Pictures the Gas Thugs at the Marcellus Shale Operators Crime Committee May Not Want You To See

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Here are some pictures of mine you haven't seen:

Pictures the Gas Thugs at the Marcellus Shale Operators Crime Committee May Not Want You To See - an album on Flickr

They're the less photogenic, not exactly photographs, shots of the everyday, business as usual crimes against nature and humanity  committed  across Pennsylvania by the oil and gas industry.

These are not necessarily pictures of the spectacular--the drilling mud spills, the explosions, the truck accidents--and on and on.

Instead these are the pictures of the devastating and irreparable destruction that this psychopathic industry commits every single minute of every single day against the ecologies and their inhabitants, against precious and dwindling resources and  the communities that depend on them, against the future of all of our children and theirs.

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

The tremendous irony is that the Marcellus Shale Operators Crime Committee exists as a partnership between Pennsylvania law enforcement and the gas thugs.

You've got that right.

As Adam Federman shows, MSOCC is "a little-known intelligence-sharing network that brings together law enforcement, including the FBI, Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security, the oil and gas industry, and private security firms. Established in late 2011 or early 2012, the Marcellus Shale Operators' Crime Committee (MSOCC) is a group of "professionals with a law-enforcement background who are interested in developing working relationships and networking on intelligence issues," according to an email sent to group members by James Hansel, regional security manager for Anadarko Petroleum"(State police documents show intelligence-sharing network between law enforcement and Marcellus Shale drillers | News | Pittsburgh City Paper).

MSOCC's charge, in other words, is to

(a) keep us from exposing the crimes committed by the gas industry via, say pictures,
(b) use the police to intimidate us into silence when we do expose them--effectively criminalizing the exercise of our first amendment rights, and
(c) silence us.

Federman continues, "[t]he MSOCC has taken a keen interest in environmental activists and anti-fracking groups, according to documents obtained through a state Right to Know request. The collaboration raises questions about the increasingly close ties between law enforcement and the natural-gas industry in Pennsylvania, and whether law enforcement has violated the civil liberties of protesters and environmental groups in its effort to protect the state's most controversial industry."

That's putting it mildly.

When an officer like Mike Hutson can show up at the door of an activist who has exercised her or his constitutionally protected rights to freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to travel public roads and document what she or he sees, and when that officer can simply appear without a warrant--there can be no other reason than that he has been co-opted and corrupted by a "partnership" whose reason for being is to suppress civil liberty.

But it's not just that Officer Hutson should be ashamed--as he surely should be. It's that he represents an agency--the Pennsylvania State Police--a state--The Commonwealth--private security firms (a polite name for paid surveillance mercenaries)--and an industry that operate collectively as a repressive regime against the people.

And "regime"is the right term.

The State Police, the state, the private security firms, the industry--are in fact populated by all the same people (virtually all white, virtually all male) who swap places in the ever upward game move of career advance. To say that this is all about money is an understatement.

It is, of course, but that's only because it's all about power and arrogance and entitlement and greed--a lethal cocktail that filters down through to the water table, to our wells, through our pores, into our lungs, tearing up our eyes, infiltrating the placentas of our developing babies--literally.

And yet they dare to call us the criminals.

Theirs' is a new definition of "crime."

From the point of view of power and arrogance and entitlement and greed, "crime" is "telling the truth."

To that crime, I plead guilty.

My pictures tell the truth.

What is that truth?

That the term "industry" is far too polite a name for an enterprise that, like the zombies on The Walking Dead, will eat anything, consume anything without conscience or foresight in order to survive.

Gas thugs are not captains of industry; they're rapists and charlatans; they're voracious and--once they have their precious pipelines--they are best cast as an invading army of vampires ready to slurp the last drop of gas-blood from every "sweet spot" and every "not-so-sweet"; spot until their thirst is slated.

Or until we are at war over the last drop of clean water, using weapons fueled by the gas thugs to get to it.

These are violent images to be sure.

But they are not one iota more violent than the every day business as usual devastations captured by these pictures.

If only we could see that.

