Twenty years ago this week, on December 7, 2005, the largest roundup of environmental and animal rights activists occurred in the United States. That day, FBI agents spread across the US and simultaneously arrested 11 people in Oregon, Arizona, New York and Virginia. This sweeping FBI action and the ensuing fallout would change many lives, communities, and the arc of environmental movements across the United States. The Green Scare roundup (gov called it “operation backfire”) made national and international news and sent a shockwave through change making communities that’s still felt today. In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government failed to make any substantive domestic arrests of those responsible for the mass murder of humans that took place in NYC that day. As a result, then US attorney Alberto Gonzales as well as then FBI head Robert Mueller, feeling pressure to arrest anyone the government could label as terrorists, took to the podium and declared these young people “ecoterrorists,” and proclaimed they were the number one domestic threat in the U.S.

This broad and intentional fear-inducing move occurred despite the fact that no humans or other living things were harmed in the dozens of actions that became the federal conspiracy at the heart of the Green Scare.

I was a young movement lawyer at the time, and CLDC had just recently been officially recognized as a nonprofit org on December 3, 2003 (our 22^nd anniversary also this week). Despite official recognition coming in early December 2003, CLDC had been operating since shortly after the passage of the Patriot Act, October 26, 2001. After the massive arrests occurred, I and a very small but scrappy CLDC swung into high gear—finding lawyers, raising bail, providing information to the community, combatting the mainstream media spin. I traveled the country connecting with my incredible mentors who cut their teeth during the Red Scare/American Indian Movement (AIM)/Vietnam era. These movement lawyers gave me fortitude to defend and speak out about the Green Scare and the government’s intention to destroy the American environmental movement that was gaining power and numbers (we had recently shut down the WTO in Seattle, for example).

Those engaged in economic sabotage were part of underground Earth Liberation and Animal Liberation cells who were responsible for actions across the west from the 1990’s to early 2000’s (prior to any arrests the actions had stopped on their own). The actions targeting lawless logging, climate change and repugnant animal cruelty caused over $48M in damage. One action, at the Cavel West horse slaughterhouse near Redmond, Oregon, was targeted because they were rounding up wild horses, inhumanely transporting them to this slaughter facility, and then horrifically killing them to ship horse meat to Japan. The local community had tried to shut the place down for a decade. The Dutch-owned Cavel West slaughterhouse was never rebuilt after being destroyed by arson, and for a time, resulted in a complete cessation of horse slaughter in the U.S. Dozens of people were subpoenaed to grand juries around the country and were shown photos of numerous activists and asked to identify them. Some, like Jeff Hogg, resisted and were jailed for contempt; many others cooperated or testified to the grand jury in varying degrees.

Soon after the arrests, 13 people were brought into the federal court in Eugene, Oregon and were arraigned on a 65 count indictment including 2 counts of conspiracy, 59 counts of arson (one arson was of an SUV car dealership and each vehicle was a separate arson count), destruction of an energy facility, using a destructive device in relation to a crime of violence. Following these indictments, the government sought the federal terrorism sentencing enhancement for the first time against people who did not kill large quantities of humans (like the Oklahoma City bombing for instance). See Green Scare chart for individual defendants and charges.

Sadly, for the history of this movement, this case was only brought to fruition because one of the co-conspirators, Jacob Ferguson, went to the feds and snitched out a bunch of his supposed comrades. He then traveled around the country wearing a wire and attempted to entrap many of his former friends. Without his active cooperation, the Green Scare prosecutions would not have happened. I confidently say this because nearly 10 years had gone by and the feds didn’t really have a clue who was responsible for any of the series of arsons according to the federal discovery. When Ferguson walked into the U.S. Attorney offices and basically told them he wanted $150k and a promise he wouldn’t go to jail, the feds had no idea how lucky they were to have the guy who was involved in nearly every one of the arsons committed by the ELF and ALF during that time period.

After the others were arrested, the feds paraded Ferguson in front of some of his co-conspirators in a hallway so they would know that he had given them up. However, Ferguson, a person living with a serious long term drug addiction (that certainly played a role in his decisions), who also happened to have a large pentagram tattooed on his forehead, would not make a good government witness in court. Because the Feds knew this was a weakness to their prosecutions, they instead focused on trying to get others to flip—which pathetically, was not hard for them to do. Stan Meyerhoff flipped next, and snitched on several others, including his girlfriend at the time, Lacey Philabaum, who then ended up testifying against one of her comrades at trial, Briana Waters, who had a newborn baby at that time. At Briana’s trial, Philabaum bent over backwards to do everything and anything possible to reduce her jail time—even attempting to lie and make it look like I had some role in the conspiracy as I sat next to Briana at counsel table (as one of her attorneys).

All in all, out of 14 total Oregon indictment defendants, 1 committed suicide while in jail (Bill Rogers), 3 were not found until decades later (Dibee, Rubin and Overaker still has not been located). Dibee and Rubin eventually turned themselves in and were non-cooperating defendants (they did not name names), and entered into plea deals. Four of the original arrestees remained strong and bravely refused to cooperate with the Feds: McGowan, Paul, Bloch and Zacher. Six made the cowardly decision to snitch: Gerlach, Meyerhoff, Tubbs, Savoie, Tankersley and Thurston. Thurston started off as a non-cooperator and was flipped by his then-girlfriend Gerlach who also tried hard to get the other 4 non-cooperators to snitch as well. So, in the end, 6 non-cooperating defendants were able to return to the movements they took life-changing risks to defend; 6 snitched their way to being lifelong traitors, and 2 are MIA.

Additional indictments in Washington, California, Colorado, and Michigan were eventually added, and additional defendants were rounded up as a result of the snitching in that Oregon case. Briana Waters, Justin Solondz, and Marius Mason were other non-cooperating Green Scare defendants who were eventually prosecuted and punished. Briana Waters was the only defendant who went to trial because the Washington U.S. Attorney refused to agree to non-cooperation plea deals. She was convicted, imprisoned and separated from her baby as a result of information given to the feds by the defendants who made the decision to give up their friends and community members in a futile attempt to save themselves.

Many of the defendants faced mandatory minimum sentences of 30 years. Some of the non-cooperating defendants were threatened with the possibility of life plus 1,015 years in prison for property damage. Ultimately in the Oregon case, the non-snitch defendants were sentenced between 4 and 7.5 years in prison. The snitches got 3.5 to 13 years. Marius Mason received the longest Green Scare sentence after his ex-husband snitched him out—he is currently serving an almost 22-year federal prison sentence.

In 2026, CLDC will undertake an ongoing series about the history and aftermath of the Green Scare. The story is long and complicated, but worth sharing and knowing. This cautionary tale is a prime example of the old adage “those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat it.” Many lives were changed forever because of this story. It’s hard to believe it has been 20 years. To all those who kept their mouths shut and lived the saying “if you do the crime, you do the time,” thank you for living your political ethics and values. And until all are free, CLDC has your back.