Spooky Gal
Sarah Bobbitt was 26 when Young first met her in the spring of 2008.
Attractive, blond, a conservative Republican, she was a photographer who worked for the University of Utah’s Daily Utah Chronicle and offered to arrange for photos from protests to appear in the student newspaper. “She was strange but disarming at the same time,” Young said. Young was not yet a Utah resident, but on a speaking tour passing through the state. Bobbitt approached him about helping her with “a campaign to rescue Guatemala street dogs, or something,” Young said. She asked to go out for dinner after the conference, then asked if she could stay with Young’s hosts who were putting him up for the night. He obliged.
“She was very forward,” Young said, but never answered whether he was sexually or romantically interested in her. Bobbitt says she briefly dated Young.
Young’s Utah comrades, he says, quickly pegged her as a snitch. She dressed conservatively and asked inappropriate questions about illegal activities—most activists are leery of informants and adhere to “security culture” (pdf) (in which information on illegal activities is discussed only on a need-to-know basis). He defended her, saying “snitch jacketing” someone prematurely is unfair and counterproductive.
Young continued on his speaking tour but returned to Utah shortly after two fur farms—one in South Jordan in August 2008, another in Kaysville a month later—had been sabotaged by activists, who released thousands of mink. The Animal Liberation Front, a nom de guerre frequently adopted by activists who anonymously take credit for illegal actions against animal enterprises, took credit for the incidents. ALF is listed as a domestic terrorism group by the FBI.
“He was the type that was always [saying,] 'When are we going to stop talking and go blow up something?' "
—DAVID BERG
When Young and Bobbitt met again, she invited him to Moab for the weekend.
The trip got weird before they even got to Price. Young and Bobbitt were stuck in a car together for hours, and she asked several questions about the recent mink releases, Young says, questions which hung in the air like flatulence.
The
weekend ended worse than it started. They fought, Bobbitt left him, and
Young was deserted in downtown Moab, where he knew no one and had no
transportation.
Why is Bobbitt suspected of being an informant, or a confidential human source (CHS), as the FBI calls them? An FBI reporting document (pdf) describes the trip this way:
“CHS reported that Peter Young arrived in Utah about two weeks ago. … CHS traveled with Young to Moab, Utah, on Thursday, September 25, 2008. CHS returned to Salt Lake City on Sunday without Young and hasn’t talked to him since.”
When City Weekly contacted Bobbitt, she denied being an informant. The Facebook conversation she had with City Weekly went silent after she was asked about the seemingly incriminating FBI document, which was provided by the government to defense attorneys for William “BJ” Viehl, 23, and Alex Hall, 21, two men who pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to releasing the mink at the South Jordan ranch in August 2008. Other documents suggest Bobbitt may have had repeated contacts with the FBI that summer about other activists.
Of the trip to Moab, Bobbitt wrote: “I am not an FBI informant and yes this is starting to have an unfortunate effect on my life. ... I briefly dated Peter nearly two years ago and haven’t talked to him since. It ended with me leaving him a long way from home, I know I pissed him off, but he was unstable, manipulative and honestly scared me. … And as for the ‘several people’ [activists who believe Bobbitt was an informant], I can only imagine they are the snobby elitists with whom I actually tried to be friends with in fighting for a similar cause. All I can guess is that they pegged the girl that didn’t fit in and who didn’t buy into their rock star’s manipulative ego.”
Beckham is disturbed by informants. He thinks it keeps people from supporting animal rights and other social-justice movements. People think, “if the government is monitoring it, there must be something wrong with it,” Beckham said.
Bobbitt is not the first individual thought to be an FBI informant by animal rights activists, so they’re always on alert. In 2001, City Weekly investigated Richard Stone, who activists complain acted more like a provocateur than an informant as he sat in on meetings to arrange protests against the 2002 Olympic Rodeo. “He was the type that was always [saying], ‘When are we going to stop talking and go blow up something?’ ” says David Berg, a Salt Lake City man involved in the pre-Olympic protest planning. According to Berg, Stone even accompanied the activists to a meeting with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah organized to discuss protesters’ rights.
Busy Litigants
Though
some complain about being treated like terrorists, there are some stark
contrasts between them and suspected terrorist jihadis. Detainees at
Guantanamo Bay, for example, have been detained for nearly a decade
without being charged with a crime. The closest local situation with
any similarity—remote though it may be—is that of Jordan Halliday, 22,
principle organizer of a local Animal Defense League chapter, who spent
four months in civil detention for refusing to testify before a federal
grand jury about the local mink releases. Halliday says that he
endorses mink releases and believes he’s being targeted for his speech.
