“ECOTERRORISM”?: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE VILIFICATION OF RADICAL ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS AS TERRORISTS BY

Radical environmental activists have played a vocal and often controversial role in the environmental protection movement by taking direct action to slow the pace of environmental destruction, empowering others to resist the forces behind environmental destruction, and publicly exposing and ridiculing environmentally destructive industries and the government that supports them. The often illegal tactics employed by these activists have cost industries millions of dollars. The government and industries exposed by these activists are responding by publicly branding radical environmental activists as “ecoterrorists. ” This Comment examines the economic and political framework behind the “ecoterrorist ” brand, and suggests that the brand is inappropriate because it diminishes the true meaning of the word terrorism, stifles political dissent, and is being used as a pretext to ensure the protection of private economic gains at th