Lost Film Fest

The past few weeks have found me deluged by emails, IMs and phone calls about the incredibly bizarre mention of Lost Film Fest during the trial of environmental activist Eric McDavid.

Here’s a bit of background for those of you who haven’t gotten the lowdown on the “green scare”, and the case of Eric McDavid’s entrapment by the FBI’s secret agent Lolita. I have been paying close attention to the case (originally called the Auburn 3 case - now it’s one plus 2 snitches) for the past year or so, and of course followed the trial from when it began.

So: The US government has been trying for years to spread fear about the environmental movement by labeling environmental activists as terrorists. Eric McDavid’s case is part of this federal offensive, and it reeks of entrapment.

A few years ago the FBI, apparently inspired by the fine American cinema masterpieces “Spy Kids” and “Red Dawn”, recruited a 15 year old top spy named “Anna” straight out of junior college civics class. “Anna” was a high school student at the time. They gave Anna their blessing to play hookey for the next two years and charged her with the mission of finding terrorists within the radical environmental movement. Failing that, she had to scrounge up the next best thing…

Anna, armed with an expense account to buy garlic, grungy thrift store clothes and supplied for concocting dud bombs, set out to infiltrate the environmental activist movement and encourage criminal mischief. According to the trial transcripts, “Anna” attended a bunch of protests and posed as a street medic. (Having zero medical training, she brushed off injured people who came to her for help.) She befriended three young activists, including McDavid, and spent the next bit of time traveling with them.

Anna brought the group to a wiretapped cabin in California owned by the FBI, where she used her Lolita skills to woo McDavid into helping her assemble sabotage devices. The devices were built to fail, taken from tried and true FBI dud recipies. McDavid and crew were arrested by the cabin and charged with “conspiracy to destroy property by means of fire or explosives”, even though their collective organizing skills were probably best suited to planning vegan potlucks.

While Lost Film Fest is mentioned tangentially in the prosecution’s outlandish rant, the prosecution’s statement regarding Lost Film Fest is consistent with the sort of scare tactics, flimsy rhetoric and blatant lies our government uses to justify harsher penalties and broader definitions in the crackdown on people who speak out about injustice.

Here is the quote in question, in reference to events at the 2005 Philadelphia Bio conference. We apologize for the transcriber’s poor phrasing.

“He [the prosecutor] also talked about the cop that died of a heart attack and said he died because he was ‘wrestling’ with protesters. He said that some people felt sad about it and wanted to have a vigil and the people that were glad that the cop died went to the ‘Lost Film Festival’ where they were showing films on how to make molotov cocktails. [McDavid's lawyer] objected to that comment and the judge ordered the jurors to strike it from their memory.”

Was the prosecution saying that independent film festivals are “danger zones” where people learn how to make molotov cocktails? Is he saying that public art events are breeding grounds for terrorism? This reminds me of John Ashcroft’s post 9-11 freakout over nude statues on Capitol Hill while the anthrax scares raged.

Whew, I’m glad the judge had the good sense to “strike” that from the jurors’ memory. Did he use a Vulcan neck pinch to do that? Hypnotism?

Anyhow, the sad ending to the whole thing is that McDavid was convicted of conspiring to blow up government and other facilities as part of an eco-terror plot, due to technicalities, and now awaits sentencing in December. This conviction carries up to 20 years in prison. I’m not sure how the guilty verdict was reached, since the jury came out of the trial calling “Anna” and the FBI liars, and saying that they should be ashamed of themselves. Eric’s lawyer is currently working on an appeal. Any contribution you can make to this case will help. Please visit www.SupportEric.org for more information on how you can help.

The Indypendent’s coverage sums up McDavid’s case well (http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/the-net-widens/) and includes other articles on the “Green Scare” documenting the federal government’s aggressive actions against protesters.