Speaker 1: I'm Ellen Brown. On Drilled Season twelve, we brought you Slapped,
Speaker 1: a series about the pipeline giant Energy Transfer's massive lawsuit
Speaker 1: against Greenpeace. It's the story of an indigenous nation fighting
Speaker 1: for its water, an environmental nonprofit facing extinction, and an
Speaker 1: energy giant using the courts to punish protesters. And at
Speaker 1: the heart of it all was the indigenous led movement
Speaker 1: to stop the Dakota Access pipeline. But back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: I covered a different story about Dapple for the intercept
Speaker 1: about Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, two women who attempted
Speaker 1: to stop the pipeline through acts of sabotage and vandalism
Speaker 1: and paid a heavy price for their actions. Today, we're
Speaker 1: going to play you an episode of another podcast that
Speaker 1: tells Ruby and Jessica's story. It's called Lawless Planet, and
Speaker 1: like Drilled, it's show about crime and the environment. On
Speaker 1: each episode of Lawless Planet, host Zach Goldbaumb reveals the scams, murders,
Speaker 1: and cover ups on the frontline of the climate crisis,
Speaker 1: and the choices people are making to either protect our
Speaker 1: world or destroy it. The episode I'm going to play
Speaker 1: for you today is called surveillance and sabotage on the
Speaker 1: Dakota Access Pipeline. And it's about how far corporations will
Speaker 1: go to criminalize protesting and protect their interests. While you're listening,
Speaker 1: follow Lawless Planet wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Both candidates are on the board. With wins reproject Clinton,
Speaker 2: we'll get Vermont's three electoral votes.
Speaker 3: Trump breaks in eight in the bluegrass state of Kentucky.
Speaker 2: It's Election Night, twenty sixteen. All across the country, Americans
Speaker 2: are glued to their television watching the results come in.
Speaker 2: But not Jessica Resna check in Ruby, Montoya. They're driving
Speaker 2: down a dark rural road in northwest Iowa, heading to
Speaker 2: a construction site for the Dakota Access Pipeline. The two
Speaker 2: have been protesting the pipeline for the better part of
Speaker 2: a year, doing everything possible to stop it from being built.
Speaker 2: We're talking marches, boycotts, sit ins, hunger strikes, even chaining
Speaker 2: themselves to machinery. But after a handful of arrests and
Speaker 2: no real progress, they've decided they need to do something bigger,
Speaker 2: something with a little more teeth. In the trunk, they've
Speaker 2: got empty coffee canisters, motor oil, and rags. They've done
Speaker 2: their research and built their own makeshift incendiary devices. They're crude,
Speaker 2: but they should work, and at this point, Jessica and
Speaker 2: Ruby are willing to do just about anything to stop
Speaker 2: what they see as an environmental disaster. The Dakota Access
Speaker 2: Pipeline or DAPPLE, is a multi billion dollar project designed
Speaker 2: to transport crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Once
Speaker 2: it's completed, it'll be over one thousand miles long and
Speaker 2: carry more than half a million barrels of oil a day.
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind it, says it expects
Speaker 2: to make more than a billion dollars every year, and
Speaker 2: they insist the pipeline is safe and efficient, but critics
Speaker 2: call it an accident waiting to happen. The pipeline's root
Speaker 2: cuts across farms, sacred tribal territory, and under the Missouri
Speaker 2: and Mississippi rivers. If it leaks, it could poison drinking
Speaker 2: water for millions, and pipelines do leak. But despite those concerns,
Speaker 2: construction began in early twenty sixteen, and for activists like
Speaker 2: Ruby and Jessica, it feels like the rules don't apply
Speaker 2: to energy transfer partners, so they've decided not to play
Speaker 2: by the rules either. They park their car on the
Speaker 2: edge of the construction site, and under the moon, they
Speaker 2: start hauling the canisters of gasoline out of the trunk.
Speaker 2: Machinery looms in the dark, a bulldozer, two excavators, a crane.
