The Niqabi Paralegal

In April 2002, Greenpeace activists boarded a ship that was transporting mahogany from Brazil to a Miami logging company, which violates Brazil's moratorium on the export of mahogany. The Greenpeace activists carried out a non-violent protest on the ship, mounting a banner on the ship calling for an end to illegal logging of mahogany.

The activists were duly charged with interfering with law enforcement and illegally boarding a high-seas vessel and their cases resolved in various ways (ultimately six pled guilty and were sentenced to time served; charges against the others were dropped).

Then on July 19 of this year, the federal government brought an indictment against the Greenpeace organization itself on charges of conspiracy.

In a bizarre twist, on August 5 a judge issued an arrest warrant for an unspecified representative of Greenpeace when the organization failed to appear at a hearing, then withdrew the warrant the next day after it turned out that there had been a miscommunication about whether the hearing had been postponed or not.

The government subsequently moved for a non-jury trial, eliciting a number of filings by Greenpeace on October 6 in response, including a motion to dismiss the indictment, a motion looking for evidence to support its claim that the government is engaging in selective prosecution, and a motion for a jury trial.

This flurry of activity finally caught the attention of the mainstream media, inspiring an article in the New York Times (reprinted by Common Dreams) and some discussion by legal bloggers Jeralyn Merritt and Elaine Cassel. There has even been some commentary from Russia.

In the latest twist, the Port of Miami has denied docking privileges to Greenpeace vessels because of the charges.

What disturbs commentators is not the charges themselves, which are relatively minor, but that the Greenpeace organization is being targeted independently of and in addition to the activists who actually broke the law. The legal experts cited by the New York Times say that the only precedent for this is attempts in the 1960s by certain Southern states to try and shut down civil rights organizations.

And that gets to the heart of the problem. Is Greenpeace being targeted because of its dissent from government policy? Will other groups that oppose the Bush Administration in one area or another find themselves under legal attack? And should we be concerned that increasingly broad anti-terrorism statutes could make civil disobedience like Greenpeace's not only a criminal but a national security offense?

Right now, this may be pure alarmism and paranoia. But everybody who is concerned with liberty should keep a close eye on the Greenpeace case and what it bodes for the future.

Update: Law professor Jonathan Turley weighs in on this case (usename: laexaminer, password: laexaminer)