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In court, the feds said Oak Flat would be in the hands of mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP by early summer.
In oral arguments Tuesday, the U.S. Forest Service said it was nearing completion of an environmental impact study that will transfer land east of Phoenix to two of the world’s largest mining companies for the purpose of building one of the largest copper mines on the planet. The massive project will hinge on the destruction of Chi’chil Bi?dagoteel, a mountain otherwise known as Oak Flat, that is sacred to many Native American tribes, particularly the San Carlos Apache, who consider the area among their most holy of sites.
In a nearly two-hour hearing, an 11-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California, peppered lawyers on both sides of the high-stakes legal fight with an array of complex case law questions raised by the project. Begun nearly two decades ago, the battle for Oak Flat sits at the intersection of Indigenous rights and dispossession, religious liberty, public lands and private sales, and a growing demand for so-called green energy solutions in an era of climate catastrophe.
“As the court is aware, this case is not about an agency action. It’s about an act of Congress, in which Congress considered demands on a piece of property, balanced those interests, and made a decision,” said Joan Pepin, an attorney for the Forest Service, the agency that exchanged the land in a controversial deal nearly a decade ago. “It decided that Oak Flat should be transferred to Resolution Copper so the third-largest copper ore deposit in the world can be mined.”
The legislation in question — the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act — was the product of a proposal then-Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake added to a must-pass defense authorization bill late one night in 2014. The addendum, known as a rider, incurred no congressional debate. Described by the San Carlos Apache as a “midnight backroom deal,” the law transferred Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a British-Australian concern jointly owned by the extractive giants Rio Tinto and BHP, both of which had sought access to the wildly lucrative ore deposit for years.
The project centers on a mountain on the 2,200-acre area known as Oak Flat Campground, part of the Tonto National Forest, that has served as a centerpiece of Apache religious ceremony and cosmology since before settler expansion into the West. To access the ore underneath, Resolution Copper will use a technique known as block cave mining, which over several years will turn the sacred mountain into a two-mile-wide crater deep enough to hide a skyscraper.
Initiation of construction hinges on the publication of an environmental impact study from the Forest Service, which, under the law passed in 2014, starts a 60-day countdown before the transfer of the land from the federal government to the mining company must happen.
Luke Goodrich, the lead attorney for Apache Stronghold, an Arizona-based nonprofit that brought the lawsuit to stop the transfer, told the panel of judges that the destruction of Oak Flat was a direct and flagrant violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Violation of the statute requires the imposition of a “substantial burden” on a person or group’s ability to practice their faith.
“A fine is a substantial burden, but here the government is doing something far worse,” Goodrich said, “not just threatening fines, but authorizing the complete physical destruction of Oak Flat, barring the Apaches from ever accessing it again and ending their core religious exercises forever.”
In January 2021, five days before leaving office, the administration of President Donald Trump released a study supporting the creation of the Oak Flat mine. Apache Stronghold filed a federal lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the project the following month.
Unsuccessful in the attempt, the group then filed an emergency appeal to the 9th Circuit. Six hours before its deadline to respond passed, the Forest Service — by then, in March 2021, under the leadership of President Joe Biden — announced that it was withdrawing the environmental impact study and postponing the land transfer.
A three-judge panel of 9th Circuit dismissed Apache Stronghold’s case in October 2021 but agreed to hear the case again before a full panel last winter. The unusual decision set the stage for Tuesday’s hearing.
While the postponement of the project had given opponents of the mine a moment of respite in the long-running battle, the government’s testimony this week confirmed that the Biden administration is moving forward with a new environmental impact study and stands behind the controversial land swap.
“We said spring,” Pepin told the panel of judges Tuesday. “It could be shading over into early summer by the time that 60-day notice is given, but it is coming out in the near future, so I do believe this case is justiciable.”
While Apache Stronghold’s religious freedom argument has drawn support from an array of faith-based organizations across the country, proponents of the mine argue that the project would bring in 3,700 jobs and add $1 billion each year to Arizona’s economy.
David Debold, an attorney representing extractive industry associations, told the court that a win for the plaintiffs in the case “would erect huge and insurmountable obstacles” to the sale of government land to private entities. “The damage to private enterprise would be profound if the purchaser of federal property could only use that property later as though it were the federal government,” Debold said. “That is the rule that is being argued for here, although not in so many words.”
The judges took the arguments into consideration. The panel has offered no indication when it will rule on the case. Should the judges again rule in favor of the mining companies and the federal government, the plaintiffs are likely to take the case to the Supreme Court.