Speaker 2: Jessica and Ruby stuffed the oil soak drags into the
Speaker 2: canisters and slide them onto the seats of the machines. Then,
Speaker 2: with trembling hands, they strike matches and light them up.
Speaker 2: The flames catch fast, not too shabby for first time arsonists,
Speaker 2: but Jessica and Ruby don't stick around to admire their work.
Speaker 2: Around eleven PM, someone driving along the highway spots the
Speaker 2: blaze and calls nine to one one. By the time
Speaker 2: the firefighters arrive, the machines are engulfed. What's left in
Speaker 2: the morning are just charred hulks of metal and estimated
Speaker 2: two and a half million dollars worth of damages, but
Speaker 2: no one at the scene of the crime has any
Speaker 2: idea who is responsible. Jessica and Ruby are already long gone.
Speaker 2: The women think they've pulled off the perfect hit, a
Speaker 2: major blow to the pipeline's construction, but they'll soon realize
Speaker 2: that what felt momentous to them was just a minor
Speaker 2: inconvenience to Energy Transfer partners Jessica and Ruby keep up
Speaker 2: their campaign of sabotage, but Energy Transfer always seems to
Speaker 2: be one step ahead of them. It's like someone knows
Speaker 2: what's coming from wondery. I'm Zach Goldalm, and this is
Speaker 2: lawless Plant. Each week we tell a new story about
Speaker 2: the true crimes fueling the climate crisis, people fighting to
Speaker 2: save the planet or destroy it.
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Speaker 2: Protest is messy. Just look at American history. The Boston
Speaker 2: Tea Party was a carnival of property distraction. End it
Speaker 2: helped spark the Revolutionary War. The Stonewall Riots, which mark
Speaker 2: the beginning of the modern day rights movement, were a
Speaker 2: multi day street brawl with the NYPD. Even the Civil
Speaker 2: Rights movement, the gold standard of nonviolent resistance, had outbreaks
Speaker 2: of violence. These were not perfect protests, because there is
Speaker 2: no such thing. And before these movements were sanitized to
Speaker 2: the point that they fit on a postage stamp, they
Speaker 2: all faced the same questions, how far should we go
Speaker 2: in the pursuit of justice? Where is the line? And
Speaker 2: when do we escalate? Today, environmental activists are grappling with
Speaker 2: the same dilemma at a time when where careening passed
Speaker 2: every threshold of warming designated to prevent climate chaos. The
Speaker 2: debate for some members of the movement is no longer when,
Speaker 2: but how What tactics are required to meet the moment.
Speaker 2: This is the story of what led Jessica resna Check
Speaker 2: and Ruby Montoya to take blow torches to a pipeline
Speaker 2: and what happened after. It's about what people will do
Speaker 2: when they feel like they're out of options and out
Speaker 2: of time, but it's also about how far powerful institutions
Speaker 2: will go to stop them. After days of walking and hitchhiking,
Speaker 2: Jessica Resnacheks finally made it. She's reached the standing Rock
Speaker 2: Sioux reservation in south central North Dakota. She's been on
Speaker 2: a mission to get here ever since she heard about
Speaker 2: Indigenous protesters starting a camp to resist the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Speaker 2: It's summer twenty sixteen by the time she arrives, and
Speaker 2: she is not alone. Thousands of people from across the
Speaker 2: country have gathered to stand with the indigenous tribes protesting.
Speaker 2: They're camping out, chaining themselves onto construction, and forming human
Speaker 2: blockades to halt the pipeline's progress. The tension around Dapple
Speaker 2: has been brewing for years. The pipeline's original route would
Speaker 2: have passed near Bismarck, North Dakota, but it was re
Speaker 2: routed out of concern it might contaminate the city's drinking water. Instead,
Speaker 2: the federal government redirected itself closer to the Standing Rock Reservation.