Wendy Lynne Lee

Anadarko Liquidates Public Lands for Private Profits: Marcellus Shale Earth First Fights for All of Us at Tiadaghton

As reported by Marie Cusick, NPR-State Impact:

A group of environmental activists has chained themselves to concrete barrels in an effort to block access to an Anadarko Petroleum drilling site in Lycoming County, [Tiadaghton State Forest] according to a spokesman for the group.
 Marcellus Shale EarthFirst spokesman Mathew Louis-Rosenberg says between eight to ten activists were involved and two have been arrested so far.
“Folks blockading access to the wellpad were in place before people showed up for work,” he says. “Workers were unable to access the site" (Environmental activists block access to Lycoming County drilling site | StateImpact Pennsylvania).

Tiadaghton, Wendy Lynne Lee

A more complete picture, however is offered by Marcellus Shale Earth First:

"In the pre-dawn hours, activists with Marcellus Shale EarthFirst!, Pennsylvania residents and students took action to halt Anadarko’s hydraulic fracturing operation in the Tiadaghton State Forest. Protestors blocked the only access road to a wellpad by locking themselves to barrels of concrete, preventing workers from entering the site.  Dozens more activists are holding a rally at Anadarko’s corporate offices in Williamsport, Pa.  The activists are demanding an immediate halt to all plans for new drilling on Pennsyvlania’s public lands" (Marcellus Shale EF!ers Held at $57,000 Bail | Earth First! Newswire).

The EarthFirst! action is in response to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's "executive order to open Pennsylvania’s remaining public lands for hydraulic fracturing," including Tiadaghton State Forest and Loyalsock State Forest's Clarence Moore Lands. While after stopping all operations at the Dam Run Road site for four hours the lock-down activists were finally removed by state police (who noted their politeness), clearing access to the site took at least two more hours (Marcellus Shale EF!ers Held at $57,000 Bail | Earth First! Newswire).

Here's the Youtube: ▶ Gas Well Protest on Dam Run Road - YouTube

While the direct action protest continued at Dam Run Road, the growing protest against extreme extraction in Tiadaghton made its public debut in front of the Anadarko Pennsylvania headquarters in Williamsport.

But that's just a cursory summary of the facts, and the facts can't contain the meaning, the courage, and the commitment of the Marcellus Shale EarthFirst! action. Though some--and far too many--would be willing to characterize as "terrorist" nonviolent civil disobedience--even first amendment protected freedom of expression--what we know inside this movement to resist extreme fossil fuel extraction is that meaningful change is not going to be accomplished through, say, sitting down with the gas industry and asking them not to destroy our water, our communities, and our public and private lands. 

No. 

In the tradition of every movement for civil liberty, the equal rights of minorities and women, the human rights of indigenous peoples--and now the most fundamental right of all, the right to drink clean water and breathe clean air, the members of this movement must engage every nonviolent constitutionally protected means of resistance at its disposal. And that was the principle which governed this cold, blustery day in rural Pennsylvania--folks fighting for their lives and all of our lives.

As I put it to the reporter from the Williamsport Sun Gazette: "We want to see it stopped everywhere because it is destroying our communities and because it's destroying our water...stopping companies like Anadarko, who have a history of environmental ethics violations, is crucial to protecting forested areas.." 

Photograph, Wendy Lynne Lee

I added that consistent with the position taken by the Shale Justice Coalition, of whom Marcellus Shale Earth First! is a proud member (Shale Justice), our resistance to extreme extraction was aimed not only at protecting forests, but "every special place" including our yards, our homes, and all of our public lands (Anti-fracking crowd uses logs, pipe to block Dam Run Road - SunGazette.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - Williamsport-Sun Gazette).

It's really pretty simple:

• Given an industry whose record of egregious ecological and resource liquidation is demonstrably un-regulable, and who effectively drafts its own laws through the collusion of elected state senators and representatives,
• Given a government demonstrably beholden to that industry-- more interested in insuring the revolving door fortunes of its elected representatives as well as amassing largesse in the form of influence and off-shore bank deposits,
• Given a state police appropriated as the private security force of that industry--an industry who can deploy its agents to the homes of private citizens without warrant and without cause (THE WRENCH: WHEN THE NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY USES THE STATE POLICE AND THE FBI JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE TO SILENCE A CITIZEN: OFFICER MIKE HUTSON AT MY DOOR, 2.14.14.),
• Given a state history saturated in the coal dust, acid mine run-off, industry hegemony, and political corruption of its past,
• Given a media--at virtually every level, local, state, national-- controlled by the industries that bank-roll its programming...

it's no wonder that folks are bamboozled by the flag-wavin', fear-mongerin', lie-a-minute bull shit from companies like Anadarko Petroleum. In fact, it's a wonder that more folks aren't acquiescent drones. 

