Document text
Ecoterror group goes online ELF says site will be resource for activists PORTLAND � The radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front launched an unofficial Web site Saturday � a day before the CBS news program "60 Minutes" was scheduled to broadcast a segment on the group. "With the increasing number of E.L.F. actions occurring, earthliberation-front.com will serve as an international resource providing insight into one of the most successful modern organizations working to stop the destruction of life," ELF said in a statement. Most recently, the group claimed responsibility for a Jan. 2 fire that caused $400,000 in damage at Superior Lumber Co. in Glendale. The ELF also claimed responsibility for the Dec. 28, 1998, fire that broke out at the Medford offices of U.S. Forest Industries, like Superior Lumber a member of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association. A week after the Superior Lumber fire, the ELF claimed responsibility, saying "what happened to them should shock no one." "Superior Lumber is a typical earth raper contributing to the ecological destruction of the Northwest," the group said. The announcement of the Web site � like all messages from the nebulous group � arrived at The Associated Press via anonymous fax. The underground group communicates through an unofficial spokesman, Craig Rosebraugh of Portland, who says he passes on anonymous e-mails from the group to the media. Rosebraugh says he is not a member of ELF and does not know the identities of any members. ELF has claimed responsibility for the destruction of $37 million in property over the past four years, ranging from the arson of three Long Island luxury homes built on farmland to the vandalism of logging equipment used in Oregon timber sales. ELF has claimed responsibility for at least 21 major attacks since the group surfaced in October 1996 by torching a truck at a U.S. Forest Service ranger station in Oregon, according to a review of the ELF�s actions by The Oregonian newspaper. The FBI has been unable to infiltrate the group. ELF�s new Web site includes a diary of the group�s actions, press releases, a library of recommended reading, a list of arrested or imprisoned ELF activists, archived news articles and links to other activist Web sites. Photographs of ELF�s acts � including the Glendale arson � are posted with accompanying articles. "This new site is designed to educate both the general public and the media on the E.L.F. and the actions that the group has taken in defense of the earth," the Web site reads. The "60 Minutes" segment on ELF is scheduled to air at 7 tonight on CBS (KTVL-TV, Ch. 10 locally). On the Net: Earth Liberation Front: www.earthliberationfront.com Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.