Following the hearing, defenders of Oak Flat gathered in the rain to debrief and pray. Goodrich, the Apache Stronghold attorney, said there was no disputing the core facts of the case. “This is not a theoretical matter,” he said. “This is a people matter. This is about the people and their freedom: freedom to be Apache, to be Indigenous, to be Americans.”
After the day’s testimony, there was no longer any question where the Biden administration stood. “The government didn’t hold back today,” Goodrich said. “It said it for everyone to hear — everyone in the courtroom to hear, everyone in Indian Country to hear, and everyone in the whole country to hear. The government thinks it has blanket authority to do whatever it wants with the land that it’s taken from Indigenous peoples, even destroying central sacred sites and ending religious exercises forever.”
Wendsler Nosie Sr., former chair and councilmember of the San Carlos Apache and a veteran activist who has spent much of his life fighting the Oak Flat mine, joined in addressing the tribe’s supporters. “This country is a corporate country. It’s not even thinking about our children, the Earth, the things that give us life,” Nosie said. “The corporate world is waiting for this case to finish because they are in line for their exemptions. And if this happens, how we gonna stop that?”
Nosie’s remarks were followed by comments from his granddaughter, Naelyn Pike. Like her grandfather, Pike has devoted her life to stopping the mine. Among its many sacred attributes, the mountain at Oak Flat is used for coming-of-age ceremonies for young Apache women. Having been one of those young women herself, Pike worried that the space would no longer exist for the generations that come after her.
“This land is sacred. This land is holy. It may not have four walls or a steeple. It may not be a mosque, but this is my religion and my spiritual belief from my ancestors and to the yet to be born,” she said. “We have to fight for those who are not here so that they can go to Oak Flat, and they can pray and be one — because the United States government assured us today that their land is their land and that they can take it away, that they can say what I believe in, and what you believe in, does not matter.”
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Documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. (photo: AP)
Smith is investigating Trump’s potential national security law violations and obstruction of justice surrounding classified documents that Trump improperly kept at Mar-a-Lago, rather than comply with a May 2022 grand jury subpoena compelling their return.
The documents Corcoran was ordered to disclose Wednesday apparently included attorney notes of conversation between Corcoran and Trump, as well as audio files. Reports suggest that in June 2022, Trump instructed Corcoran to arrange to give the Justice Department a sworn affidavit falsely representing that no further classified documents responsive to the May 2022 subpoena remained at Mar-a-Lago.
Two months later, in August, a court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago established the affidavit’s falsity. The FBI found more than 100 classified documents at Trump’s country club home.
Few, if any, appellate rulings have ever come more swiftly than Wednesday’s. It was only on Friday that district court Judge Beryl Howell ordered Corcoran to hand over his notes and documents.
In closed-door hearings before Judge Howell, Smith had evidently provided enough evidence to convince her that Corcoran’s communications with Trump, and his notes of them, involved planning or concealing a crime. That allowed her to invoke the “crime-fraud” exception to cut through the ordinarily unyielding confidentiality of attorney-client communications.
Here are five things that the rapid-fire appellate order brings into focus.
1. Courts are losing patience with Trump.
Judges have watched Trump’s dilatory litigation tactics for years. They know the clock is ticking on Special Counsel Smith’s investigations if he is to complete them before 2024’s political season.
And so, the appellate court sent a signal Wednesday: “Time’s up on legally unsound delaying tactics in this jurisdiction.”
There’s meaning here for what’s coming down the pike. If Trump is indicted in this case or others, expect him to file flurries of meritless motions aimed primarily at delay. The judges deciding such matters may have Wednesday’s judicial impatience with the same defendant in their memory banks.
In the coming cases against Trump, the likelihood just increased for keeping justice from being denied by being needlessly delayed.
2. The evidence ordered to be disclosed may contain a smoking gun.
Like Judge Howell, the appellate judges who issued Wednesday’s decision reviewed Corcoran’s documents and know their contents. If the evidence in them was unusually inculpatory, it may well have added to the court’s urgency to get the materials to the Justice Department. That can’t be comforting to the target of the investigation or the lawyers planning to defend him.
3. Jack Smith has changed the game.
Federal prosecutors’ attempts to pierce attorney-client communications are exceedingly rare. But it’s not just that Smith is willing to be aggressive. It’s that he is smartly aggressive. He picks the battles he can win and that can help him build an overwhelming case. He’s on a path to do just that.
