Journalist Will Potter to speak Dec. 7 on 'The Green Scare: Civil Liberties, Domestic Terrorism and the Environmental Movement in the United States
An award-winning, Washington, D.C.-based reporter who focuses on the War on Terrorism and how it has affected civil liberties will speak at 11:45 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 7, in O'Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium at St. Thomas.
Will Potter's lecture, "The Green Scare: Civil Liberties, 'Domestic Terrorism' and the Environmental Movement in the United States," is free and open to the public.
Will Potter
Potter has tracked the efforts of lawmakers and corporations to label various activists as "eco-terrorists" and has closely followed the trial of the SHAC Seven, a group of animal rights activists convicted last year of "animal enterprise terrorism" and for running a controversial Web site.
Last winter, more than a dozen individuals were indicted and arrested for various acts of environmental protest. "Operation Backfire," a multi-agency effort led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, focused on acts of "domestic terrorism," allegedly carried out on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Civil rights, environmental and progressive movements have dubbed this the "Green Scare" – alluding to the "Red Scare" of the 1950s.
A University of Texas-Austin graduate, Potter has testified before Congress and frequently speaks with journalists and at public forums about efforts to limit civil liberties for the purpose of fighting terrorism. He has written for a variety of publications, including the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas Morning News, Legal Affairs, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. He also is creator of GreenIsTheNewRed.com, his blog about the Green Scare. He received a 1999 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for feature writing, for his series on the Ulster Project; the project brings together Catholic and Protestant teens from Northern Ireland for homestays with U.S. families.
Potter's lecture at St. Thomas is sponsored by Students for Justice and Peace and the University Lectures Committee. For more information, e-mail Scott Demuth.
