WASHINGTON — They are bombing buildings; sending death threats; committing arson, extortion, burglary and sabotage; and urging followers to wage war along with them.
The Bush administration said Tuesday that those activities qualify extreme animal-rights activists as terrorists, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch agreed. But Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee's ranking Democrat, scoffed at that.
"Most Americans would not consider the harassment of animal testing facilities to be 'terrorism' any more than they would consider anti-globalism protesters or anti-war protesters or women's health activists to be terrorists," Leahy said in a statement for a hearing on animal rights extremists
"This administration aggressively stamps everything with a 'terrorism' label."
He complained Hatch held the hearing, which Leahy did not attend, about animal-rights activists while ignoring Democratic calls for the committee to hold its own hearings on abuse of Iraqi prisoners, and on holding enemy combatants without charges.
But Hatch and administration officials said violence by animal-rights groups is out of hand — and they are using loopholes in existing law often to escape prosecution, so those loopholes must be closed.
Hatch said, "Their tactics include vandalizing and pipe-bombing research facilities, credit card fraud (targeting animal researchers), threatening employees of business and research companies, terrorizing children of employees and posting death threats against employees."
Hatch complained that includes "numerous bombing and vandalisms against farmers in my state of Utah. A mink breeders' co-op in Murray, Utah, has been attacked and fire-bombed."
McGregor W. Scott, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, said, "Animal enterprise terrorism and ecoterrorism is just that: terrorism."
He noted that five years ago, Congress outlawed "physical disruption" to an animal enterprise. But he said animal-rights groups are evading prosecution by instead harassing "third parties" — such as customers, suppliers, auditors and employees of companies involved in animal research or food production.
Various companies testified that activists have threatened the children of employees; often show up at night at their homes in ski masks to yell protests and paint slogans; jam home phones, e-mail and traditional mail with harassing messages; fraudulently sign up employees for a variety of services and subscriptions they did not order; and have even tricked hearse companies into showing up to collect the bodies of employees who are still alive.
John E. Lewis, deputy assistant FBI director for counterterrorism, said more drastic violence, such as bombing, has occurred. He said after a bombing at the Chiron Life Sciences Center in California, a note claiming responsibility warned, "You might be able to protect your buildings, but can you protect the homes of every employee?"
Companies testified those threatening tactics have prompted many researchers to quit and forced companies to discontinue promising medical research.
Hatch said, "When research laboratories and university researchers are targeted and attacked, the ones who lose most are those who are living with a disease or who are watching a loved one struggling with a devastating illness."
The owners of Kentucky Fried Chicken also asked Hatch not just to protect animal researchers but companies that produce or sell meat. They are targeted by less extreme groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of KFC's parent company, Yum! Brands, said harassment and threats from PETA have left many KFC executives to seek around-the-clock police protection.
"Surely the perpetration of continuous and repeated psychological infliction is enough to classify as a crime," he said.
E-mail: leed@dgsys.com