David Martosko is the director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom. The CCF stands by your right to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and wear fur. Not surprisingly, he and his organization feel threatened by radical environmentalists. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Martosko singled out as especially dangerous Dr. Steven Best of the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Best’s own website (http://www.drstevebest.org) likens animal liberation to the anti-slavery abolitionists of the 19th century. Professor Best himself says that he “seeks to emancipate animals from slavery to humans and from the ideology of human supremacy.” His books include Animal Liberation Front: Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Lantern Books, 2004) and Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth (AK Press, 2006). So, it is no surprise that Martosko perceives a shadow of threat – if not the Sword of Damocles – over him. He told the Senate committee:

The case of University of Texas El Paso Professor Steven Best, as a current ALF spokesperson, is very troubling. His academic position affords him a position of regrettable influence over young people, and he uses it in the classroom to promote and defend the ALF and the ELF. Dr. Best even wrote in a recent essay that the negative publicity arising from the assassination of someone from my own organization, the Center for Consumer Freedom, would not harm the reputation of the Animal Rights Movement, as a whole.(Martosko 2005)

Marotta, Michael E., The Earth Liberation Front, School of Staff and Command, SSC 441: Foreign and Domestic Terrorism for First Responders, Eastern Michigan University, Winter 2008, Gaylord, Michigan.