Camille Marino Arrested — Are Animal Rights Activists a “Hate Group”?
by Will Potter on February 14, 2012
Two activists with the animal rights group “Negotiation Is Over” (NIO) have been arrested at a protest in Florida. Group founder Camille Marino was arrested on an out of state warrant, and is awaiting extradition to Michigan.
In Michigan, NIO is campaigning against an animal experimenter at Wayne State University named Donal O’Leary, who uses dogs in heart experiments. One of the dogs, named Queenie, was forced to run on a treadmill with a device implanted in her heart, catheters protruding from her body, and open wounds leaking fluids. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and five Michigan doctors urged the federal government to investigate O’Leary’s violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
Marino has allegedly posted personal information about O’Leary on the NIO website, alongside inflammatory commentary and her voicing support for physical violence. (Most of these posts appear to have been removed recently.) For example, on one of the NIO blog posts about O’Leary, a commenter wrote 800 words of gruesome details about what should be done to him, such as “We will then strap you into a monkey restraining device and use industrial pliers to crack your testicles like walnuts.”
Marino replied:
Is there any chance I can persuade you to videotape your proposed activism so that we might upload it to NIO for the entire community to enjoy?
I just finished sending off an email to this motherfucker wishing him a slow painful death.
I would be elated to actually watch it come to pass!
In response to the violent rhetoric and posting of personal information, Wayne State University banned Marino from campus. Later, O’Leary obtained a court order that instructed Marino to remove the personal information from her website. She not only refused, she reposted it and wished him “good luck” collecting his legal fees.
Since her arrest, there has been wildly inaccurate information about the case. For instance, some NIO supporters claimed she was being held in a maximum security prison (she’s not, she is in Alachua County Jail). Others put out press releases saying that this was the first arrest under the National Defense Authorization Act (her arrest had nothing to do with NDAA). Such exaggeration doesn’t help anyone.
However, NIO’s opponents are spreading what could be much more dangerous misinformation.
Americans for Medical Progress, an industry group, says NIO is an “animal rights hate group” and the Southern Poverty Law Center has included NIO in its “Hate Watch” column.
Marino’s campaigning is controversial, but to call it a “hate group” is overreaching. Among the many differences between NIO and hate groups is that animal rights activists are opposing people because of what they do rather than who they are.
An even more important difference is that hate groups engage in physical violence, while NIO has only sensationally talked about it on blogs and Facebook.
As one commenter said on Hate Watch:
Upon reading the story it looks like Ms. Marino is not guilty of any serious crime… She did have a protective order issued against her, I’m not sure it was really violated here and it may get dismissed. She has committed no specific act of violence or damage to property. An expired drivers license is no big deal either.
These are important points to consider when discussing whether NIO’s blog is protected by the First Amendment. At the heart of the two key standards in First Amendment law is the question: Is the speaker using outrageous rhetoric to get attention, or will these threats be carried out?
In this case, the answer is clear.
While Marino and her followers may praise the tactics of anti-abortion extremist Scott
Roeder and suicide bombers (Marino says: “If one is going to end their own suffering, it would be an admirable act if they took as many abusers as possible with them”) there has never been physical violence in the name of their cause.
While Marino and her followers may praise the tactics of anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder and suicide bombers (Marino says: “If one is going to end their own suffering, it would be an admirable act if they took as many abusers as possible with them”) there has never been physical violence in the name of their cause.
And while Marino may write about how she is eager for the day when animal rights activists cross that line and murder human beings (and other activists have been saying the same thing for decades), it is just that: words.
There are limits to speech, of course, and there’s no doubt that NIO’s conduct tests those limits. But, as I wrote in Green Is the New Red:
The history of the First Amendment is one of protecting the vulgar, the crass, the wayward and unhinged. It has protected Clarence Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan leader, when he called for “revengeance” against the courts, Congress and the president, while Klansmen at the rally shouted “bury the niggers.” At a very different kind of rally, Robert Watts told anti-war protesters that he would refuse service if drafted to Vietnam. “If they ever make me carry a rifle,” he said, “the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.”
Why have the courts upheld such a radical interpretation of the First Amendment? What can be the value of sensationalistic, offensive speech?
The courts have not made exceptions to the First Amendment lightly or without controversy, believing that the amount of protection afforded to those on the fringes reflects the freedoms of those at the center.
Protecting the rights of the Brandenburgs, the Wattses, and the Everses may sound outrageous to those who have been on the receiving end of the vitriol, such as animal experimenters.
And it might even sound outrageous to much of the animal rights movement, because NIO has been such a divisive and confrontational group amongst other animal activists.
But in cases like this all parties should step back and remember that, at its core, the First Amendment has never been about protecting or supporting unsavory speech; it’s about refusing to prohibit it.
Related Posts
Breaking News! Marino Defies Ban, Stages CD at WSU, Refuses To Be Silenced! (UPDATED)
Report from The Front
Camille Marino is being held in Wayne County Jail
What happened to Camille today…
Florida activist subject of continued campaign of harassment by police and University of Florida
May 2: Protest at Courthouse Against Dog Torture at Wayne State University
Categories: Animal Liberation, Criminal & Civil Cases (Marino)
10 Comments »
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February 15th, 2012 at 12:59 am
Camille should be released immediately. She hasn’t done anything wrong apart from the one human response that everyone experiences in their lives which is anger and what is behind people’s angry feelings? Hurt of course!!! Her seeing helpless defenceless animals at the hand of human cruelty has hurt her deeply and she is trying to help these animals by awareness on this site. So if she has been jailed for being human and for possessing feelings of a human then I don’t know what this world is coming to.
February 15th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
“Hate” is what animal users/abusers do.
Animal Liberationists are freedom fighters.
