reframing ecotage as ecoterrorism by travis wagner

Reframing Ecotage as Ecoterrorism:News and the Discourse of FearTravis Wagner

This study examined how national newspapers have participated in the production and

reproduction of the discourse on ecotage through a lens of terrorism. The approach used

in this study is to apply the thesis of Altheide (2003) that mass media uses the discourse

of fear to report on acts of terrorism. Through a content analysis of six national

newspapers, this study sought to answer two questions: Do national newspapers frame

ecotage acts primarily as terrorism? If ecotage is framed as terrorism, is the discourse of

fear used in stories that discuss ecotage? Using 20 search terms commonly used to describe

ecotage acts, 155 news stories were found from 1984 to 2006. Based on an analysis of

these stories, there was a marked shift in framing ecotage as terrorism starting in 2001,

but before 9/11. Increasingly the discourse of fear has been used to indicate the

seriousness of ecoterrorism. In addition to this shift and use of fear, the volume of stories

has increased, yet the number of reported incidences of ecotage has steadily declined over

this same period.

Keywords: Ecoterrorism; Ecotage; Framing; Discourse of Fear; Mass Media

Introduction

Labeling a person or act as terrorism is a powerful rhetorical technique that carries a

strong normative connection (Norris, Kern, & Just, 2003). By establishing something

as terrorism, an irreversible frame is created (Zulaika & Douglass, 1996). Although

there are generally accepted traditional definitions of terrorism, there has been a

lowering of the threshold and, thus, a broadening of the definition to include

ecological sabotage, known as ecotage (Amster, 2006). Ecotage refers collectively to a

variety of criminal acts (e.g., vandalism, arson, and threats) undertaken in the name

of protecting nature while specifically not harming humans.1 The conflation of

terrorism with ecotage has created a new term*ecoterrorism. Crucial to the evolution

Travis Wagner is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Science and Policy, Department of Environmental

Science, University of Southern Maine. Correspondence to: Department of Environmental Science, 106 Bailey

Hall, University of Southern Maine, Gorham, ME 04038, USA. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1752-4032 (print)/ISSN 1752-4040 (online) # 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17524030801945617

Environmental Communication

Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2008, pp. 25�39

and eventual acceptance of this new term has been what Kenneth Burke (1966) refers

to as a terministic screen, which directs attention toward a particular selection of

reality, thereby encouraging a certain perception of a term. Essential to the cementing

of the conflation and acceptance of this particular representation of terrorism and

deflection away from eco-sabotage, was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2002,

the FBI created a new legal definition of ecoterrorism as ‘‘the use or threatened use of

violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an

environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons,

or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of symbolic nature’’ (Jarboe, 2002).

Ecotage was popularized in 1972 with the publication of the book, Ecotage! (Love

& Obst, 1972). This book was a result of Environmental Action’s 1971 national

ecotage contest in which suggestions were elicited to make ‘‘corporate polluters shape

up’’ (Love & Obst, 1972). This book pays homage to the Eco-Commando Force ’70

and especially The Fox (a.k.a. Jim Phillips), who performed various acts of ecotage in

Chicago in the 1960s and early 1970s, including clogging pollution discharges and

dumping collected discharges into corporate offices (Love & Obst, 1972). The Fox

and the contest had been noticed by the national media (NBC Evening News, 1971).

However, it was the publication of Edward Abbey’s (1975) The Monkey Wrench Gang

that fueled an unprecedented growth in acts of ecotage (Hays, Esler, & Hays, 1996). In

addition to individual acts, ecotage-based organizations also became more active in

the 1970s and early 1980s, including Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society, and Earth First! (Hays et al., 1996). A series of events altered the construct of

marginally acceptable direct action. In 1991, the FBI arrested Dave Foreman, co-

founder of Earth First! and five others for ecotage acts. In addition, following the

launch of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein ordered two large oil spills in the Gulf and

the detonation of approximately 1,250 oil wells resulting in some 600 oil well fires. In

response, President George H. W. Bush labeled Hussein’s actions as ecoterrorism

(Matthews, 1991). Between 1994 and 1996, the national media focused on the

Unabomber, whose actions were labeled as ecoterror. This same period witnessed

the rise and increased activity of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), especially with the