4. Corcoran’s troubles are Trump’s troubles.
Although two courts have now found that Corcoran was in on discussions that involved the planning or concealing of a crime, we don’t know whether he was an unwitting participant to whom Trump lied or a willing collaborator. Either way, the discussions in his presence eliminated his obligation to keep his client’s communication confidential when subpoenaed by Smith to answer a grand jury’s questions.
To date, however, it appears that Corcoran’s gone to the mat for Trump and bypassed offramps to cooperation. Prosecutors notice such things and draw inferences about innocence or guilt.
If Corcoran was innocently involved, he’s unlikely to want to take the fall for his client. If he became part of a scheme, he could invoke his 5th Amendment rights, but Smith could then grant him immunity and compel him to testify. Either way, Smith is getting the documents.
Corcoran’s options are narrowing. That isn’t good news for him, or his client.
5. Trump’s legal headaches are now code red.
Grand jury investigations in Manhattan and in Fulton County, Georgia, appear to be heading toward Trump indictments. Meanwhile, in Smith’s Mar-a-Lago investigation, a lightning-speed court order that Trump’s lawyer divulge his notes or audio to a smart, well-resourced prosecutor like Smith is cause for a throbbing migraine.
Evan Corcoran is scheduled to appear before Smith’s grand jury on Friday. If he testifies fully against Trump, what already looks like a powerful case could become overwhelming.
Spring temperatures are rising at Mar-a-Lago. A former president is sure to be feeling the heat.
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The city hall is set on fire in Bordeaux. (photo: Ugo Amez/Shutterstock)
Largely peaceful protests are marred by outbreaks of violence as unions claim 3.5 million turned out, while authorities put number at just over 1 million
Unions claimed 3.5 million people turned out across the country, while the authorities suggested the figure was much lower, at just under 1.1 million.
In Paris, union leaders claimed that a record 800,000 people took part in a mostly peaceful march through the city – the police gave the figure as 119,000 – to demand that the government drop the fiercely contested change.
However, the national day of action was marred by outbreaks of violence and vandalism. In the south-western city of Bordeaux, the front door of the city hall was set on fire, while in Paris police and groups of protesters clashed late into the night.
In the capital, the official demonstration, made up of a large cross-section of French society – young, old, professional, unemployed – set off from Place de la Bastille in the early afternoon and made its way to Place de l’Opéra along the Grands Boulevards, the main east-west road through the northern part of central Paris.
French union members, carrying flags and banners, were flanked by their own stewards to ensure their security. The crowd was dense and angry with the government and president, but the mood was also festive and motivated by a show of solidarity.
The atmosphere was soured by a group of young people called casseurs (smashers), dressed in black and wearing masks, who had positioned themselves at the head of the march and destroyed bus shelters, advertising hoardings, shop windows, the front of a McDonald’s, and newspaper kiosks, leaving a trail of glass and piles of burning bins in their wake.
They also pulled up cast-iron grilles around trees and broke up paving stones, which they then threw at police.
The worst clashes took place in Place de l’Opéra and later at Place de la Bastille where police attempted to disperse them with teargas.
Elsewhere, a woman reportedly had part of her hand blown off by a teargas grenade in the city of Rouen, where between 14,800 and 23,000 protesters gathered, according to figures from police and unions. There were large protests in Marseille, Lyon, Besançon, Rennes and Arles, as well as other French towns and cities.
Even before the president’s centrist government pushed the pension changes through parliament last Thursday using a constitutional measure that avoided a vote, record numbers of workers had taken to the streets in the previous weeks.
On Monday, Macron’s administration narrowly survived a vote of no confidence – by nine votes – but the way the law was passed inflamed the public mood.
On Thursday, police had been notified of more than 200 protests across France and were gearing up for a massive turnout. Along the route in Paris, banks and businesses were boarded up early in the morning and vanloads of police and gendarmes were stationed along roads.
Many of the protesters, particularly the young, said they had been galvanised by Macron’s appearance on television on Wednesday in which he said the protests were “legitimate” but would not lead to a U-turn on the law, which not only raises the official retirement age, but requires workers to make contributions to the pension system for longer.
Among the angriest were women protesters, who said the new legislation was a double punishment for those who had taken time out of their careers to raise children and who were more likely to have low-paid and menial jobs.
“Everyone is angry. Everyone thinks this law is unfair, but it particularly penalises women who are expected to produce future generations of the nation, and then find they are punished for doing so,” said Marie, 46, a social worker.
