 The police had not managed to charge anyone with any illegal activities, until on January 16, 1996, when six men were charged for a five-year ALF/ELF campaign.They were sentenced a year later each to three years for conspiracy to incite violence in the name of animal and earth liberation.The term "Green Scare", alluding to the "Red Scares", periods of fear over communist infiltration of U.S. society, is a term popularized by environmental activists to refer to legal action by the U.S. government against the radical environmentalist movement.