1998 burning of the Vail Resort, which garnered the attention of the FBI and the

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (Knickerbocker, 1999). Although

September 11, 2001, pushed terrorism to the top of the national agenda, terrorism

was no longer limited to radical foreign nationals, domestic sources were also

included. In February 2002, the FBI declared that the Earth Liberation Front was one

of the country’s greatest domestic terrorism threats (Jarboe, 2002). In May 2005, the

FBI reaffirmed the threat, ‘‘ . . . eco-terrorism is one of the FBI’s highest domestic

terrorism priorities’’ (Lewis, 2005). This prompts the question as to the role of the

mass media in supporting or promoting a discourse that encourages the conflation of

radical environmental activism and terrorism.

In this study, I examine whether national daily newspapers have supported the

discourse of ecoterrorism. First, I discuss the concept of news frames and the

discourse of fear. Then, applying the thesis of Altheide (2003) that mass media uses

the discourse of fear in connection with reporting on terrorism, I assess its

26 Reframing Ecotage as Ecoterrorism: News and the Discourse of Fear

applicability to the media’s reporting on ecotage acts. Essentially, I seek to answer two

questions. Do national newspapers frame ecotage acts as terrorism? If ecotage is

framed as terrorism, is the ‘‘discourse of fear’’ used in reporting ecotage-related

stories? If these questions are in the affirmative, there are significant implications for

open public discourse on the environment.

News, Fear, and Terrorism

Most of what society learns about the environment is from news (Karlberg, 1997).

News is not an objective presentation of political reality, but an interpretation of

events and issues from the perspective of reporters, editors, and selected sources

(Clow & Machum, 1993). The ability of mass media to shape societal risk

perception is powerful; each day the news reports on some new chemical or

physical danger (Slovic, 2000). As noted by Dunn, Moore, and Nosek (2005), the

routine act of reading news is an area where subtle language can affect how readers

perceive, recall, and ultimately judge events. Language, subtle or not, is an

important element of frames, which the mass media relies upon to convey

information to its audience. Framing is how an individual constructs and represents

an interpretation of an act by comparing new information to existing interpreta-

tions (Gray, 2003). Entman (1993) observes that framing has four primary

functions: it helps to define a problem, it can identify causes, it makes a moral

judgment, and it suggests a remedy. The news frame is a particular type of frame

that enables journalists and the public to organize and comprehend vast amounts of

information (Karlberg, 1997). It is a mechanism to communicate a generally

accepted interpretation of an act or an actor through recognizable language,

symbols, and standard references (Norris et al., 2003). However, news frames can

‘‘become problematic when the frames become highly stereotyped and uniform

throughout news discourse’’ (Karlberg, 1997).

Fear is a dominant frame in news, and as fear becomes linked with a particular

issue, society begins to believe in the fear (Altheide, 2002). This is through what

Altheide (2003) defines as the discourse of fear: ‘‘the pervasive communication,

symbolic awareness, and expectation that danger and risk are a central feature . . .’’

This discourse of fear is an example of Burke’s (1966) terministic screens where a

screen, or funnel, operates to direct society’s perception toward particular aspects of

reality and shape the range of observations implicit in the given terminology. As

Peterson and Peterson (2000, p. 76) observe, ‘‘Over time, people weave individual

terms together, forming a screen that enables its users to decide which aspects of

experience are important, what that experience means, and what sort of action is

called for.’’ Fear becomes so integrated with a particular topic that eventually its

association is taken for granted; it becomes an intuitively understood component of

the topic (Altheide, 2003). This guides the message receiver to more readily

understand the act, motives, and outcomes through the terministic screen of fear.

As the topic continues to be reported on in more dangerous and fearful language,

T. Wagner 27

the repetition produces a lens through which we begin to interpret other acts

(Altheide, 2002).