Juliette, 51, a teacher, said: “They want to raise it to 64 today. Will it be 66, 67, 68 tomorrow? They tell us life expectancy is longer, but are we to work until we collapse and are carted off to the crematorium?”
Many protesters accused the president of showing “contempt and arrogance” for those opposed to the changes, which were a keystone of his re-election campaign last year.
On Thursday evening, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said the majority of the 103 people arrested in Paris on Thursday were “mostly young” and were known members of “ultra left” groups. The authorities said more than 120 police officers and gendarmes had been injured. There were no figures available for the number of protesters hurt.
The prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, criticised the violence. “To demonstrate and make ones grievances heard is a right. The violence and destruction that we have seen today are unacceptable,” she tweeted.
The radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called on Macron to withdraw the law. He said he did not agree with violence, but added: “We must redouble our protests and blockades. In France there is a sense of a drift towards authoritarianism; many people are beginning to say it is going too far now.”
Widespread strikes and industrial action led to major transport disruption on the roads and flights cancellations. Airport authorities said the protests would have a knock-on effect on the weekend’s flights, with up to 30% of those scheduled to depart from Orly, south of Paris, cancelled on Friday and Saturday, along with up to 20% of departures from Marseille, Bordeaux and Lyon. Protesters blocked terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris on Thursday morning.
Schools were closed and colleges were blocked around France, including in Paris, Rouen, Marseille and Toulouse. Protesters blocked the entry to a petrol depot in the Bouches-du-Rhône.
In his 30-minute televised interview on Wednesday, Macron ruled out the dissolution of parliament, a reshuffle of his centrist government and the resignation of his prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, as the opposition has demanded. He said his only regret was “that I have not succeeded in convincing people of the necessity of this reform”.
Valérie Rabault, the president of the Socialist party group in the national assembly, called on Macron to order a final debate in parliament before the pensions law is enacted.
“We’re putting all the options on the table. We have entered a very serious democratic crisis less than a year since the president of the republic was elected,” she said, adding that the “blockades damage our democracy and damage France’s image abroad”.
Marie Buisson, of the CGT union, told France Info radio that the protesters were “determined”. “Since the [law] was passed by force, there is anger,” she said. “Our objective is for the maximum number of people to stop work.”
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Manuel Oliver, the father of Parkland shooting victim Joaquin Oliver, is arrested Thursday for disturbing a hearing on Capitol Hill. (photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
In a video of the hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building, a person can be heard shouting while the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Tex.), was speaking about gun regulations.
Patricia Oliver yelled, according to videos of the incident, “You took my son away from me, and I’m not going anywhere! I’m going to listen to your absurd things.”
“Officer, please remove her,” Fallon said. “And remove the gentleman, too.”
As police escorted Manuel Oliver out, he yelled: “All of you are full of s---!”
Fallon continued with the hearing, and shouting could be heard again. Fallon joked: “Is this an insurrection? So will they be held to the same? I don’t want another January 6.”
Outside the hearing room, the video shows three officers surrounding and detaining Manuel Oliver while he is face down on the ground. “Get off of him!” someone can be heard yelling. Another yells, “What are you doing to this man? He is a grieving father!”
“We are using our First Amendment!” Patricia Oliver says to the officers.
A crowd of bystanders begins chanting, “He is not violent! He is not violent!” as officers remove Manuel Oliver from the scene, according to a video provided by Patricia Oliver.
Friday is the five-year anniversary of the first March for Our Lives, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the nation’s capital and cities across the country to demand action against gun violence.
Parents of victims, survivors and others affected by the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland — in which the attacker fatally shot 14 fellow students and three staff members — sparked a political movement demanding an end to school shootings and gun violence.
Since the shooting in Parkland, 143,000 students have been exposed to gun violence on K-12 campuses during regular hours, according to a database from The Washington Post. In 163 shootings during that time, 64 people were killed and 156 were wounded.
A U.S. Capitol Police spokesman said a man was arrested in the Rayburn building around noon for crowding, obstructing or incommoding, a common D.C. code cited when arresting demonstrators, “after he disrupted a hearing, refused to stop shouting, and then attempted to go back inside the hearing room.
“Anyone who disrupts a Congressional hearing and disregards a law enforcement officer’s orders to stop are going to be arrested,” according to the police statement. “This is a citation release arrest, which means the man was not put in jail. It should be noted that a woman who also disrupted the hearing was not arrested because she followed the lawful directions of our officers.”
