Without Hierarchy, ELF Eludes Law

How could the FBI, the crime fighting organization that broke the back of the Mafia and infiltrated the KGB, apparently be so stymied by a bunch of granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers?

The Earth Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for more than $37 million worth of damage in more than 100 acts of "ecotage" at lumber companies, housing construction sites and ski resorts over the past five years. Law enforcement officials have recognized an ELF style — fires set with simple devices at sites vacated for the night, weekend or holiday, followed shortly by an announcemt sent anonymously to a spokesperson.

The group's claims to being non-violent and opposed to harming any living thing — including their ideological opponents and the people who work for them — have done nothing to make law enforcement officials soften their view of ELF.

"Criminals, terrorists," said Joe Valiquette, the New York spokesman for the FBI, when asked about ELF after the recent spate of fires at house construction sites on Long Island.

However, they pose a peculiar problem to law enforcement, because of their apparent lack of hierarchical organization. Officials acknowledge that the arrest last week of an Indiana man accused of a tree spiking that was linked to ELF is not necessarily a major breakthrough in their battle with the group. But while FBI spokesman have admitted suffering a level of frustration in attempting to crack ELF, they express no doubts that the group will be broken.

By all accounts — both from law enforcement officials and from unofficial ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh — there is no leadership structure within ELF. The name is just a catchall for an undetermined number of cells around the country that act independently and on their own initiative, though they all seem to have a common agenda.

'No One Knows Each Other'

"There's a complex worldview that tends to be associated with these green radical folks," said Bron Taylor, a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh religion professor who has studied the radical environmentalists and their beliefs for more than a decade. "One is that small-scale foraging societies are better than large-scale organized industrialized societies. The best way to be human is to be in small leaderless groups, where you work things out within the community. There's at the least a decentralization of society and at the maximum a very anarchist outlook in these subcultures.