
claims the agency takes action "only when volatile talk crosses the line into violence and criminal activity".
Zacher and Block each pleaded to one count of conspiracy, attempted arson, and two separate incidents of arson. McGowan pled to conspiracy and to two separate incidents of arson. The government recommended that they be sentenced to 96 months in federal prison. Paul pleaded to one count of arson and one count of conspiracy. The government recommended Paul be sentenced to 60 months in prison. All four defendants are free to argue for a lesser sentence.
Federal prosecutors asked the court to apply a "terrorism enhancement" at sentencing. The defendants could have faced up to 20 years in prison in addition to the terms of the plea agreement. The government was seeking the "terrorism enhancement" because, despite the fact that the crimes to which they have admitted responsibility only involve the destruction of private property, it was wholly possible their actions could have led to the deaths of innocent people. No government property was damaged in any of the incidents.
presided over the sentencing, which took place at Oregon Federal Court in Eugene, Oregon. Judge Aiken applied a "terrorism enhancement" to the sentence. McGowan was incarcerated in the highly restrictive Communication Management Unit
at the United States Penitentiary, Marion
from August 2008 to October 2010.
On October 19th, 2010, McGowan's request for a transfer from the CMU to general population was granted. However, for reasons never explained to McGowan, his family, supporters, or lawyers, four months later he was transferred to another Communications Management Unit, this time in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Close to a year prior to the latest transfer, in March, 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights
filed a lawsuit on behalf of multiple prisoners, including McGowan and his wife. In the time following the filing of this case, several news pieces that expose the CMUs have been published.
's documentary "If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" will be released in theaters and on DVD by Oscilloscope Laboratories. The documentary follows Daniel's history with the Earth Liberation Front
while examining the group at large. The film was shown on the PBS documentary series and on-line September-October, 2011.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
environmental and social justice activist who was arrested and charged in federal court on multiple counts of arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
and conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
, relating to the arson of Superior Lumber company in Glendale, Oregon
Glendale, Oregon
Glendale is a city in Douglas County, Oregon, United States. The population was 855 at the 2000 census.-History:Glendale started out as a small settlement called "Stumptown", because of an economy based on logging. After the arrival of the railroad in 1881, the town was named "Julia" in honor of...
on January 2, 2001 and Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon
Clatskanie, Oregon
Clatskanie is a city in Columbia County, Oregon, United States. It was named for the Clatskanie River, which empties into the Columbia River within the city limits. The population was 1,528 at the 2000 census. The 2007 estimate is 1,710 residents.-History:...
on May 21, 2001 claimed by the Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
(ELF). McGowan was facing a minimum of life in prison if convicted when he accepted a non-cooperation plea agreement, pleading guilty on November 9, 2006. His arrest is part of what the US government has dubbed Operation Backfire
Operation Backfire (FBI)
Operation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation , into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI....
.
Biography
McGowan was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
and grew up in Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, and was graduated from Christ the King Regional High School
Christ The King Regional High School
Christ the King Regional High School is a Catholic high school located in Middle Village, Queens, New York, USA and established in 1962. Often referred to as 'CK' among its students, it is located within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.-History:...
. He has worked on many activist issues including military counter-recruitment
Counter-recruitment
Counter-recruitment is a strategy often taken up to oppose war. Counter-recruitment is an attempt to prevent military recruiters from enlisting civilians into the military. There are several methods commonly utilized in a counter-recruitment campaign, ranging from the political speech to direct...
, demonstrations against the Republican National Convention
Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...
, the Really Really Free Market
Really Really Free Market
The Really, Really Free Market movement is a non-hierarchical collective of individuals who form a temporary market based on an alternative gift economy. The RRFM movement aims to counteract capitalism in a non-reactionary way. It holds as a major goal to build a community based on sharing...
, and the support of prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
ers such as Jeff Luers and others. McGowan was a graduate student earning a Master's degree in acupuncture
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a type of alternative medicine that treats patients by insertion and manipulation of solid, generally thin needles in the body....
, and was an employee of WomensLaw.org, a nonprofit group that helps women in domestic abuse situations navigate the legal system.
Arrest and Operation Backfire
On December 7, 2005, one of the largest arrests of environmental activists in American history began. Using the code name Operation Backfire, the FBI arrested six people. Chelsea Gerlach, William Rodgers, Kendall Tankersley, Kevin Tubbs, Daniel McGowan and Stanislas Meyerhoff were arrested for allegedly taking part in a wide variety of crimes, including arson and domestic terrorismTerrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
. Stanislas Meyerhoff agreed to be a federal cooperating witness almost immediately upon arrest and interrogation. On December 22, William "Avalon" Rodgers was found dead in his cell in Flagstaff, Arizona, from an apparent suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
At first, those arrested were indicted separately with certain individuals facing numerous trials for each separate alleged incident. On January 20, federal prosecutors, the head of the FBI, and US Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
held a press conference announcing a sweeping 65-count indictment, including two conspiracy charges, against 11 individuals relating to 17 different incidents in Oregon, Washington and California. In addition to the six people arrested on December 7, the Oregon indictment
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
also named Jonathan Paul, Suzanne Savoie, Joseph Dibee, Rebecca Rubin and Josephine Overaker.
The Oregon indictment charged certain defendants with arson, attempted arson, and using and carrying a destructive device. The destructive device charge, 18 USC 924(c), carries a 30-year mandatory sentence and a life sentence for a second conviction of the charge.
