For 'Eco-Terrorism' Group, a Hidden Structure and Public Messages

• Published in: The New York times
• Main Author: DAN BARRY and AL BAKER
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Times Company 08.01.2001
• Edition: Late Edition (East Coast)
• Subjects: Animal rights movement; Arson; Environmentalists; Sabotage; Stepanian, Andrew; Terrorism; Long Island New York; MOUNT SINAI, N.Y., Jan. 5
• ISSN: 0362-4331

For several years the people who claim allegiance to the group ELF and its partner in activism, the Animal Liberation Front, have taken responsibility for an underground campaign of destruction and fire against those they see as the earth's enemies: lumber and construction industries, mink and fox farmers, bioengineering companies and laboratories that do tests on animals. For ELF and ALF, they all represent base capitalism. Because he is the spokesman for ELF, Mr. [Craig Rosebraugh]'s pale, bespectacled face is the only one attached to the movement, even though he says he is a supporter but not a member. As a result, federal officials have raided his home, seized his computer and placed him before a grand jury investigating ELF and ALF activities. Simply put, they want to know the identities of those who keep him abreast of what ELF is doing, and the means by which they do so. Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility for fires in a Long Island subdivision late last month. The group began at a gathering of members of Earth First, an environmental group, in England in the early 1990's. (Maxine Hicks for The New York Times); After a series of fires did $12 million in damage to the Vail, Colo., ski resort in 1998, Craig Rosebraugh, left, ELF's publicist, said the development was encroaching on a habitat for lynx. (Photographs by Associated Press)(pg. B5)