Speaker 2: They could do that because they'd seize the land from
Speaker 2: the tribe in nineteen fifty eight. Tribal leaders weren't consulted,
Speaker 2: not about the route, not about the risk to their water,
Speaker 2: not about the sacred sites and burial grounds that lie
Speaker 2: in the pipeline's path. And it should come as no
Speaker 2: surprise that this kind of thing has happened before, in
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties and sixties, construction of dams along the
Speaker 2: Missouri River cut into the already shrinking Standing Rock reservation.
Speaker 2: To many, the Dakota Access Pipeline feels like history repeating itself,
Speaker 2: and once Jessica arrives, the damage is just getting underway.
Speaker 2: Construction is pushing ahead at full speed. Sacred sites are bulldozed,
Speaker 2: and the fear is once oil starts flowing, any spill
Speaker 2: or leak could contaminate the water supply for millions downstream.
Speaker 2: For Jessica, stopping the pipeline is an emergency.
Speaker 5: I think that the oil being taken out of the ground,
Speaker 5: and the machinery that does it, and the infrastructure which
Speaker 5: supports it, this is violent by now.
Speaker 2: Protest is a central part of Jessica's life. She got
Speaker 2: her start with the Occupy Wall Street movement back in
Speaker 2: twenty eleven. Ever since then she's been joining different groups
Speaker 2: and has found a home with the Catholic Workers of Iowa.
Speaker 2: They're a movement committed to nonviolence, community service, and resistance,
Speaker 2: and she identifies specifically as a Plowshares activist. A strain
Speaker 2: of Catholic Workers who believe that property damage can be
Speaker 2: a legitimate form of protest.
Speaker 5: We do understand the need to dismantle infrastructure when it
Speaker 5: poses a threat to human life and liberty.
Speaker 2: Before Standing Rock, she'd already been arrested several times. Most recently,
Speaker 2: she was in jail for smashing the windows of a
Speaker 2: Northrop Grumman office protesting the military drones they made. But
Speaker 2: compared to every other protest she's joined, the fight over
Speaker 2: the Dakota Access Pipeline feels more personal. Dapple runs through
Speaker 2: her home state of Iowa. She wants to do more
Speaker 2: than just march or break a couple of windows, so
Speaker 2: she leaves Standing Rock and heads back home. She hitches
Speaker 2: a ride to a construction site two and a half
Speaker 2: hours outside of Des Moines, where crews are preparing to
Speaker 2: bore beneath the Mississippi River. She doesn't have a plan exactly,
Speaker 2: but she knows her first move make a scene. Jessica's
Speaker 2: ride drops her on a quiet stretch of road near
Speaker 2: the Mississippi River, a few miles south of a Dapple
Speaker 2: construction site. She's alone, it's early fall, and the air
Speaker 2: smells like dry leaves and diesel. She walks until she
Speaker 2: finds the road that leads to the construction zone, the
Speaker 2: one used by trucks hauling equipment in and out. There's
Speaker 2: debris scattered nearby, plywood and tires that the crews forgot about.
Speaker 2: Jessica thinks to herself, perfect one by one. She starts
Speaker 2: to drag the tires into the middle of the road,
Speaker 2: stacking them on top of each other. Then she leans
Speaker 2: a wide sheet of plywood against them. She grabs a
Speaker 2: marker from her backpack and writes across the wood in
Speaker 2: big bold letters, water is Life. Then she starts playing
Speaker 2: her guitar. It doesn't take long for the first truck
Speaker 2: to arrive. It rumbles up the road and slows to
Speaker 2: a stop in front of her blockade. The driver waits
Speaker 2: for her to move, but Jessica just keeps strumming. The
Speaker 2: truck driver does not get paid enough to deal with
Speaker 2: this shit, so he reverses out of there. Ten minutes later,
Speaker 2: a sheriff pulls up. He asks her to move. She
Speaker 2: refuses in a huff. He starts moving the tires himself,
Speaker 2: but Jessica tells him she's just going to move the
Speaker 2: tires right back. As soon as he leaves. The sheriff's sighs.