Fact is, if we weren't making real headway getting out the facts about fracking, industry-promo-drones like James Asbury of the gas rag The Drillin' Man (Protest in Williamsport | The Drill'N Man) would have nothing to do. Although he's slim on facts and long on making claims for which he has zero independent support, the Drillin' Man does know his job description: manufacture anxiety in folks by encouraging them to see as an act of violence the exercise of Constitutionally protected non-violent freedom of expression. Then, gain access to gas industry representatives by making them think you've got insider knowledge about things like "movement plans" you manifestly do not have. Lastly, act as a pseudo-snitch to the state police about said "plans and strategies." In other words, Asbury fancies himself as a sort of self-selected special agent protecting the public from the dangerous activists.

To bad he can't get his facts straight--case in point: In his "intelligencer" about the Marcellus Shale Earth First action, he says that "gas protesters had set up shop in the Loyalsock national forest." 

He's got the forest wrong; it was Tiadaghton.

Then he "quotes" a gas station attendant as referring to the activists as "[e]co-activists or eco-terrorists depending on who you ask,"and then goes on allegedly to say that he "thought some of them were going to go at it here in the store” referring to an oil man who’d walked into the shop a few moments after some of the protestors came in" (Protest in Williamsport | The Drill'N Man). Asbury describes the protesters as "huddling" outside the federal building on 3rd street, Williamsport, and he claims to quote an Anadarko contractor who referred to the protesters as "unspooled."

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

But the Drillin' Man supplies no corroborating evidence that any of this was said, no location for the alleged gas station, no names, nothing. Moreover, "huddling" no more describes what we were doing that does "eco-terrorism." fact is, we have no reason to believe he's no just making this up out of whole cloth, and--keep reading--very good reason to think that he is.

In his excellent piece for American Prospect, The Shale Rebellion, Barry Yeoman writes of a meeting he had with Asbury in Williamsport:

Only one moment from our interview disquiets me. On the second night, as we sit down with our beers, Asbury says, “So I heard you spent some time with Wendy Lee.” I hadn’t mentioned the professor the previous night. I ask how he knows. “I have contacts with every waitress and every…”—here he pauses—“I’ve got everybody pegged. I know crap about people that they don’t know about themselves. Nothing gets done in this business without…”—another pause—“there are double spies and double agents." (The Shale Rebellion | The American Prospect)

Now it is just plain creepy that Asbury knew Yeoman had me on his interview list. And few with any sense doubt that there exist info-delivery moles within the anti-fracking movement. After all, just consider the largesse and power that's at stake. But if Asbury had "everybody pegged" he absolutely wouldn't be bragging about it to an investigative reporter. Double agents don't blow their cover. And he'd refrain from telling whoppers about which no other agency has reported like this one from the Anadarko protest: 

As DM [Drillin' Man] left the area- an odd thing stood out.An military looking vehicle was seen pulling away from the area-  the number of police and guards on hand clearly showed a  higher than normal level of defense. (Protest in Williamsport | The Drill'N Man).

This is just one more rather labored attempt to manufacture anxiety about ecoterrorism--where there is no such threat, and to legitimate  visits from officers like Mike Hutson--where there is no reason for the "visit."

So why does this little story about Asbury matter here? 

Because we in the movement need to comprehend as clearly as we can the strategies being deployed to discredit us, to arrest us on false/faulty grounds, to harass us, to intimidate us, and to ultimately silence us. 

While the Drillin Man is certainly small potatoes, he represents a kind of "career" for opportunists looking to cash in on whatever hysteria they can help to create over a controversial issue. I don't know that Asbury actually even cares all that much about natural gas extraction. Like, say Energy in Depth's Joe Massaro--also quoted by Yeoman in The Shale Rebellion--whose says he's "heard stories about pipe bombs" but doesn't think the industry needs to worry about Lee (connecting me to pipe bombs but seeming to deny it--nice), Asbury wants to make sure he stays on the industry radar as a source of information. 

Whether he's got any or not.

What Asbury does know is what the industry knows--and we all know:

More and more folks are beginning to see for themselves the cynical, mercenary, and breathlessly greedy character of companies like Anadarko, companies whose true colors aren't even the green of dollar bills, but shades of drilling mud, barren hillside, that nasty red rash you can't seem to get rid of, the headaches, the explosions, the leaks, the loss of public lands.