In the aftermath of 9/11, most of us have developed a collection of specific feelings,

perceptions, and attitudes toward terrorism (Dunn et al., 2005). It is a value-laden

term implying deadly, unpatriotic, violent, irrational, radical, or crazed behavior. Our

attitude towards terrorists is heavily influenced by their current status as our sworn

enemy, for we are at war; the war on terror (Bush, 2001). By using the terrorist frame

to describe acts or actors, a story is placed into a more simplified and structured

context for the receiver. Terrorist acts command greater public and media attention

(Zulaika & Douglass, 1996). Since 9/11, terrorism has dominated the news; it is

highly newsworthy. While news fosters interest in terrorist acts by detailing the daring

exploits of perpetrators (Cavender & Bond-Maupin, 1998), this treatment has a

darker side, as news also promotes a sense of fear by citing potential safety, death, or

dismemberment, which produces a more interesting and compelling read (Altheide,

2002).

Altheide (2002) notes that although ‘‘it is not easy to make people afraid,’’ an

uber-focusing event such as 9/11 instilled society-wide fear. With the 9/11 attacks,

in addition to the direct and indirect connections many people felt ‘‘ . . . concern

about the possibility of additional terrorist attacks elsewhere increased uncertainty

and stress, making nearly everyone feel vulnerable’’ (Hoffner, Fujioka, Ibrahim, &

Ye, 2002, p. 229). Based on a national survey in October 2001 examining public

attitudes following the 9/11 attacks, more than half the respondents felt less safe;

one fourth believed they may be future victims of a terrorist attack (Stempel &

Hargrove, 2002). As Altheide (2003) found in his study of newspaper stories

following 9/11, fear has been firmly attached to terrorism. This is supported by the

findings of Stempel and Hargrove (2002) that a key element of news audiences’

perception of terrorism is dread, vulnerability, and the fear of being attacked. With

terrorism anyone can be a potential victim at any time (Altheide, 2003). Language

used to describe an act or actor may result in it being perceived as terrorism*even

though the terrorism label is absent*as an intuitive perception of fear becomes

bonded to terrorism, which can occur largely unconsciously (Dunn et al., 2005).

The sense of fear can be supported based on the quantity of news devoted to

terrorism. With the 9/11 attacks, major television news coverage was continuous

and without commercials (McDonald & Lawrence, 2004). Newspaper readers

followed the terrorism story closely; ‘‘ . . . the volume of coverage remained

abnormally high even for a news story long after the attack’’ (Stempel & Hargrove,

2002, p. 17). Consequently, the frequency with which the terrorism news frame is

employed and its accompanying language has dramatically changed the public’s

perception: an increased threat greater than reality (Norris et al., 2003). This has

created a form of moral panic: a society-wide fear based on believing that a

widespread threat to society exists, which may or may not be valid (Victor, 2006).


Methods

To answer the research questions, I conducted a content analysis of six national daily

newspapers. As defined by Babbie (2001), content analysis is ‘‘the study of recorded

human communications.’’ The primary approach of this method is through coding in

which raw data are transformed into a standardized form (Babbie, 2001). Moreover,

content analysis, when conducted with artifacts over a long time period, can reflect

social trends (Babbie, 2004). The newspapers examined were The New York Times,

USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The

Christian Science Monitor. The first five were selected because they consistently have

had the largest circulation in the nation with a combined total of over nine million

and serve different niches, which would reduce duplicative coverage (Audit Bureau of

Circulations, 2007). The Christian Science Monitor was chosen because its focus is

national and does not rely on wire service reports. Using Proquest Newspapers, I

searched the six newspapers for news stories using selected search terms from 1

January 1984 to 31 December 2006. The starting date was selected based on a

preliminary search that found 1984 as the first year in which any of the search terms

were used in connection with ecotage. The search terms were selected based on a

preliminary analysis of various communication media, government reports, popular

cultural artifacts, and journal articles related to ecotage. The search terms (hyphens

and spaces were included) were: ecodefense, ecoraiders, ecosaboteur, ecotage, ecoterror,

ecoteur, ecovandal, ecoviolence, ecowarrior, environmental militants, environmental

sabotage, environmental saboteur, environmental terror, monkey wrenching, and radical

environmentalism.2

During the first phase, every news story was selected if it contained any of the

search terms. I identified and removed all stories that were primarily book, film, or

art reviews; letters to the editors, commentaries, or forums; and stories not related

to ecotage, but contained a search term merely as a reference or off-hand remark.

