Sounds of silence

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Last Chance For Animals on August 17
set up a site called >>www.CoulstonKills
Chimps.com<<, to attack the U.S. Air Force decision
11 days earlier to leave 111 former NASA
chimpanzees in possession of the Coulston
Foundation, a research supplier, while sending
only 30 to the Primarily Primates sanctuary in San
Antonio and none to any other sanctuaries.
According to LCA spokesperson Roy Bodner, “The
president of the Coulston Foundation, Travis
Griffin, on August 19 threatened legal action
against LCA’s web provider if the site was not
removed immediately.” The provider refused, until
and unless advised that the site contained illegal content.
“On August 20 a frustrated Griffin contacted
LCA’s website server’s upstream provider,” Bodner
continued, “and by Griffin’s later admission,
‘objected to their hosting defamatory material,’”
threatening to sue the upstream provider. “That
threat,” Bodner said, “resulted in the website’s
entire server being abruptly removed from the
Internet.” LCA executive director Eric Mindel said
his organization was seeking to place the site with
another server, and was “consulting with our attorney
to examine possible legal action against the
Coulston Foundation.”

Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the
House Committee on Resources, on July 28
demanded that U.S. Forest Service southwest
regional director Eleanor S. Towns send him the
names and curriculum vitae of every Forest Service
or USDA staffer who was involved in limiting cattle
grazing in 11 Arizona and New Mexico national
forests to settle a lawsuit brought by the Tucsonbased
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity.
Young ordered that Towns should disclose to him
whether any Forest Service employees contribute
money to environmental organizations including the
Southwest Center, Forest Guardians, t h e S i e r r a
Club, and the Wilderness Society. Towns let
Young chill out for nearly two months, then on
September 21 pointed out to him that the federal
Privacy Act prohibits the Forest Service from tracking
the private associations of employees.
A Federal Communications Commission
c r a c k d o w n on about 250 unlicensed low-power
radio stations shut down Radio Free Berkeley a n d
San Francisco Liberation Radio back on June 17.
Silenced with them were two regular animal rights
talk programs, “The Animal Rights Power Hour,”
hosted by Alka Chandna, and “Unheard Cries,”
hosted by Jackie Dove. The FCC is reviewing
licensing procedures for micro radio, which may or
may not get the programs back on the air.