Manuel Oliver said in an interview Thursday with The Post that he did not try to reenter the hearing room. Outside, he said, officers told him he would be arrested if he did not stop talking, an order he refused because he was speaking about his slain son.
“You can ask me anything, but don’t ask me to stop talking about my son,” said Manuel Oliver, who is attending a rally Friday marking the anniversary of March for Our Lives. “I refuse to go back to my life, because it will never be the same, and just pretend that this is not bothering me.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the first member of Gen Z elected to Congress, tweeted a video of Manuel Oliver on the floor, surrounded by police, and referred to him as a hero.
The Olivers say the pain of losing Joaquin has propelled them to advocate gun legislation that protects future generations.
Four years after the shooting, Manuel Oliver balanced on a construction crane near the White House, unfurled a sign with a photo of Joaquin and demanded a meeting with President Biden and policies to combat gun violence.
Manuel Oliver said he will always protest gun violence and advocate legislation such as an assault weapons ban.
“It’s very hard for me to find hope,” Manuel Oliver said. “I am reacting as a responsible father, and I will be Joaquin’s father until the last day I’m here.”
Patricia Oliver has called her son an old soul with “big thoughts” who also loved to be silly. She remembers cooking meals for the family and how her son would dance across the kitchen floor, pretending he was in the roller-skating scene from the movie “Xanadu.” He loved cheering on the Miami Heat, wrote poems and jokes, and liked to sing around the house.
“Because Joaquin’s not here, because of his death, you do anything, anything to bring justice,” Patricia Oliver said Thursday afternoon in an interview with The Post. “And to let people know that you don’t want to be in our shoes.”
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Internal FBI documents indicate a larger federal law enforcement assessment related to 'Anarchist extremism' and domestic terrorism. (photo: Nicole Craine/The New York Times)
Internal FBI documents indicate a larger federal law enforcement assessment related to “Anarchist extremism” and domestic terrorism.
It took less than two weeks for the FBI to flag the account, which was the focal point of a sprawling federal inquiry that collected information on several Chicago-based activist and community groups. Those groups appear to have done little more than promote or attend events affiliated with the Atlanta-area activists. According to 28 pages of FBI records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Chicago case file is part of a larger federal law enforcement assessment related to “Anarchist extremism” and domestic terrorism.
The documents describe members of the Atlanta group as “Anarchist Violent Extremists” and “Environmental Violent Extremists” who are “opposed to removal of trees and park land.” These activists traveled to Chicago, the FBI states, to meet with “like minded individuals” and “provide training.” There is little evidence in the unredacted portion of the files or the public record to support the latter claim.
Promotional material for one of the events says it featured “action steps” to help participants find their “role in the struggle.” But one of the activists who traveled to Chicago — and who asked that their name not be used given the possibility of an ongoing FBI investigation — said the events were “informational slideshow presentations” that did not involve any kind of training.
“At no point in the presentations did we advocate for illegal activity,” they said. “And we certainly are not advocating violence.”
Grist and Type Investigations are publishing the full documents, which were redacted by the FBI before release, here and here. The contents of the files were first reported by Unicorn Riot, a nonprofit media organization.
Assessments are a relatively new category of FBI investigation, established under guidelines issued by the agency in 2008, that can be opened with little cause and allow for physical surveillance, database searches, and the use of informants to gather intelligence.
Since the FBI opened its file on Chicago Against Cop City, more than three dozen activists involved in the Atlanta protests and forest defense have been arrested and charged with felonies under Georgia’s 2017 domestic terrorism law. On January 18, a law enforcement officer shot and killed 26-year-old Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a community medic who had been an active member of the campaign, during a raid on an encampment in the forest. Autopsy results recently released by the family revealed that Tortuigita, as Terán was known, was likely sitting on the ground with both arms raised when they were shot at least 13 times. In public statements, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation maintains that Teran shot a state trooper first. However, the bureau has released only limited information, citing the ongoing investigation. Another autopsy carried out by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office has not been made public.
A Grist analysis of 20 of the early arrest warrants found that none of those charged with domestic terrorism were accused of seriously injuring anyone. Nine of the activists had simply been cited for misdemeanor trespassing, though the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said that criminal inquiries are ongoing. The terrorism charges, according to the DeKalb County prosecutor, were based on a Department of Homeland Security designation of the Atlanta forest defenders as “Domestic Violent Extremists.” But Homeland Security, like the FBI, denies that it classifies specific groups in this way.