So, just in case you might still be thinking that the folks who protested are misdirected, or that the citizens who tethered themselves to cement for the sake of protecting your forests are somehow guilty of a crime, how about a few more facts about just how much Anadarko cares about folks like you and me:

3.21.14, Reported by Bloomburg, concerning the "worst off-shore oil spill in U.S. history--the Deep water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, "Anadarko Emails Seen Showing Spill Role Ignored By Judge":

A BP executive and a geologist working on the Macondo well rejected Anadarko’s urging to deepen the well, according to e-mails sent the week before the April 2010 deep-sea blowout. BP officials said in the e-mails, unsealed earlier this month in lawsuits over the spill, that the well’s condition “provided for little to no margin to continue drilling” safely.

In other words, Anadarko knew that drilling deeper offered "little to no margin to continue drilling” safely," and insisted that BP drill anyways. Moreover, 

Anadarko, which owned a 25 percent stake in the Macondo well, off the Louisiana coast, contends it was a passive investor and can’t be held liable for pollution fines from the spill, which sent more than 4 million barrels of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, closing fisheries and tainting shorelines from Texas to Florida.

That is, the only thing Anadarko was interested in was avoiding liability--and the hefty fines that might go with that.

John Christiansen, an Anadarko spokesman, declined to comment on the e-mails other than to refer to the company’s annual report filed Feb. 28. Given its “lack of direct operational involvement” and Barbier’s ruling that it wasn’t negligent during the drilling operation, the company said it believed its exposure to penalties under the Clean Water Act wouldn’t materially affect it. (Anadarko E-Mails Seen Showing Spill Role Ignored by Judge - Bloomberg).

Colorado, 9.18.13: 

 A damaged storage tank owned by energy company Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has spilled an estimated 125 barrels of oil into the flood-swollen South Platte River in north-central Colorado, the state oil and gas commission said on Wednesday. The statement provided few details of the spill beyond saying that the mishap occurred near the town of Milliken north of the confluence of the St. Vrain and South Platte rivers, and that Anadarko was responding by deploying absorbent booms on the river. (Colorado Oil Spill: Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Storage Tank Spills Into South Platte River).

And, of course, let's not forget that Anadarko is Kerr-McGee. As I described in an earlier excoriation, quoting from Bloomberg (Anadarko Fights Ailing Preacher in $25 Billion EPA Toxic Lawsuit - Bloomberg)

The U.S. Department of Justice, in a lawsuit on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency and other environmental and state agencies, says Kerr-McGee fouled 2,772 sites, including Columbus, during seven decades of producing chemicals, fertilizer and plutonium pellets. The lawsuit, scheduled for trial beginning May 15, seeks $25 billion to clean up the toxins and compensate tort claimants — or the people who say they’ve been personally harmed. “That is by far the biggest polluter on record,” says David Guest, an attorney with nonprofit law firm Earthjustice. “This is an almost unprecedented case in terms of how much money is in play.” Trouble is, Kerr-McGee no longer exists. It disappeared in a spinoff, a merger — into Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) — and a bankruptcy, corporate maneuvers that have frustrated small-town residents across the country who say the pollution has ruined their health. (Anadarko Fights Ailing Preacher in $25 Billion EPA Toxic Lawsuit – Bloomberg) (Of Aristotle and Anadarko: Why “Better Laws” Will Never be Enough | Raging Chicken Press)

But if all that's too far from home to get you really worked up, consider just a few Pennsylvania counties. From the highly respected Environmental Integrity Project:

According to the Oil and Gas Compliance Report, PA DEP conducted 2,928 inspections of 488 wells operated by Anadarko E&P Onshore, LLC (Anadarko E&P) between 2009 and 2013.30 In that same five-year span, PA DEP conducted 72 inspections of facilities operated by Anadarko Marcellus Midstream, LLC (Anadarko Midstream).31 From these inspections, PA DEP identified 246 violations: 207 at Anadarko E&P sites and 39 at Anadarko Midstream sites.32

By county, the highest number of violations occurred in Lycoming County, with 112 violations, followed by Clinton County with 70 violations, Centre County with 16 violations, and 48 violations with the county not indicated.33

Table 3: Anadarko Citations by Violation Category (2009-2013)

Violation Type Citations

Discharge of pollutants to waters of Commonwealth & discharge-related violations: 87

Failure to properly store or manage wastes or pollutants: 77

Failure to minimize erosion or stabilize/restore site: 21

Failure to post permit/authorization: 27

Well casing violations: 17

Miscellaneous noncompliance: 9

Failure to submit or maintain records on site: 5

Failure to notify DEP of pollution incident: 3

Total 246

Photograph, Wendy Lynne Lee

Upshot: Anadarko is among the top three environmental violators in Pennsylvania.