On June 28, the government arraigned Nathan Block, Joyanna Zacher, Daniel and Jonathan Paul on a new 65-count superseding indictment. All four pleaded not guilty.
Criticism of prosecution
The Christian Science Monitor reports that the "Operation BackfireOperation Backfire (FBI)
Operation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation , into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI....
" indictments have elicited concern, from activists, that authorities have "cracked the super-secrecy of ALF and ELF". Alternative media
Alternative media
Alternative media are media which provide alternative information to the mainstream media in a given context, whether the mainstream media are commercial, publicly supported, or government-owned...
organizations have condemned the arrests, some calling them a "witch-hunt
Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...
", "aimed at disrupting and discrediting political movements". Activists, alluding to the Red Scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
, claim the operations are "fishing expedition[s]" carried out "in the midst of 9/11 McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
. The FBI disputes these claims. Director Robert Mueller
Robert Mueller
Robert Swan Mueller III is the 6th and current Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation .-Early life:...
claims the agency takes action "only when volatile talk crosses the line into violence and criminal activity".
Plea agreement
On November 9, 2006, McGowan and co-defendants Jonathan Paul, Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block pleaded guilty and signed a plea agreement with the government. This agreement does not require cooperation (informing on others) on the part of the defendants.Zacher and Block each pleaded to one count of conspiracy, attempted arson, and two separate incidents of arson. McGowan pled to conspiracy and to two separate incidents of arson. The government recommended that they be sentenced to 96 months in federal prison. Paul pleaded to one count of arson and one count of conspiracy. The government recommended Paul be sentenced to 60 months in prison. All four defendants are free to argue for a lesser sentence.
Federal prosecutors asked the court to apply a "terrorism enhancement" at sentencing. The defendants could have faced up to 20 years in prison in addition to the terms of the plea agreement. The government was seeking the "terrorism enhancement" because, despite the fact that the crimes to which they have admitted responsibility only involve the destruction of private property, it was wholly possible their actions could have led to the deaths of innocent people. No government property was damaged in any of the incidents.
Sentencing and prison
On June 4, 2007, McGowan was sentenced to 7 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.9 million in restitution. U.S. District Court Judge Ann AikenAnn Aiken
Ann Louise Aiken is an American attorney and jurist in the state of Oregon. A native Oregonian, she has served as a state court judge of the Oregon circuit courts and worked in private legal practice...
presided over the sentencing, which took place at Oregon Federal Court in Eugene, Oregon. Judge Aiken applied a "terrorism enhancement" to the sentence. McGowan was incarcerated in the highly restrictive Communication Management Unit
Communication Management Unit
Communication Management Unit is a recent designation for a self-contained group within a facility in the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons that severely restricts, manages and monitors all outside communication of inmates in the unit.-Origins:As part of the Bush Administration's War on...
at the United States Penitentiary, Marion
United States Penitentiary, Marion
The United States Penitentiary is a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility located in Southern Precinct, unincorporated Williamson County, Illinois. The facility is located south of Marion, from St. Louis, and from Chicago. It was built in 1963 to replace the Alcatraz prison in San Francisco, which...
from August 2008 to October 2010.
On October 19th, 2010, McGowan's request for a transfer from the CMU to general population was granted. However, for reasons never explained to McGowan, his family, supporters, or lawyers, four months later he was transferred to another Communications Management Unit, this time in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Close to a year prior to the latest transfer, in March, 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Constitutional Rights
Al Odah v. United States:Al Odah is the latest in a series of habeas corpus petitions on behalf of people imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The case challenges the Military Commissions system’s suitability as a habeas corpus substitute and the legality, in general, of detention at...
filed a lawsuit on behalf of multiple prisoners, including McGowan and his wife. In the time following the filing of this case, several news pieces that expose the CMUs have been published.
Documentary
In 2011, Sam Cullman and Marshall CurryMarshall Curry
Marshall Curry is a documentary filmmaker. His first feature-length film, Street Fight, was nominated for an Academy Award and a News and Documentary Emmy. His second film, Racing Dreams, won Best Documentary and was runner up for the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009...
's documentary "If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" will be released in theaters and on DVD by Oscilloscope Laboratories. The documentary follows Daniel's history with the Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
while examining the group at large. The film was shown on the PBS documentary series and on-line September-October, 2011.
See also
- Environmental movementEnvironmental movementThe environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
- Earth First!Earth First!Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
- Animal Liberation FrontAnimal Liberation FrontThe Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
- Jeff LuersJeff LuersJeffrey "Free" Luers is an political activist from Los Angeles, California, who served a ten year prison sentence for arson in the U.S. state of Oregon. On February 14, 2007, The Oregon Court of Appeals overturned Luers' sentence, instructing the Lane County circuit court to determine a new sentence...
External links
- Radio interview of McGowan following sentencing - on Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
, June 11, 2007 (audio and print transcript) - Department of Justice press release of the arrest
- McGowan's plea agreement
- Civil Liberties Defense Center
- Green is the new Red
- EcoPrisoners.org
- FBI's Operation Backfire
- Eugene Weekly: Who are the real terrorists?
- Operational Backfire - Criminalizing Dissent by Michael Donnelly
- Crying Terrorist by Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times
- Government Charges Local Man As Eco-Terrorist in Brooklyn Rail
- Support site for Daniel McGowan