Wise use
The Wise Use movement is a group of citizens in the Western United States who are frequently called upon by local governments to give citizen input into the wise use and municipal planning for Western lands. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the U.S. Department of the Interior is entrusted with managing very large Western land holdings of the United States, and citizen input is mandated by law under many circumstances, for example before lands can be leased, sold, or annexed.
Target of political profiling
A particularly shocking and dangerous example of this kind of guilt-by-association occurred when two New Mexico grandmothers found themselves suspected of being terrorists after appearing on a radio talk show where they criticized the federal government and the United Nations. Kay Stone and Jean Vallance, both grandmothers, were investigated by New Mexico Department of Public Safety (State Police) after appearing on KINN radio in Alamagordo in June, 1998.
State police Lt. Bill Bowers called the station and spoke with talk show host Mike Shinaberry, who was asked about the couple and Maude Rathgeber, the Otereo Republican party chairwomen, who had also been on the show in the past. According to Shinaberry:
| “ | It bothered me that anyone would be the subject of an investigation simply because they got on the radio and said what they believed... None of them ever came close to espousing violence. [1] | ” |
According to The Dallas Morning News, which covered the story from the beginning:
| “ | Maj. Michael Francis, another state police officer...said the inquiries into Ms. Stone and Ms. Vallance sprang from the activities of a Domestic Terrorism Task Force, comprising local, state and federal agents. | ” |
The two women were also investigated by the military officials at a nearby Air Force Base:
| “ | Six days later, on June 17, Mrs. Vallance said she received a phone call from Special Agent Amanda Finerty, from the office of special investigations [OSI] at Holloman Air Force Base.
Mrs. Vallance, a retired nurse who is married to a civilian employee at Holloman, said Agent Finerty asked about her religious affiliation and whether anyone was “planning something” against German pilots [stationed at the base]. |
” |
All of this came about by the issuance of a manual entitled The Extreme Right: An Overview containing in large part material from a leftist "Watchdog" organization to law enforcement agencies. [2] According to news sources:
| “ | The 73-page document included profiles of fringe groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, as well as skinheads and extremists who believe each race should have its own land in the United States. Lumped into the manual’s description of terrorists, racists and other pariahs is an excerpt on the so-called “wise use” movement, which advocates more local control over federally owned lands. | ” |
Shinaberry was spurred to investigate this manual. Speaking again with Lt. Bill Bowers he was told “that the federal government had asked state police to create a -- he used the term intelligence database’ -- to make lists of people who might be radicals.” He also noted that the manual suggests an anti-government continuum of groups that apparently run from the most peaceful to those with a reputation for violence, with no distinction made between them. As it happened the contents of the manual were leaked to the public after the police inquiries into the two women.
Ranchers and loggers erupted in anger at the manual’s juxtaposition of the wise use movement with Nazi and Klan groups....Local government officials, concerned about the impact of federal policies on rural economies, also objected to the manual.
| “ | “They labeled us as dissidents when all we went to do is participate in decisions about how federal lands are used,” said Adam Polley, a Catron County official in western New Mexico. | ” |
Darren White, the Governor’s cabinet secretary for the state police, apologized for the manual and issued a written apology dated 9 July 1998:
| “ | “I recognize that across New Mexico thousands of farmers, ranchers, miners, loggers and others are committed to preserving a way of life free from unnecessary regulation,” he wrote. “I believe free speech and the spoken word sustain our freedom.” | ” |
The "Watchdog" organization manual and others like it continue to be circulated among law enforcement officials nationwide, even though its effect is to target ordinary American citizens on the basis of the values, opinions and beliefs. [3] The Wise use movement was the target of political profiling and placed on the this leftist Watchdog list because if frequently takes positions contrary to the Sierra Clib and the Wildreness Society. [4]
References
- ↑ NM Women Worry They’re On Secret List ‘Radicals’, Scott Parks, Dallas Morning News, 13 September 1998.
- ↑ Laird Wilcox,The Watchdogs: A Close Look at Anti-Racist "Watchdog" Groups, Editorial Research Service, 1999. ISBN 0-993592-96-5.
- ↑ Laird Wilcox, The Watchdogs.
- ↑ ATTAC Report.