Speaker 2: It's like Jessica is egging him on to arrest her,
Speaker 2: and she kind of is.
Speaker 6: And I stated to the officials that I came here
Speaker 6: in the spirit of love and compassion and respect, and
Speaker 6: I would go to jail for this. And so I
Speaker 6: went to jail and I was released about twenty four
Speaker 6: hours later. Then then I came right back out here
Speaker 6: and I was arrested again. Then the third time I
Speaker 6: was released, I came right back out here again and
Speaker 6: talked to the deputy and I said, look, where can
Speaker 6: I be on this premises.
Speaker 2: Jessica sets up camp in a public parking space on
Speaker 2: the side of the road. Then reporters start coming by.
Speaker 2: She speaks with one from Tri State's public radio about
Speaker 2: her hopes for her one woman stand Mine Kampman.
Speaker 6: Here, I visualize is just the beginning of a beautiful,
Speaker 6: widespread mass movement like we've seen up in North Dakota.
Speaker 6: And it starts sometimes just with one person and a
Speaker 6: supportive community to make these things grow and our voices
Speaker 6: will be heard.
Speaker 2: Word spreads, activists start showing up, or water protectors as
Speaker 2: they like to be called. By the end of the week,
Speaker 2: there are fifty of them together, they call the encampment
Speaker 2: Mississippi Stand, but Jessica keeps calling for even more people
Speaker 2: to join.
Speaker 6: Folks, the time is now to join us in this effort.
Speaker 6: What we need to do is put our bodies in
Speaker 6: front of this black snake. It's time to protect our
Speaker 6: waters and to take our land and water back. Join
Speaker 6: us here at Mississippi Stand.
Speaker 2: One of the new arrivals is Ruby Montoya. She pulls
Speaker 2: up in an suv with Arizona plates and a brand
Speaker 2: new tent, still smell of plastic. She's got yoga gear,
Speaker 2: military time on her watch, and cookwar that's clearly never
Speaker 2: touched a flame. Jessica's and tennas go up. Is this
Speaker 2: girl a cop? She's not? And in the weeks to come,
Speaker 2: Jessica and Ruby will lock arms with hundreds of others,
Speaker 2: chaining themselves to machinery and blocking trucks in a high
Speaker 2: sakes game of chicken. But the pipeline is still advancing,
Speaker 2: and soon both women will start asking an uncomfortable question,
Speaker 2: what if peaceful protest is not enough? Okay, let's rewind
Speaker 2: for a second and talk about Ruby. Before Mississippi Stand.
Speaker 2: She wasn't an activist. She was a preschool teacher. Her
Speaker 2: days were spent in classrooms, reading picture books and helping
Speaker 2: toddlers tie their shoes. But then she saw a headline
Speaker 2: about the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Speaker 7: I read about what they were intending to do to
Speaker 7: put these dirty petroleum pipes underneath our major waterways here
Speaker 7: in the United States, and I was aghast by their intentions.
Speaker 7: So I quit my job and I went to Standing Rock.
Speaker 2: In North Dakota. Ruby camped, protested, and listened, and while
Speaker 2: she was there she heard about another protest site forming
Speaker 2: hundreds of miles away, a single woman building a blockade
Speaker 2: in the middle of a road in Iowa. Ruby was intrigued.
Speaker 2: Her mom's family was from Iowa. It felt like a sign,
Speaker 2: so she packed up her SUV and headed east. As
Speaker 2: I mentioned, Ruby stood out at Mississippi Stand when she
Speaker 2: first showed up, and not necessarily in a good way.
Speaker 2: Her gear was too clean, her tent too knew, she
Speaker 2: did yoga and spoken idealistic soundbites. But she was earnest
Speaker 2: and she was all in.