This refinement action was carried out to focus the content analysis on substantive

news rather than opinions, cultural events, or passing references to ecotage. In a

further refinement step, I removed all stories that discussed environmental

terrorism specific to Saddam Hussein and the Kuwaiti oil field fires. There were

18 such stories in 1991 and two in 1992. I made this decision because they are not

part of the generally accepted definition of ecotage, and all 20 stories dealt

specifically with Saddam Hussein, and did not contain references to domestic acts

of ecotage. Stories were limited to text only; no graphs, photos, or diagrams were

included in the database. In addition to using Proquest Newspapers, each

newspaper’s online archive was searched allowing for crosschecking to ensure

there were no missing stories. The entire database was examined to verify no

duplicate stories existed. This search, refinement, and verification process yielded

155 stories.

To collect data, a coding instrument was developed. The coding scheme was

designed to collect data on 10 variables. Three sets of variables were drawn from

Altheide’s (2003) discussion of the discourse of fear and contained words and themes

T. Wagner 29

as the units of analysis. One set of variables was words and synonyms related to fear:

alarm, attack, danger, dread, fear, fright, harm, horror, intimidate, lawless, malicious,

panic, risk, terror, threat, vicious, and violent. A second set of variables contained

terrorist-based words related to specific terrorist acts or actors: cell, plot, 9/11, Al

Qaeda, Oklahoma City bombing, Osama Bin Laden, September 11, Timothy McVeigh,

and Unabomber. A third set of variables was themes related to the status of ecotage

acts or actors: serious domestic terrorism threat, dangerous security threat, warriors, and

monkey wrenching. The coding scheme also included seven additional variables,

namely title of article, newspaper, date, indicators of prominence (length and location

of story), location of variables in the story, story context that included the variable,

and subject matter of the story. Following the selection of the units of analysis and the

development of the coding scheme, a content analysis was performed on all 155

stories. I was the only coder.

Results

In examining the 155 news stories over a 23-year period from 1 January 1984 to 31

December 2006, 52 per cent appeared during the six years after January 2001. As

depicted in Figure 1, of all stories reported, the majority (47 per cent) have been

feature articles, which discuss ecotage activities in general, trends, or organizations.

Criminal justice related stories, which include arrests, charges, indictments, pleas, and

sentencing, accounted for 24 per cent. Ecotage acts, which do not include criminal

justice actions, accounted for 19 per cent. Bulletins, which are notices and

announcements, accounted for 9 per cent. In 1991, there was a spike in coverage

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Figure 1. News Story by Type, 1984�2006


related to the arrest of Dave Foreman. In 1996, four of the six articles dealt specifically

with the Unabomber.

Since 2001, criminal justice stories have increased significantly. This is due to the

reassignment in 2000 of the FBI’s Joint Terrorist Task Force, which had focused on the

African Embassy bombings and first World Trade Center bombing, to investigate

Long Island, New York area ecotage activities (Haughney, 2001; Kenworthy, 2001).

This reassignment resulted in the FBI’s first arrest and subsequent conviction of a

self-proclaimed member of the Earth Liberation Front, the then dominant ecotage

group (Kenworthy, 2001). This high-profile arrest led to a series of additional,

newsworthy ecotage arrests.

Based on the content analysis, there are extensive direct and indirect references to

fear, terrorist acts/actors, and explicit status of ecotage in headlines and story bodies.

Newspaper headlines are especially relevant because they often state a hypothesis; they

make a predictive statement and then seek to support it with the story (Pan &

Kosicki, 1993). Table 1 presents the total frequency of variables and themes related to

the discourse of fear and their occurrence since 2001. This date is used as a reference

point because of the pivotal influence of 9/11 on the public’s construct of terrorism.

The ‘‘Total frequency’’ column presents the total number of articles from 1984 to

2006 containing the variable at least once. The ‘‘Occurrence since 2001’’ column notes

the per cent of the total frequency appearing since January 2001.

Table 1 Frequency of variables (n�155).

