Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security compares environmental activists to Al Qaeda

The State of Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security has not only compared non-violent, law abiding eco-activists to Al Qaeda, but even recruited "citizen spies" with "coffee and donuts" to funnel information about environmental activism to the Institute for Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), a private contractor working not only for the State, but also for large corporations, including from the energy sector and "critical infrastructure." 

Referring to the involvement of the natural gas hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") industry, Witold Walczak, legal director for ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in response “It’s one thing for private industry to hire groups like ITRR to gather information, but for the government to get involved — you’ve got a nasty menage-a-trois going on here and the citizen activists are the ones getting fracked.”

An email exchange between the State Office of Homeland Security and an ITRR founder recognizes that eco groups are “paranoid. They know they’re always one step away from ‘police repression.’ ”