Mike German, a former FBI special agent and a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said that while there’s nothing in the newly released FBI files to indicate that they’ve been shared with Georgia state authorities, the labeling of an entire group as violent extremists can shape the way law enforcement approaches social movements.
“This exact kind of loose language may lead to the mistaken assumption that that categorization has some legal effect,” German said.
The FBI, which has a long history of targeting environmental activists, has been actively involved in the law enforcement response to the Atlanta forest defenders. According to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation press release, the FBI has been part of a joint task force intended to “eliminate the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center of criminal activity.” In an April 2022 email, the Homeland Security Officer for the Atlanta Fire Department referred to FBI involvement in an “ongoing investigation” and described the activists as a group of “eco terrorists.”
The heavily redacted records on Chicago Against Cop City include social media posts by a broad range of social justice and environmental organizations. Rising Tide Chicago, a group called Save Jackson Park, the South Shore Nature Sanctuary, and Pilsen Community Books, a popular gathering place for local activists and the host of one of the events, are all named in the files. In one instance, the FBI refers to the use of a source with “direct and indirect access” to activists using the bookstore as a meeting place.
The records also highlight opposition to the construction of the Obama presidential library and the proposed expansion of a nearby golf course that would potentially require the removal of more than 2,000 trees. Save Jackson Park and the South Shore Nature Sanctuary have both campaigned to block the new golf course, which they say would destroy some of the only green space left on Chicago’s south side. The FBI concluded that the development projects in Chicago, along with the building of a police training center on the west side, were “similar” to the Atlanta construction project and could lead to “potential criminal activity.”
The FBI’s Chicago office declined to comment for this story.
A spokesperson for Rising Tide Chicago said that the bookstore event and a teach-in at Hyde Park three days later were intended simply to educate people about what was happening in Atlanta. “It was a speaking tour,” they said. “It wasn’t a direct-action training. The focus was about their struggle with Cop City.”
The spokesperson said that they don’t know who is behind the Chicago Against Cop City Twitter account, and that it doesn’t appear to be a formal group with an on-the-ground presence. It’s mostly served as a platform for sharing information about how people can support the movement in Atlanta from afar, they said. (Chicago Against Cop City did not respond to a direct message requesting comment.)
Jeanette Hoyt, a 65-year-old teacher at City Colleges of Chicago, is the founder of Save Jackson Park. She launched the group in 2020 to oppose the cutting down of nearly 400 trees and the destruction of parkland, including a beloved women’s garden, to make way for the Obama Presidential Center, which is still under construction. (According to the center’s website, the women’s garden will be “restored.”) One of Save Jackson Park’s social media posts was retweeted by Chicago Against Cop City — and that was enough to land the group in the FBI file.
“The only connection between this group and Cop City is them liking me on Twitter,” said Hoyt.
The Rising Tide spokesperson is not surprised the FBI is keeping tabs on the group — it was formed in 2011 and has been named in other FBI investigations — but said it’s troubling that the agency would put together a dossier on organizations engaging in what are clearly constitutionally protected activities, such as attending public events and campaigning to stop controversial development projects.
“They are building evidence,” the Rising Tide spokesperson said. “And compiling social media posts for a narrative that they want to attach to the movement in Atlanta, and attach to people who are concerned about green spaces being taken away in Chicago and I’m sure other cities, too.”
German, who reviewed the documents, said the agency made several misleading connections between the various activist groups without providing evidence to back up serious claims of potential criminal activity and violent extremism among the Chicago groups. While participants in some of the Atlanta-area protests have thrown rocks, broken windows, and burned a police car, nobody connected with any of the Chicago groups or campaigns appears to have engaged in similar tactics. In addition, the police training academy in Chicago did not require the clearing of forested land and, despite local opposition, has already opened.
“Making this casual reference to an unrelated group a thousand miles away is how the FBI gets itself in trouble,” said German, referring to a pattern of FBI overreach in targeting environmental groups. “I think the animus against the ideology is what’s most problematic.”
The law enforcement response to the campaign in Atlanta has, at least for now, galvanized interest in the protest movement. Following the shooting of Terán, there were marches and vigils across the country and around the world. Affinity groups have sprung up in Tucson, Arizona; Minneapolis; and Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, a growing number of environmental and human rights organizations have called on Georgia prosecutors to drop the domestic terrorism charges.
An Atlanta resident and active participant in the campaign who has been involved in other speaking tours — but requested anonymity due to ongoing police activity — said that the crackdown on the forest defenders has only served to broaden the movement’s public appeal.