Do you really think that that nasty record is going to get any better if export facilities--like that planned for Cove Point, Maryland--become operational? 

Not if you're sane.

Danielle Dietterick, spokeswoman for Marcellus Shale Earth First! at the Anadarko headquarters in Williamsport put the crucial point beautifully when she characterized the actions as an "escalation of tactics" "intended to raise awareness of Anadarko's drilling activities."

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

"We're here to say that we have not forgotten the things they have done, we're not afraid, we're going to keep coming back until we get our message across" (Anti-fracking crowd uses logs, pipe to block Dam Run Road - SunGazette.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - Williamsport-Sun Gazette).

I'd add only this: "until Anadarko, and every other gas company leave Pennsylvania, or for that matter, leave everywhere."

Count me in with the resistance.

Wendy Lynne Lee

Full Flickr set: The Courage the Movement to End Extreme Extraction Cannot Be Without: Demonstration Against Anadarko, Williamsport,3.20.14 - a set on Flickr

For pieces on Anadarko in the Loyalsock, see:

Of Aristotle and Anadarko: Why “Better Laws” Will Never be Enough | Raging Chicken Press

THE WRENCH: MOBILIZE TO DEFEND THE LOYALSOCK: MARCELLUS EARTH FIRST ACTION CAMP. 1.11.13. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wendylynnelee/

WHEN THE NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY USES THE STATE POLICE AND THE FBI JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE TO SILENCE A CITIZEN: OFFICER MIKE HUTSON AT MY DOOR, 2.14.14.

Barto Compressor Station, Lycoming County, PA
Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

UPDATE 4:

At the request of a Bloomberg News reporter, I made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request of the FBI. Here's what I got back:

Based on the information you provided [name, address, ss#], we conducted a search of the Central Records System. We were unable to identify main file records responsive to the FOIA.

In other words, The FBI has nothing. The letter goes on to issue disclaimers about what's excluded by Congress--but this is all just boiler plate.

But that raises the following question: Mike Hutson is with the Pennsylvania State Police/FBI Joint Ecoterrorism Task Force--so what was he doing at my door? On what possible grounds could he have had reason to drive all the way from Williamsport (about an hour) on a snowy Winter Valentine's Day in the middle of the day with no particular expectation that I'd even be home from work? Who, Officer Hutson do you work for?

The only investigation I have been able to unearth in which Officer Hutson was involved had to do with alleged pipe bombs at 14 locations, but only one identified at a frack pad in Zelienople, PA. But while he canvases a number of possibilities about the culprits--Officer Hutson does not even consider the possibility that the report is false, that even if there were explosive devices found, that they were planted by the industry itself: "With no suspects except in one case, “we don’t know the intent,” said state Trooper Michael Hutson, a member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force based in Williamsport" (Hazardous devices found at gas well sites but intent unknown | PennLive.com).

Officer Hutson then goes onto say something rather telling: "It does not appear the natural gas industry was targeted because no environmental group has come forward to claim responsibility, he said."

So, again, what brought you to the door of my home, Officer Hutson? What could have possibly justified that visit--paid for by tax dollars, without a warrant, and without any claim of wrong-doing on my part? 

Are we comfortable as a public--as citizens--with State Police/FBI investigators just "comin' to chat awhile"? Coming to our homes on fishing expeditions? 

We should not only find this wholly unacceptable--but clear evidence of a state police whose job has become to run interference in the interest of protecting an industry favored by a corrupt state. 

And anyone who thinks this will change one iota under a Tom Wolf administration is a fool.

Would the gas industry plant its own unexploded explosives in order to prompt the state police to deploy such repressive strategies like paying visits to citizens--effectively criminalizing the exercise of first amendment rights?

Goddamn right they would.

Next: FOIA request at the Pennsylvania State Police--I'll let you know.

