Someone has published Final Nail.com (named after the infamous zine “The Final Nail,” which detailed locations of fur farms and encouraged activists to take illegal action against them). It lists addresses for not just fur farms but slaughterhouses, lab animal suppliers and trappers.
The Fur Commission had this to say about the original zine:
The Final Nail: Destroying the Fur Industry – A Guided Tour has been posted for years on the Internet, introduced by the same quote: “The Earth is not dying – it is being killed. And the people killing it have names and addresses.” The Final Nail lists farm addresses for fur farmers and, since fur farms are predominantly family-owned, those addresses are the home addresses of small family farmers.
The Final Nail includes chapters entitled “Maximum Destruction NOT Minimum Damage”, “Smashing the Furriers” and three chapters on incendiary devices.
Extremists have used these addresses to coordinate midnight raids on farms, releasing, then abandoning, domesticated animals to become road kill. These terrorists have mailed razor blades and death threats to farms where children routinely fetch the mail. They have used the information in The Final Nail to build incendiary devices and commit arson.
The website includes a disclaimer that “Any names and addresses on FinalNail.com are published solely for educational, research or other lawful purposes. We do not encourage illegal activity or behavior.”
But in this political climate, how far will that go? As we saw with the SHAC 7, the government and corporations haven’t been able to catch those committing illegal actions, so they’re going after those who support them (and who run activist websites consolidating publicly-available information). I’m curious how long it will take before industry groups start blaming this website for any illegal, or legal, actions that activists take against a business listed.
It’s interesting to note, though, how fluid all of this can be. In Florida recently, Bite Back Magazine beat back a lawsuit from the New York Stock Exchange that would have forced the website to remove personal information about investors. From Julie Kay of Daily Business Review:
Messages posted on the Bite Back Web site urge visitors to call and spam NYSE Euronext directors “day and night.” According to the suit, as a result of the Bite Back Internet campaign, the vehicles of two Euronext employees in the Netherlands were splashed with acid in March and their homes were vandalized with graffitti, including the word “murderer.” Dutch police have had to provide around-the-clock security to Euronext employees as a result, the suit claimed.
But, on May 25, Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley denied the motion, ruling that the strict requirements for an ex parte temporary restraining order — including a direct threat of imminent harm — were not met.
Hurley wrote that NYSE Euronext produced no evidence the defendants have ever “incited, threatened or committed a crime of violence against any person, nor does it present any evidence reasonably susceptible of interpretation that an act of violence against one of its employees is imminent.”
In other words, posting the information on the website, although it may be controversial, does not meet the very high bar set in First Amendment case law of “imminent and lawless action.” It’s information. Period. Some people may use it for legal protests, some for illegal, but that’s not grounds for censorship: if it were, radical publications like the phone book would be the first to go.