I was saddened to hear that two individuals who released fur animals and vandalized fur farms across America were busted: http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/fbi-arrests-activists-accused-of-releasing-mink/article_6c169b5d-dbbc-5dd1-adb0-534ee46af88b.html
But the arrest is sort of beside the point and there are two interesting tidbits in there. First and less interesting, is the ridiculous charge of terrorism under the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act" -- seriously, what they did is just plain old crime. Before you know it, going 10 over on the freeway will be considered an act of terrorism.
More intriguing, despite a lack of details on how they got busted, is this tidbit:
The indictment states that they covered their tracks by avoiding phones or logging into known online accounts and email. Instead, they used public Internet computers and encrypted email and cash for purchases while traveling. They would allegedly withdraw hundreds of dollars while back home in the San Francisco Bay Area before another trip.
The FBI states that they drafted communiques and posted them online to publicize their actions on websites associated with "animal rights extremists."
I'm going to guess automatic license plate readers were involved. Pure guess.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Monday July 27 2015, @04:41PM
They have sheep in the midwest? Thought it was miles and miles of cows?
I'm sure the cattle ranchers would like that to be the case. Shepherds and cowboys don't mix well, and around the turn of the last century it got violent across much of the west. [wikipedia.org]
So, yeah, it's mostly cows out there. There are plenty of sheep, too, and as long as the sheep stay in their own pastures strong fences make good neighbors.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:31PM
The west is not the mid-west, thus why they have different names. Moving east is no big deal. Moving to the middle-east is.