Speaker 7: Believing in this cause so much. I came here to
Speaker 7: Mississippi Stand to support these people and to support what
Speaker 7: we believe in this future for our children. Yesterday's action
Speaker 7: was successful, and these small actions from these people here
Speaker 7: there is what is going to stop the pipeline.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter whether they hold off the machines for
Speaker 2: days or hours, because every minute of disruption counts. But
Speaker 2: then in early September news comes out of Standing Rock
Speaker 2: that horrifies both Ruby and Jessica.
Speaker 8: People have gone through the fence and men, women and children.
Speaker 8: The bulldozers are still going and they're yelling at the
Speaker 8: men in hard vets.
Speaker 5: One man in hard hut throwing protesters down.
Speaker 9: Some of the security have dogs, security has going to gas.
Speaker 2: People are being pepper sprayed those security guys. They're one
Speaker 2: of many private contractors that Energy Transfer Partners had hired
Speaker 2: to protect the pipeline. Some are using militarized tactics like dogs,
Speaker 2: tear gas, water cannons in freezing temperatures. Others, including an
Speaker 2: outfit called Tiger Swan, are focused on intelligence gathering and
Speaker 2: they're all working hand in hand with law enforcement to
Speaker 2: protect construction. Ruby and Jessica know that it's only a
Speaker 2: matter of time before the same tactics come to Iowa,
Speaker 2: but they're not going to let that stop them. They
Speaker 2: keep on with their mission, even when it lands them
Speaker 2: in jail.
Speaker 8: In southeastern Iowa, twelve activists who are arrested Saturday as
Speaker 8: they disrupted efforts by the Dacota Access Pipeline Company to
Speaker 8: drill under the Mississippi River, fearing a possible oil spill
Speaker 8: could contaminate the water. Three of the protesters chain themselves
Speaker 8: to a backode just before the start of the workday,
Speaker 8: delaying construction at the site for several hours.
Speaker 2: Ruby and Jessica are thrown in the same cell, and
Speaker 2: they get to talking, like really talking about what they're
Speaker 2: up against and about what they're willing to do about it.
Speaker 2: Are they serious about actually stopping this thing? When they
Speaker 2: get out of jail, a Mississippi stand are dire. Despite
Speaker 2: all their best efforts, construction has plowed ahead. The pipeline
Speaker 2: is now just days away from being fully connected beneath
Speaker 2: the Mississippi River, and if that happens, the section running
Speaker 2: through Iowa becomes operational and is nearly impossible to stop.
Speaker 2: Jessica and Ruby know the clock is ticking. They have
Speaker 2: less than a week to make something happen. Jessica offers
Speaker 2: a final plea on Facebook begging any protesters who have
Speaker 2: left because of arrests to come back.
Speaker 4: Only have a few days left to get this done.
Speaker 6: We know how you feel about it, we know your
Speaker 6: dedication because you've risked your life.
Speaker 8: And your and your freedom.
Speaker 2: Already wants please come back. We need people, please be here.
Speaker 2: Even as they wait to see who answers the call,
Speaker 2: Jessica and Ruby already know what they're going to do
Speaker 2: and what happens next will push them across the line.
Speaker 2: They can't come back from.
Speaker 10: Oh what democrapay look, this is looks mocracy.
Speaker 2: Let's look. Oh what democraphay looks like? This is what say?
Speaker 2: Let's what. In October of twenty sixteen, Ruby and Jessica
Speaker 2: are protesting in Iowa. When they get some bad news
Speaker 2: construction is complete on the section of pipeline they've been
Speaker 2: trying to stop. It feels like the end of something,
Speaker 2: but not the end. Ruby goes live on Facebook.
Speaker 10: We gave it all we had, and we're giving more.
Speaker 7: The fight is not over.
Speaker 11: There is plenty of pipeline to fight. There's plenty of
Speaker 11: Dakota access to confront and stop.
