SHAC six found guilty on ALL counts!!!

I'll get links to articles up soon, but in the meantime just know that the federal jury in Trenton, New Jersey found Kevin Kjonas and the rest guilty of terrorism under the Animal Enterprise Act.
This is exceptional news and it means that it may become just a tad easier to defend your organization from such attacks.

Here is a short list of SHAC's tactics:

• Posting executive and employee information on the web. This information sometimes went so far as to show what schools the executive's children attended. Not that it makes any difference, this was not just information about HLS employees but also that of other companies that did business with HLS.
• Home protests - that's right they would visit an employee's home and protest outside with graphic signs. They might also canvass the neighborhood to inform their neighbors of the "horrible" things their neighbor was involved in.
• Telephone campaigns - companies were inundated with phone calls that amounted to little more than denial of service attacks.
  
• Others limited only by creativity...
  

Although The ALF usually claimed responsibility for other more intimidating actions they were often done in a manner that just so happened to forward the goals of SHAC. These included:

• Vandalizing employee homes and cars - throwing paint on the houses and using etching acid to write on house and car windows. They would also use paint stripper to write in the paint on cars.
• Booby-trapped letters were mailed to some executives - not explosives but razorblades.
• Threatening phone calls, letters, emails and the like.
• At least one denial of service attack on a bank.
• Vandalizing the Marsh offices.
• And let's not forget the Chiron and Shaklee bombings in California.
• This is just the short list.

We will have to wait and see what the result of these convictions will be in terms of attacks and the implicit threats. We may see this whole thing move just a little more underground. That is where it largely was until the 1990's when it pretty much went mainstream and no one took too much notice. The ELF and ALF pose real threats and because they function more as "movements" than as traditional organizations it may be very difficult to shut them down. This is ever more true with the Internet since their operations manuals, manifestos, creedos, and the like will continue to be available for distribution to anyone. That is free speech and it's the price we pay for our freedom.

So, if your organization has done business with HLS in the past, is involved in any sort of animal testing in particular, or other uses of animals targeted by the Animal Rights movement it would be prudent to be prepared for random retaliatory actions.