This Friday in Miami, a federal judge will hear arguments in the case of the Ashcroft Justice Department vs. Greenpeace. The case involves an act of civil disobedience and is of great concern to environmental groups and other members of civil society.
In spring 2002, two Greenpeace activists boarded a ship bound for Miami that was carrying illegal mahogany logged in Brazil. They carried a banner that read, “President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging.” As is typical in Greenpeace actions, they then submitted to arrest.[1]
Fifteen months after the pair and four companions had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, the Bush Administration indicted Greenpeace on conspiracy and illegal boarding charges,[2] resurrecting an 1872 “sailor-mongering” law aimed at preventing boarding houses from luring sailors off ships as they entered port.
Organizations including the ACLU, People for the American Way and the Natural Resources Defense Council have filed court briefs in support of Greenpeace. Legal experts question the precedent this prosecution could set for free speech and peaceful protest cases.
At a press conference in Washington tomorrow, leaders of several national public interest groups will call on Attorney General John Ashcroft to respect Americans’ First Amendment rights to protest government practices.
"If John Ashcroft had done this in the 1960s, black Americans would not be voting today, eating at formerly all-white lunch counters or sitting on bus front seats," Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, told BushGreenwatch. “This is a government assault on time-honored nonviolent civil disobedience as practiced by Martin Luther King and thousands of other Americans.”
A Miami Herald editorial about the Greenpeace case said, "The indictment is a puzzlement ... . There seems no point beyond vindictiveness toward a group that riles the administration. Is this the best use of federal resources? The case should be closed."
And in a speech in Washington last month, former Vice President Al Gore called the prosecution of Greenpeace "highly disturbing." Gore noted that "independent legal experts and historians have said that the prosecution – under an obscure and bizarre 1872 law against ‘sailor-mongering’ – appears to be aimed at inhibiting Greenpeace’s First Amendment activities."[3]