UPDATE 3: WITH PERMISSION, FROM ANONYMOUS ENGAGED CITIZEN:

"Ace reporter Morgan Myers always get the story straight! Let no one be deluded - there is indeed a causal relationship between Mr. Hutson harassing law-abiding citizens who chose to exercise their constitutional rights and this story in Sun Gazette. However, I would suggest that the relationship is actually the inverse - Mikey, or his industry cronies, put that story out to the Sun Gazette in order to counteract the firestorm of negative publicity that the Joint Terrorism Task Force is receiving as a result of his (and their) blind assumption that anyone who photographs or speaks out publicly against the gas industry is associated with "terrorism".

Think about this - this dude's livelihood is predicated upon combatting "terrorism." Random acts of vandalism against stuff left in the woods hardly qualifies as "terrorism". Are smashed rural mailboxes acts of terrorism against the US mail system? Are the ubiquitous gunshot holes in rural stop signs indicative of a clandestine insurgency against the Department of Transportation? Mikey NEEDS to show he is actually DOING SOMETHING. What better way to maintain funding for his shiny black, freshly-washed, tinted-window, fully accessorized, anti-terrorism, assault vehicle than to inflate the threat perception? Otherwise he is back to working as a crossing guard outside the elementary school.

Not convinced that his "investigations" are not legitimate? This guy used state tax dollars to travel up to New York State to come to the door of Jeremy Alderson (NO FRACK ALMANAC fame) over an alleged "trespassing" claim! When the seismic stooges trespassed on MY LAND three years ago and left cut brush and flagging as evidence the State Police refused to send a trooper out. They told me to call the district attorney's office. When I called the district attorney's office they told me to call the State Police!

Who do YOU think Mikey is protecting? Number one - he is protecting Mikey. Next, he is protecting the interests of wealth and property. He is NOT protecting the community.

And anyone who is reading this industry company newsletter (the Sun Gazette) should only do so to mock the grammer, writing skills and intellectual acumen of the Sun Gazette staff and editor. The vast majority of people who read these local rags are seeking bias confirmation of previously held beliefs, not information that will make them think or, god-forbid, challenge their operational paradigm.

The proper response - satirize them and rob them of all credibility. You do not win by debating them as you can not teach stupid, you win by exposing them as hypocrites and stooges."

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

EXACTLY.

UPDATE 2: My comment (posted below) at the Williamsport Sun Gazette on the wholly fake MORGAN MYERS "news" "story" on ecoterrorism. At least NOW we know why Officer Hutson was at my door.

But here's a short version of my response: Bite. Me. I will not be silenced, deterred, or fear-mongered by anyone--but especially by an industry who--drunk on a devil's brew of arrogant entitlement combined with increasing desperation borne of the fact that their fossil fuel heroin is about to run out--thinks it can dispatch a state police officer/FBI jack boot to my HOME.

"It's stunning that what sadly passes for a newspaper prints as if it were news what is in fact industry fear-mongering propaganda designed to stifle legitimate protest. There was no story here. Morgan Myers is a PAID SHALE PLAY GAS SHILL. This is how a corrupted state, a grossly inept governor, and an industry hellbent on maximizing its profits insures against the increasing public outrage at a process that destroys the conditions of life. For a far truer picture of this collusion see "When the Gas Industry uses the State Police," Wendy Lynne Lee, at The Wrench."

http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/603131/Ecoterror-target.html?nav=5011

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

UPDATE 1: TREMENDOUS THANKS TO ALL OF THE SUPPORTIVE FOLKS WHO'VE RESPONDED TO THIS POST. I HAVE BEEN JUST OVERWHELMED AND AMAZED AT THE NUMBER OF BLOGS AT WHICH IT'S BEEN REPOSTED--AND THE NERVE IT HAS CLEARLY TOUCHED. I WILL BE UPDATING AND ADDING POSTS AS THIS STORY DEVELOPS, AND I HAVE BEEN TRACKING THE SITES WHERE IT'S BEEN REPOSTED. I HAVE LISTED THESE AT THE BOTOM OF THE POST.

AND HERE'S THE ORIGINAL STORY:

I was brushing my teeth, and getting kidney meds into my cat, Switch, when I heard my three dogs going nuts downstairs.

I jostled down the stairs, wiping toothpaste off my face to attend to the rapping, and the doggies.

There was a man at the door.

I thought it was a Jehovah Witness, so I was wondering whether to make coffee.