Total frequency (1984�2006) Occurrence since 2001 (%)

Fear variablesTerror 127 61Attack 58 79Violent 45 60Threat 28 60Danger 18 61Intimidate 13 69

Terrorist-related variablesCell 24 83Plot 16 50Unabomber 7 149/11 or September 11 7 100Oklahoma City Bombing 6 50Timothy McVeigh 4 50Al Qaeda 2 100Osama Bin Laden 2 100

Status variablesMonkey wrench 37 19Warrior 13 23Serious domestic terrorism threat 9 100

The words alarm, dread, fright, harm, horror, malicious, panic, risk, and vicious were found in five orfewer stories each.

T. Wagner 31

Headlines

As shown in Figure 2, the term ‘‘terror’’ or ‘‘terrorist’’ was used in 55 (35 per cent) of

all headlines in ecotage-related news stories. The first time terrorism appears in a

description of ecotage was in July 1987, in the Los Angeles Times, with the succinct

title of ‘‘Environmental Terrorism’’ (Los Angeles Times, 1987).3 Four terror worded

headlines appeared in 1991, which saw a spike in the word ‘‘terror’’ due to the arrest

of Dave Foreman. However, these were the exceptions as 85 per cent of articles using

the word ‘‘terror’’ in headlines occurred since January 2001. Interestingly, although 11

headlines appeared in 2001 containing the word terror to refer to ecotage acts, only

one appeared after September 11.

The use of fear-based language in headlines to describe ecotage acts has been

prevalent. For example, ‘‘SUV attacks may be eco-terrorism’’ (Los Angeles Times,

2002) is an example where the journalist clearly categorizes an ‘‘attack’’ on an

inanimate object as terrorism. A variation of the use of fear descriptors is illustrated

by the following headline, ‘‘An elemental clash of earth and fire; eco-terrorists blacken

houses to keep land green’’ (Ahrens, 2001). In this example, the reporter elaborates

on the action by using conflict-based terminology (clash, blackened) to support the

terrorist label. Finally, the headline, ‘‘3 Eco-Terror Suspects Held in Northern

California Plot; FBI agents say the arrests, which cap a year-long investigation, foil

planned attacks on phone towers, power stations and more’’ (Krikorian, 2006)

provides another example where in addition to the use of the term terror, other

terrorist-related terms, such as foil, plots, victims, and attacks, are used even though

the ‘‘victims’’ are inanimate objects. In contrast, headlines before 2001 often used

non-terrorist language. For example, ‘‘Eco-warriors and resource users talk’’

(Knickerbocker, 1993) is an example where the subjects appear to be rational

activists willing to engage in discourse, which is not a characteristic generally related

to terrorists. Even the early appearing headline in 1985, ‘‘Radical ecologists pound

spikes in trees to scare loggers and hinder lumbering’’ (Slocum, 1985) suggests

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Figure 2. Frequency of ‘‘Terror’’ in Ecotage Story Headlines, 1984�2006


marginally acceptable civil disobedience rather than violence. A 1989 headline,

‘‘Saboteurs for a better environment’’ (Robbins, 1989) is an example where a headline

implies rational justification for criminal actions.

Story Bodies

In addition to the 55 headlines, the term ‘‘terror’’ or ‘‘terrorist’’ also appeared in the

body of 75 additional stories. The term ecoterrorist first appeared in USA Today in

October 1987 in an article titled ‘‘Battle over ecology gets dangerous’’ (O’Driscoll,

1987). From 1996 to 2006, 25 stories contained direct references to established

terrorists or terrorist acts including 9/11, Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, Unabomber,

Timothy McVeigh, or the Oklahoma City bombing. An additional 24 stories

contained terrorist terminology, specifically referencing ‘‘cells’’ to describing ecotage

group structures. The term ‘‘cell’’ first appeared in 1996 (Leiby) with reference to the

Unabomber.

A popular approach is to provide firsthand accounts to describe ecotage actions as

well-planned and organized terrorist ‘‘attacks’’ with language typically used to

describe a military operation sprinkled with clandestine references:

Arriving at the staging area after dark, they dressed in dark clothing, masks, andgloves, and checked their walkie-talkies and police radio scanner. Quietly they creptthrough the sagebrush toward the target. They drilled holes through the wall so thefuel would pour into the building. Then, they set the firebomb against the wall andretreated to the staging area. There, they dumped their dark clothes and shoes intoa hole and poured in acid to destroy DNA and other evidence. (Knickerbocker,2006)

Association with more conventional terrorism frames is a technique used to

demonize the perpetrators and, by extension, expand the terrorist label to other

events. For example, ‘‘In the dark corners of recent American history, terrorists have

hijacked planes, killed abortion doctors, and planted bombs, now they’re after crops’’

(Belsie, 2001). The following approach illustrates a reliance on violence and the fear

of violence as a means to categorize an event as social deviance: ‘‘Arson is becoming a

more common tool, threatening employees of torched buildings. Personal harassment

amounting to psychological violence has been directed against the family members of

those accused of harming animals or the environment. And the rhetoric from such

groups increasingly warns of personal violence’’ (Knickerbocker, 2002).

Discussion

Based on the results of the content analysis, newspapers have increasingly framed

ecotage as terrorism. There is a marked increase in the use of terms related to fear

since early 2001. This includes direct references to ecoterror, ecoterrorists, and

ecoterrorism to report on ecotage. In contrast, the terms warrior and monkey

wrenching, which were used previously to describe acts of ecotage, fell sharply since

2001 and have been replaced with direct references to high profile, non-ecotage

T. Wagner 33

terrorist acts, such as 9/11, Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and the Oklahoma City

Bombing.

As the results demonstrate, there has been an increase in the use of fear- and terror-

based words and themes associated with ecotage acts, which agrees with the findings

of Check (2005) that terrorism was a prominent frame in the television news coverage

in 1998, 2000, and 2001 of the Earth Liberation Front. The results support the thesis

that a discourse of fear has increasingly become pervasive with regards to the media’s

reporting on ecotage acts. This also is in agreement with Altheide’s (2003) study of

newspaper stories following 9/11, in which fear has been bonded to terrorism. The

results also show that there has been an increase in the number of ecotage-related

stories. Yet, except for 2001, as depicted in Figure 3, the number of reported ecotage

attacks has steadily declined since 1997 (Young, 2004). Based on Young’s (2004) study

of all reported ecotage attacks between 1993 and 2003, the vast majority involved

vandalism (77 per cent) and arson (12.6 per cent), only 2 per cent involved assault/

bodily harm, and only 1.1 per cent involved bombs. Although all these are clearly

criminal acts, the first two do not fit the traditional definition of terrorism. However,

as Amster (2006) argues, the definition has been lowered and broadened, culturally

and legally. Regardless, the mass media distorts the extent of crime through news and

popular culture and fosters an unrealistic sense of its actual occurrence (Altheide,

2003). The frequency with which actions are reported, although they may be rare,

suggest a common occurrence (Altheide, 2003). However, if acts decrease but

reporting on these acts increases, it suggests a culture of fear promoting moral panic.

One explanation for the shift in framing between 1999 and 2001 is the reliance on

federal agencies as a primary source for journalists. Reliance on government sources

can result in overrepresentation of these organization’s perspectives (Ross &

Bantimaroudis, 2006). Based on the content analysis, the FBI was the cited source

in 50 stories and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) was a cited

source in 12 stories. However, the use of FBI and ATF as primary sources has

increased significantly: 86 per cent of stories citing FBI sources and 75 per cent of ATF

cited sources occurred after January 2001. It is not just the increased frequency of

government sources, but the shift in the government’s perspective of ecotage that is

important. Illustrative of this shift are the following excerpts:

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Figure 3. Reported Ectotage Acts, 1993�2003 (Young, 2004)


March 2, 1999Neither agency [FBI or the ATF] sees eco-terror as a spreading scourge. JohnWilliamson, chief of domestic terrorism analysis for the FBI, says that ‘we have notseen a dramatic increase in the numbers of these incidents.’ An ATF spokesman saysthere have been ‘maybe four or five’ eco-related bombings or arsons in the last fewyears, nothing ‘widespread.’ A spokesman for the National Association of AttorneysGeneral’s task force on terrorism says the issue of eco-terrorism ‘hasn’t come up.’(Ortega, 1999, p. A1)

January 13, 2001The FBI considers ELF [The Earth Liberation Front] its No. 1 domestic terroristthreat, but has had no luck catching any members. The agency has launched a JointTerrorism Task Force on the Long Island case. (Ahrens, 2001, p. C1)

The government’s perception of terrorism was affected profoundly by the events of

9/11. In addition to the emotional impacts, major changes were made to the legal

classification and status of terrorists. Although 9/11 was not the sole reason for the

shift in the government’s perception of ecoterrorism, the resulting statutory and

policy changes broadened the definition of terrorism, which was accompanied by

expanded enforcement and prosecutorial powers. For example, a direct result of 9/11

was the passage of the USA Patriot Act, which expanded federal power to conduct

surveillance and search and detain ‘‘terrorist’’ suspects (Long, 2004). The federal

government and corporations applied the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt

Organizations Act (RICO), originally intended to prosecute mafia organizations,

against environmental organizations engaged in ‘‘terrorist activities’’ (Beltran, 2002).

By 2002, the FBI had developed a legal definition of ‘‘ecoterrorism’’ (Jarboe, 2002).

Stiffer sentencing guidelines for ‘‘domestic terrorists’’ came into effect on 5 November

2003. Since early 2001, the FBI has declared and reaffirmed that ‘‘ecoterrorism’’ is a

serious domestic terror threat. Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security listed

the Earth Liberation Front as a threat to national security, although anti-government

hate groups, radical anti-abortionists, and white supremacists were not listed (Rood,

2005). A consumer of national daily newspapers has little reason to doubt the veracity

of the government’s ominous proclamations regarding ecoterrorists. Few of the news

stories examined paid significant attention to the motives of the ecotage activists as

they focused on the act, not the reason, which agrees with Check’s (2005) findings. By

lowering the threshold and broadening the definition of terrorism, increasing

government authority over terrorism, and increasing police and justice budgets

related to finding and prosecuting terrorists, all during a period of strong public

support to get tough on terrorism, I argue that these actions and the resulting arrests

and convictions have increased media coverage and support of an expanded construct

of terrorism.

Conclusion

When America was in the throes of an environmental revolution in the late 1960s

and early 1970s, ecotage was promoted by a national environmental group as a way

of fighting back against callous corporate polluters. By renaming ecotage as

T. Wagner 35

ecoterrorism, societal outrage was redirected and the enemy redefined. Through the

mass media’s use of the discourse of fear to describe ecotage acts, ecoterrorists should

be feared, and, by extension, stopped, controlled, and prosecuted. The terrorism

classification has been adopted by federal and local government, police organizations,

the courts, and the media. Given the power of these entities to shape public

perception, the public also likely believes that perpetrators of ecotage acts are

terrorists. Due to this successful reframing, a danger lies in labeling any objectionable

action or actor as terrorism. As Vanerheiden (2005) and Amster (2006) observe,

the terrorism label has been used to define and discredit legitimate, mainstream

environmental groups. This manipulative labeling has significant implications on

previously acceptable forms of dissent, environmental protest, and civil disobedience.

Citizens may be too fearful of demonic branding, therefore exercising excessive

caution in open public discourse, the bedrock of a civil society. As the fear of unjustly

being labeled a terrorist can have a powerful, chilling effect on legitimate public

participation crucial to environment communication and the policy process, further

research is needed to determine if this fear is real.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Sandra Wachholz and Chris Powell of The University of Southern

Maine’s Criminology Department for providing important suggestions on theoretical

applications. In addition, I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers who provided

valuable suggestions to improve the paper.

Notes

[1] Ecotage is different from environmental sabotage, which involves intentional acts to harm

the environment (Chalecki, 2001).

[2] Variations of many terms were also searched using wildcards. For example, ‘‘ecoterror’’

followed by an asterisk (*) was used, which captured, for example, ‘‘ecoterror,’’ ‘‘ecoterror-

ism,’’ and ‘‘ecoterrorist.’’

[3] Although not part of the study because it was a commentary, the first time the term

ecoterrorist appears in a headline is a commentary in March 1990 by Jack Anderson and Dale

Van Atta in The Washington Post titled ‘‘Tree Spiking: An ‘‘Eco-Terrorist’’ Tactic.’’

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T. Wagner 39

reframing ecotage as ecoterrorism by travis wagner

Documents

oklahoma city bombing

osama bin laden

los angeles times

christian science monitor

monkey wrench gang

earth liberation front

resource users talk

northern california plot