“The characterization of people as domestic terrorists — it’s really outraged a lot of people,” they said. “Lots of people are scared by that, but also more and more people are moved by the struggle and called to participate in it.”
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An Iraqi detainee gestures towards U.S. soldiers through bars of his cell at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, Iraq, 17 May 2004. (photo: Reuters)
The victims of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib have been in a 15-year legal struggle in the US to hold those responsible accountable
But for Salah al-Ejaili, who was detained and tortured there, it will never be a closed chapter until justice has been delivered and the individuals who conducted the torture are held accountable. Ejaili has been fighting a legal battle in the US courts for 15 years, and while that much time would demoralise most people, Ejaili says he has never felt stronger in his fight for some form of restitution.
"The lack of closure in my case has made me even more attached and committed to attaining justice for me and all the other Iraqis who were tortured," he told Middle East Eye.
Ejaili is one of four Iraqis who filed a lawsuit in 2008 against the private military contractor CACI, accusing the company of being involved in the torture that took place there. The lawsuit cites the Alien Tort Statute, a law passed in 1789 that gives American courts jurisdiction over cases involving violations of international law.
The case, Al Shimari v CACI, has been shuttled back and forth between the district and appellate courts over the years, with CACI on numerous occasions filing motions to dismiss the case. According to Katherine Gallagher, a lead attorney for Ejaili and the other plaintiffs, the judge said that a ruling will be delivered this October.
Gallagher, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has spent much of her career fighting cases regarding civil liberties, war crimes and torture, including several cases regarding the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib.
Some cases were lost, some were won, and some were settled outside of court. While she hopes the current cases are successful, Gallagher noted that, unfortunately, justice cannot always be delivered.
"My views on something like a settlement have evolved over the course of years. Because there are a couple of outcomes that you can have and one of them is certainly a loss across the board. And so a settlement can be some measure of justice, even if it's not the justice that you want to see," said Gallagher.
CACI did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Torture and solitary confinement
From March to November 2003, Ejaili was working as a reporter with Al Jazeera, where he was covering the US invasion of Iraq.
"I was working as a journalist covering and exposing some of the crimes that the US forces had committed against Iraqi civilians at that time."
The job was both difficult and dangerous and Ejaili always operated with caution.
"I operated extremely carefully. I wouldn't be alone. I would always try to operate within a group of other journalists," Ejaili said.
Yet despite his caution, in November 2003 while he was travelling to Diyala province to report on an explosion that took place, he was detained by the US military at the scene and later transferred to Abu Ghraib.
Ejaili said he was immediately detained after soldiers found out he was working for Al Jazeera. When he asked what he was being taken in for, the response was: "You know the reason".
Once there, he spent more than 40 days in solitary confinement and was also stripped naked, subject to beatings, deprived of food, and kept in conditions of sensory deprivation.
CCR alleges that CACI was responsible for the interrogation services at the prison and that several of its employees "directed and caused some of the most egregious torture and cruel treatment at Abu Ghraib".
Ejaili, who now lives in Sweden with his family, said that the torture has left him with trauma to this day, and that he still cannot talk to his children about what happened to him at the prison.
"Nothing can ever make up for the torture that I experienced, but the least that I can hope to expose them and to prevent this from happening in other places around the world," he said, referring to CACI and the other private military contractors in Iraq.
Justice delayed
Ejaili's case - the last hearing was in September 2022 - is one of several lawsuits filed against private contractors on behalf of the victims of Abu Ghraib.
The first case was filed against CACI and another contractor named Titan Corporation (later it changed its name to L-3 Services, then Engility) in 2004, after attorney Shereef Akeel had met Haidar Saleh. Saleh was an Iraqi national who was imprisoned at Abu Ghraib after returning to the country following the fall of the Saddam Hussein government.
The lawsuit, which went on to be filed on behalf of over 250 Iraqi civilians, was ultimately dismissed in 2011. But despite the loss, other cases have led to settlements for the victims.
"Even though we have had losses, we've also had wins as far as bringing increased recognition to what happened," Akeel told Middle East Eye.
"The case isn't just measured by dollars and cents. When folks are held to account before the media, or when folks are court-martialed in the army, or when bills are passed, or when courts find that a case can be brought. These are multiple avenues or forms of victory to hold folks accountable for the atrocities they committed."
For Akeel, the legal fight for accountability has lasted more than 19 years now. But like Ejaili, the delay has only provided the attorney with a greater need to push for justice.