“[Federal prosecutors] are trying to view me on the same terms as any
ALF member because I’m vocally supportive of it,” he said. He was freed
at the expiration of the grand jury but soon after was charged
criminally with contempt, which could send him back to prison for years.
Often, the activists are in court as litigants, not defendants, and have successfully argued multiple times that their rights have been violated.
The most recent example involved a protest at a mink farm in Morgan County. Members of the Salt Lake Animal Advocacy Movement argued in a federal lawsuit that Morgan County and the Utah Department of Public Safety violated their rights to protest near a mink farm in November 2008. In February, the case was settled, which netted civil rights attorney Brian Barnard nearly $40,000 in legal fees from the state and county.
The criminal penalties they suffer have also been rather modest, compared to other convicted terrorists or even to drug convicts, despite complaints that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2005 lumps them together with other terrorists. Viehl, for example, was sentenced to two years in prison in February but expects to be released from prison in just five months, he wrote to City Weekly in a letter. He was given credit for time served pretrial.
The [FBI] does not intimidate political groups with investigation tools like search warrants. “That happened in the ’70s … but the Attorney General’s guidance on that is very clear, we’re not authorized to do that.”
—TRENT PEDERSEN, FBI
"He sees mink releases as akin to interrupting a rape in progress, so he doesn’t have any mixed emotions about harming animal-exploitation businesses."
Ironic statement considering this:
activistabuse.wordpress.com
Sarah Palin? You moron...you need meat to stave off heart attack. Ever heard of good cholesterol? There's other things involved but it's the constant eating of red meat that gives you heart disease. A balanced diet which is mostly meats like chicken, fish and anything but cow meat all the time is very good for you. Stop the killing? Start eating dirt then dumbass because plants are alive. Look up a botany website and read up a bit if you even passed comprehension. Yes, that's part of an education, not just reading and repeating like a parrot. You have to understand and apply what you learn not just open your mind so your brain falls out. Plants are just as alive as animals, they're just a different kind of animal and a plant is just another scientific classification for something that's alive.
Animal rights activists also terrorize scientists, break into their homes and vandalize, leave death threats to them and their families, and have bombed their homes. Also, ever seen 28 days later? That's a realistic scenario you do not know what they are testing in those labs 100% of the time. Do you think if there's any odd biological testing they'll advertise that like yesterday's news? Hello? So yes, it's pretty comparable to bombing an abortion clinic to save babies especially when not all of it is merely for make up etc. Some of it is for life saving medicine/disease analysis. Granted, a rat or a dog/cat is not that close to humans on the genetic scale, but chimps match human DNA by 98%. Even some things tested on rats work on humans. It's the basic principle of fire burns rats and humans, and yes pretty simplistic comparison but we do have the same types of physiology even if much of the chemistry is different etc we do have the same organs for a reason. I've read about this in the past in regular newspapers. Besides, it impacts real people's jobs/ability to work, feed their kids and themselves, their wives or even ailing parents and pets. Yes they have pets too. I eat meat but I wouldn't eat my pet as an example. It's similar to spiking trees by tree huggers. Those have killed loggers when they are cutting trees. Pretty silly to put a tree above a human life, and basically it's murder. It's why Osama had those dolts fly the planes into the twin towers on 9/11. Cutting off a money supply is a choke hold and he even stated this in a video saying it would divide the USA and we'd tear each other apart pretty well before he hit us again and it's coming true. Thanks but no thanks for your "activisim." True activism is like altruism and philanthropy. Peaceful assembly is not throwing rocks and bottles at police etc. That might be a privilege that's granted but it's not a right. The right is meeting in a town hall and addressing the issue intelligently, or writing a book that makes sense, getting a Masters or PhD or even Bachelor's and doing lectures etc. Grow up and quit trying to play spies or something.
I think that if you succeed it getting the word -- and video -- out to the public about the truth of these places, you will succeed in destroying the market for their products.
I think it's funny that this article paints Jeremy Beckham as some sort of saint. There is at least some reason to him being on that list. There is a difference between cutting open cages or breaking into labs to free animals, and actually threatening the safety of the people who happen to work in the labs. He took the discourse we had with the lab people and completely shut it down with his extremism, and we have wasted many animals' lives and much time trying to get back to that discourse. Now they have the right to keep EVERYTHING from us, using the threat of violence as an excuse. How does that help the animals at all? This is pure ego.
- a pragmatist surrounded by all- or- nothing extremist