Ok, you're going to have to follow this first part closely. It's quite a story, and this rendition sports the apt hed, "Animal Rights Or Wrongs?". There's this guy, see, and he's the president of a drug marketing company, whose parent company tests drugs in a lab run by another company named Huntingdon Life Sciences, which uses animals for testing medicines and agricultural products. So here's what happens to this guy, and why some animal rights activists are facing trial in Trenton in February on federal charges.

First came the threatening phone calls to George Svokos' home in Franklin Lakes last December. Then his mail was stolen. Fliers appeared on his car and those of neighbors, accusing his employer of animal slaughter and abuse. Burglars broke into the house, stole a credit card and ran up a $5,000 bill, including a blow-up sex doll to be sent to his home. They also stole the itinerary for an upcoming family vacation in London, circulating the details in an e-mail urging the recipients to call the hotel and "make his vacation one he'll never forget."

...The alleged harassment fits the pattern of a ferocious effort by animal rights activists in recent years - especially a group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC-USA)....Seven SHAC members are set to go on trial in February in Trenton on federal charges of interstate stalking and conspiracy connected to the anti-Huntingdon campaign. FBI Deputy Assistant Director John Lewis told a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday that investigating campaigns waged by SHAC and other animal rights groups "is one of the FBI's highest domestic terrorism priorities."

The activists have broadened their focus, including what authorities call "secondary targets" such as Svokos - employees and officers of any company that either hires Huntingdon or has some other connection.

Strategically, that's a poor move, most likely to harden resistance to the underlying message - which is flawed enough in its own right, of course. But over-the-top tactics are becoming more and more common in the campaign to assign to animals the rights of humans. Another battleground of late has been Madison, Wisconsin.

Activists ratcheted up their opposition to animal experiments at UW-Madison this week by parking a truck with giant video screens outside the homes of animal researchers and broadcasting footage to neighbors of what they said was the torture of monkeys at a campus lab. Wednesday was the fourth and final night of the group's planned demonstrations in residential neighborhoods. Seven people's homes were visited over the four nights.

"We want to embarrass them," said Jeremy Beckham, 20, of Madison, the main organizer. "We want to educate their neighbors and get them against what's happening." Chancellor John Wiley criticized the approach in a statement as "a last resort for groups whose message has no traction in our state." He said the university has a long tradition of open discussion on contentious topics, and that the protesters' tactics of "humiliation and intimidation" harm that effort.

Animal rights activists just keep sowing alientation wherever they go. In Chicago recently, a chef who testified against a proposed city ban on serving foie gras in restaurants there had his establishment vandalized the very next day.

If the Chicago contingent of duck and goose protectors were really smart, they would have borrowed an old trick from the local campaign playbook and had someone toss a brick through their own office window.

TECHNORATI TAGS: ANIMAL RIGHTS, NEW JERSEY, WISCONSIN, CHICAGO, FOIE GRAS

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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 3, 2005 06:24 PM