Private military contractors
The war in Iraq was run in part by private military contractors. In 2004, there were 15,000 private contractors working in Iraq for the US military, ranging from small firms that provided commandos for hire to giant corporations responsible for maintaining the military's supply chains.
"The war in Iraq was in many ways, a war for profit. It was a war about resources and about money. So the contractor piece and contractor accountability was a piece that we felt was important to highlight," Gallagher told MEE.
The US military's extensive reliance on these contractors had blurred the lines between soldiers and civilians, often leading to major issues of accountability when cases of abuse or illegal conduct occurred, or when people were killed.
One of the most famous military contractors operating in Iraq was formerly known as Blackwater, founded by Erik Prince. In September 2007, members of the company opened fire in Baghdad's crowded Nisour Square, in a bloody massacre that caused an international scandal and heightened resentment of the American presence in Iraq.
Gallagher, who worked with CCR on a lawsuit against Blackwater over the September shooting that killed 17 people, said that in the case of Abu Ghraib, the military employed private companies because they were unprepared for the military invasion of Iraq.
"The US went to war, wholly unprepared. It went into this invasion not anticipating what would follow," she said.
Ejaili said that while he was being held at Abu Ghraib, it was difficult to tell at times who was an American soldier and who was a contractor. There were certain signs that indicated a person was a part of the military, such as a name badge and some form of insignia, but oftentimes, the lines appeared to be blurry.
"But it was hard to know 100 percent and to distinguish clearly between the contractors and soldiers," he said.
The former Al Jazeera reporter hopes his lawsuit will eventually succeed in court, and set a precedent in which private defence companies can be held liable for committing rights abuses.
"I knew from the beginning that a victory against this company would set an important precedent where all private military contractors committing human rights violations around the world could be brought to justice too."
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A Blue-breasted Kingfisher, Uganda. (photo: Flickr)
A study published today in the journal Biological Conservation highlights that mammoth clash of interests. Researchers looked at a list of 15,150 areas of land that conservation groups have classed as the world’s most important for protecting biodiversity. They compared those areas with a map of all the mining and energy projects that exist or are planned globally.
Already, 5% of the key biodiversity sites contain mines, 14% contain oil and gas infrastructure, and 2% contain power plants. If all the planned projects came to pass, that would increase to 20%, 24%, and 11% respectively.
The overlap will be particularly bad in biodiversity hotspots like Brazil, central Africa, and parts of east and south Asia. That creates an enormous challenge for policymakers in those areas as they balance global conservation goals with the economic opportunity of energy generation and resource extraction.
Fossil fuel projects, present and future, have the biggest footprint, and the harm they can do to plants and animals is well understood. Oil and gas infrastructure tends to be built in incredibly remote places, disrupting previously pristine habitats. Construction activity on two pipelines in Nigeria’s Niger Delta in the 2010s, for example, drove the clearing of more than 9 million trees and triggered a “colossal loss” of biodiversity, according to a 2014 study. Even once finished, oil and gas wells and pipelines can leach potent chemicals into nearby ecosystems, or kill thousands of creatures in a few seconds during major spills.
But the researchers noted that a large chunk of the future threat to wildlife will come from efforts to transition to renewables and combat climate change. Clean energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower require much larger areas of land to produce the same amount of energy as fossil fuels. Clean technologies like electric vehicles, batteries, and wind turbines require vast amounts of metals and minerals, which is driving a new global mining boom.
Clean energy infrastructure doesn’t necessarily need to be as harmful to wildlife as its fossil fuel predecessors. The lithium mining sector, whose huge water consumption has dried up the sources that humans and wildlife depend on in South America, for example, is trying to develop more sustainable methods of extraction. Meanwhile, some wind power companies are trying to reduce their industry’s toll on bird populations by choosing sites less visited by birds, and trialing sensor technologies to prevent collisions with threatened species.
But the study’s authors say authorities need to do more to make sure those kinds of efforts become mandatory. “More effective application and wider adoption of biodiversity policies by both governments and the financial sector is needed to ensure global infrastructure development avoids impacts on biodiversity,” they write.
“We recognise that infrastructure is essential to human development, but it’s about building smartly,” said Ash Simkins, a Zoology PhD student at the University of Cambridge who led the study. “This means ideally avoiding or otherwise minimizing infrastructure in the most important locations for biodiversity. If the infrastructure must be there, then it should be designed to cause as little damage as possible, and the impacts more than compensated for elsewhere.”
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