Freedom fighters for any cause have historically been called the same names & imprisoned just as the Animal Freedom Fighters are today.
We must not let this stop or frighten us. We are growing in numbers everyday and can continue the fight when we support and take care of each other.
February 15th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Its all about money. People will do some horrific things for it. I feel vivisectors are like celebrities they know they are in the sights of animal activist, just like celebrities to the press, so if u dont want your shit out there get out of the business. Why is it ok for them to do the terrible things they do to animals ok but if someone on a blog said they would like to do the same thing to them well thats crazy there terrorist. What the Fuck is the matter with people? They are so hypicritical and JUST DONT GET IT! We miss u Camille…. May all the vivosectors and abusers die a painful death. Karma’s a bitch =)
February 16th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
“god” has done, is doing and will continue to do nothing for these animals. it is entirely up to us.
February 17th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Religion,faith in god, Christ or whoever is doing nothing whatsoever to help the victims of UF, there is no god as such, if there were then with this god having power over creation and able to end all suffering this god has one big sick sense of humour. It is us who have to deal with the problem. No kind of his is interested. Camille has done a lot here and we are all responsible to keep on going for the animals. Let’s stay focust whatever is set to try us just as Camille has/is.
February 19th, 2012 at 4:53 am
LT,
Not sure why you went on a bible rant and posted all those quotes from psalms. NIO is not a christian missionary site, spreading the word that it is OK to harm and kil animals for human benefit…
In any case to set the record straight:..
You seem to have memorized psalms from the judeo.christian tradition without understanding the implications.
For example:” There is still freedom of religion and religious thought. Proverbs 12:10 “ The righteous one is concerned for his beast,” declares the Lord. Vivisectionists had better hope there isn’t a God. These Vivisectionists know what they have done and are doing.
The full meaning of this nod to compassion was explained by Prof. Richard Shcwarz as follows:
“Proverbs 12:10 states, “The righteous person regards the life of his or her animal.” In Judaism, one who is unnecessarily cruel to animals cannot be regarded as a righteous individual.” Prof Richard Schwartz
The implication: necessary cruelty is righteous.
The lack of subtlety in your promotion of biblical doctrine as promoting compassion indicates that you are more concerned with religious hegemony than animal compassion…
Do you forget that slaughter is allowed. Do you understand that slaughter, no matter how gently it is carried out is murder. When a religion endorses the murder of animals the end result will not be compassion, but the slaughter levels we have today.
I suggest you consider the words of Voltaire:
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” Voltaire
In other words a religion that makes you believe compassion is based on the sanctity of slaughter, it will allow you to commit the injustices and atrrocities Camille was exposing at UF. As long as religious leaders and people who believe in them praise the evil of dominion as compassionate, the evil of vivisection will not end.
Putting false hope in the belief that god will punish the vivisectors is naive and unlikely.
The more compassionate religious doctrine of ahimsa is the best hope that animals have for a brighter future…
“All things breathing, all things existing, all living beings whatever, whould not be slain or treated with violence, or insulted, or tortured or drven away. This is the pure unchanging eternal law, which the wise ones who know the world have proclaimed…” Jain Acharanga Sutra
“All beings with two, three, four or five senses in fact, all creation know individually pleasure and displeasure, pain, terror and sorrow. ALL are full of fears which come from all directions. And yet there exist people who would cause greater pain to them…Some kill animals for sacrifice, some for their skin, flesh, blood, feathers, teeth or tusks;…Some kill them intentionally and some unintentionally. Some kill because they have been previously injured by them…and some because they expect to be injured. He who harms animals has not understood or renounced deeds of sin…He who understands the nature of sin against animals is called a Sage.” Jain Acharanga Sutra
Face it the judeo.christian tradition has failed to understand and deliver compassion for animals.
February 19th, 2012 at 4:53 am
LT,
You quote: Pslam 50:10-11 “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: And the wild beasts for the field are mine,” declares the LORD.
Animals do not belong to anyone, not god, not humans. They live and exist for their own benefit.
This view of animals as property is another contributing factor to their exploitation.
February 19th, 2012 at 5:57 pm
In Canada, under our far right-wing government they’d be considered terrorists. A leaked document showed that both Greenpeace & PETA are considered an “extreme threat” to Canadians.
February 20th, 2012 at 9:19 am
Religion,faith in god, Christ or whoever is doing nothing whatsoever to help the victims of UF, there is no god as such, if there were then with this god having power over creation and able to end all suffering this god has one big sick sense of humour. It is us who have to deal with the problem. No kind of his is interested. Camille has done a lot here and we are all responsible to keep on going for the animals. Let’s stay focust whatever is set to try us just as Camille has/is.
February 21st, 2012 at 8:57 pm
People have been, and will continue to be, harmed by so called researchers. The experiments of Dr.Cameron, a psychiatrist and president of the psychiatric association in the 1950′s, did horrid experiments on people who were mental patients, prisoners, soldiers,or otherwise powerless persons. This is well-known, and much of it was in conjunction with the CIA. None of these people were aware that they were being used in this way. For all any of us know, this is still going on. People who become murderers start by being animal abusers, often. Certainly, to cause such harm to innocent animals can only harden a person. Yet most of medical science concurs in this behavior. These are the people we entrust the health of our families to. I stay away from doctors unless I know they share my animal rights viewpoint.
Look at the high number of unnecessary surgeries, the outrageous costs of medical treatments, the high monetary rewards for researchers. I have seen doctors tend to minor problems of their rich patients while poor ones suffer with serious problems in their waiting rooms. And what has all this research gotten? Cancer is of epidemic proportions, along with heart disease and many other things. As the Buddhists would say, ‘the wheel of karma turns’, and society will reap the consequences of this wholesale torture of other beings.