I arrived at the door, signaled to the fellow--who I could now see was holding out a badge--that I needed to get my dogs outside. 'Barky, not bitey," I believe I said.


The man's name is MIKE HUTSON, Pennsylvania State Police, Intelligence Unit, Williamsport Office.

He was investigating reports of "vandalism" at unspecified compressor station locations, and he had with him a copy of the excellent Jeremy Alderson's Fall/Winter (2.2) Edition of the NO FRACK ALMANAC (http://www.nofrackalmanac.com/downloads/volume2_2.pdf).

He wanted to know about the pictures--the ones I have included here.

He wanted to know about the activists in the anti-fracking movement--and whether or not "they" commit acts of vandalism and/or violence.

He wanted me to give him names of "bad apples."

I know of no such "apples."

So, I scoffed.

Such a notion--as I made very clear to Mr. Hutson--is preposterous.

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

I reminded him of the activism of Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchu, Aung San Suu Kyi , Ella Baker, and Martin Luther King, and made very clear that these were our heros.

I mentioned Socrates who was willing to die for what he stood, and that he was executed for daring to question authority.

In fact, if there's to be a discussion of violence, I said, he'd be far better to investigate the industry. It will use whatever it can to silence us--and that is what brought the state police--an intelligence unit in a big black window-tinted van--to my door in rural Pennsylvania.

Many of us in this movement spend time wondering if we are surveilled. We try to avoid paranoia--all the while we know that, given the immense power and money at stake, this is an industry that does not conceive of the law as anything other than either a nuisance or a weapon to cast legitimate exercise of free speech as "eco-terrorism."

We see that everyday in its flagrant flouting of environmental, safety, and zoning law, and in it's liberal use of retired intelligence agents to harass, follow, surveil, and intimidate us.

Many of us have experienced vandalism clearly intended to silence our voices.

I used to wonder if I was surveilled, if my phone was tapped.

Now when I call my mom, I say into the phone that the agent listening might as well go get donuts.

Now I have the state police intelligence unit at my door.

What more effective way to intimidate a movement activist than to make up a complaint about "vandalism" at "compressors" that will get the police to her door?

But I have a message for this industry:

I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU. AND I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE STATE YOU WIELD AS YOUR PERSONAL POLICE FORCE.

Here's the good news:

First, I got nothin' to hide. In fact, I'll bet that makes the industry even more nervous. I'm a mommy and a professor with some goddamn convictions, a steady paycheck, and a deep sense of duty to my four kids.

Doesn't get more ferocious than that.

Second, as a movement, we must be making some real headway for the industry to go to all the trouble to fake a vague charge against some unspecified folks in order to get an intel-officer dispatched on the tax payer 's dime and time to the door of an activist with no arrest record, no history of violence.

What she's got is a raft-load of knowledge about an industry that ought to be criminalized, a capacity to write down what she knows, a good camera, and some guts.

And she's keeping all four.

*Update: Thank you "BJ" for bringing the following two items to my attention--particularly thefact that Mr. Hutson is with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

http://stepsofpa.com/PDF/11_Terrorism.pdf

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/10/hazardous_devices_found_at_gas.html

Wendy Lynne Lee
Shale Justice

All photographs: Wendy Lynne Lee, taken with a Nikon, and a telephoto lens on PUBLIC ROADS.

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

POSTED ALSO AT:

http://www.ronpaultribune.com/index.php/90-content/dailypaul-com/13619-gas-industry-uses-the-state-police-the-fbi-joint-terrorism-task-force-to-silence-a-citizen-intelligence-officer-at-my-door-2-1

http://www.dailypaul.com/312489/when-the-gas-industry-uses-the-state-police-and-the-fbi-joint-terrorism-task-force-to-silence-a-citizen-intelligence-offi

http://pennsylvaniafrack.com/2014/02/16/when-the-gas-industry-uses-the-state-police-and-the-fbi-joint-terrorism-task-force-to-silence-a-citizen-intelligence-officer-at-my-door-2-14-14/

http://protestationdotorg.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/when-the-gas-industry-uses-the-state-police-to-silence-a-citizen-intelligence-officer-at-my-door-w/

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2014/02/14/when-the-gas-industry-uses-the-state-police-to-silence-a-citizen-intelligence-officer-at-my-door/

THANK YOU MICHAEL BADGES CANNING AND TOM JEFFERSON FOR THIS GREAT POSTER: