There was a campaign against department stores selling fur in the 80s / 90s. The claimed intent was to cause massive water damage from sprinkler systems. People would place incendiary devices into the pockets of clothes (one reason pockets are now stitched closed) and these devices would go off at night. Unfortunately sprinkler systems didn't go off, and stores burnt down. 'Out of hours' does not mean 'empty'; the lives of cleaners, for example, were risked by this campaign.
There have been other arson campaigns against abattoirs, meat packing / distribution plants, dairies, etc.
Animal rights activists have dug up corpses.
There has been an extensive campaign of harassment against anyone linked to Huntingdon Life Sciences; this includes anyone providing any form of service to HLS. People think in terms of 'legitimate targets'. A company is a legitimate target. Anyone working for that company is a legitimate target. The children of, for example, a secretary working for that company are not legitimate targets.
Early members of ALF got advice from IRA.
Breaking the law to further a political cause is, perhaps, fine. But some of the extremes done in the name of animal rights are clearly terrorist offences.
My point wasn't that all animal rights activists are angels, but moreso that there is a bias against them from government/law enforcement. Some anti-abortion activists have bombed abortion clinics, but you don't see the anti-abortion movement labelled as a bunch of terrorists.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/br...
And, despite what you say down-thread, the FBI also considers abortion clinic violence to be acts of domestic terrorism. For example, scan this list from the FBI:
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-200...
From the same document:
Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as
“the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or
property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian
population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political
or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).
| the FBI also considers abortion clinic
| violence to be acts of domestic terrorism
Of course, none of this will be in official documents, much in the same way that DWB[1] is not an actual offence, or official department policy.
[1] Driving While Black