the government to say you can't say this and you can't say that is going down a very scary path of going toward fascism." However, the US Attorney's Office described the convicts as "thugs who went far beyond protected speech and lawful protest to engage in and incite intimidation, harassment and violence." The judge sentenced the individuals to an aggregate of 24 years in prison, and ordered to pay a joint restitution of $1,000,001.00. Operation Backfire, a multi-agency criminal investigation into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States, that resulted in the December 7, 2005 arrest of seven people. At least six people were subpoenaed to testify before grand juries. Three of the individuals subpoenaed ended up on a January 20, 2006, 65 count, 84-page-long indictment. The new indictment charged 11 people with conspiring to commit 18 acts of arson and vandalism over a 5-year period across multiple states. Some of the charges relate to a 1998 arson attack on the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado and the sabotage of a power line near Bend, Oregon, in 1999. The FBI considers these crimes to be acts of domestic terrorism and the ELF to be the nation's top domestic terror threat. Response The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Operation Backfire indictments have elicited concern, from activists, that authorities have "cracked the super-secrecy of ALF and ELF". Alternative media organizations have condemned the arrests, some calling them a "witch-hunt", "aimed at disrupting and discrediting political movements". Activists, maintaining the Red Scare allusion, claim the operations are "fishing expedition[s]" carried out "in the midst of 9/11 McCarthyism. The FBI disputes these claims, with former Director Robert Mueller stating the agency takes action "only when volatile talk crosses the line into violence and criminal activity." See also Craig Rosebraugh Earth First! Eco-terrorism Green anarchism Lavender scare Marius Mason Security culture Will Potter References External links Green Is the New Red Portland Indymedia Green Scare Page "Green Scared? Preliminary Lessons of the Green Scare", Rolling Thunder - overview from an anarchist perspective The Green Scare - Will Potter's article on the Vermont Law Review, Volume 33, Number 4, Summer 2009 Animal Liberation Front Earth Liberation Front Animal rights movement Environmentalism Patriot Act 2000s neologisms Scares