Speaker 2: From there, Ruby, Jessica, and other organizers take to Facebook,
Speaker 2: rallying supporters to keep the fight alive. If they can't
Speaker 2: stop the pipeline here, they'll stop it somewhere else. A
Speaker 2: few activists head north to Standing Rock. Others form a
Speaker 2: convoy trailing the pipeline across Iowa, locking onto machinery wherever
Speaker 2: construction is underway. More protesters join the effort. There's Alex Cohen,
Speaker 2: a young guy who quickly became one of the vocal
Speaker 2: leaders of Mississippi Stand. There's Kima Sealine, who was studying
Speaker 2: aromatherapy in Ohio before joining the movement. And then there's
Speaker 2: Joel Edwards, a former marine with a bushy beard and
Speaker 2: a friendly dog named Sully that everyone adores. At first,
Speaker 2: it feels like momentum is building, but as the group
Speaker 2: gets bigger, it's harder to know who's really in it
Speaker 2: for the right reasons. And then strange things start to happen.
Speaker 2: Energy transfer partners always seems to be one step ahead.
Speaker 2: Protest actions are stopped before they even begin. Police show
Speaker 2: up with alarming precision. It starts to feel like someone
Speaker 2: somewhere is leaking their plans. No one says it out loud,
Speaker 2: not yet, but the suspicion is there lingering in the background. Still,
Speaker 2: the activists try to stay focused. That kind of doubt
Speaker 2: is how the other side wins. While Jessica and Ruby
Speaker 2: plan their next moves, other members of the movement start
Speaker 2: meeting in a hotel room. One of them, Joel Edwards,
Speaker 2: works for the hotel chain and gets a free room
Speaker 2: once a week, a place for the activists to take
Speaker 2: a hot shower, warm up, sleep in a real bed.
Speaker 2: One night, they're all huddled in Joel's hotel room. Keema
Speaker 2: had picked up some alcohol from a local liquor store,
Speaker 2: and the conversation shifts to Standing Rock, specifically the Red
Speaker 2: Warrior Camp, a controversial group within the larger protest movement.
Speaker 2: Some activists think they're being too aggressive. Others like Alex
Speaker 2: push back, arguing that Red Warrior is a necessary force
Speaker 2: that's willing to take bold action. They talk about posting
Speaker 2: in support of the group, making a public statement of solidarity.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of honest, vulnerable debate you have when
Speaker 2: you think you're among allies. But somehow everything the group
Speaker 2: is saying that night is making its way back to
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer Partners. In November twenty sixteen, Energy Transfer Partners
Speaker 2: receives a message confirming that Mississippi stand leaders have endorsed
Speaker 2: the Red Warrior Camp faction. The two groups might even
Speaker 2: work together in the future. The message is from a private,
Speaker 2: shadowy security firm called Tiger Swan, and they're on Energy
Speaker 2: Transfer's payroll. By this point, Tiger Swan has deployed operatives
Speaker 2: across five states. There are the public facing employees who
Speaker 2: are making sure construction stays on track, and then there
Speaker 2: are the undercover agents who are embedded in protest camps
Speaker 2: gathering intelligence. The operatives collect names, track social media posts,
Speaker 2: and compile dossiers on individual protesters. Their internal group chats
Speaker 2: are full of racist jokes, like one about drunk Indians,
Speaker 2: and their messages refer to protesters as jihadists. A lot
Speaker 2: of the employees of Tiger Swan are veterans of the
Speaker 2: wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they're treating the protesters
Speaker 2: as the enemy. From Tiger Swan's perspective, this all feels necessary.
Speaker 2: Equipment has been vandalized, construction sites sabotaged, and on the
Speaker 2: night of November eighth, the night of the US presidential election,
Speaker 2: construction equipment in Northwest Iowa was torched. We know those
Speaker 2: arsonists were Jessica and Ruby, but their actions remain a
Speaker 2: secret even to their fellow protesters. For now. It's near
Speaker 2: the end of twenty sixteen and Jessica is trying a
Speaker 2: new strategy to protest the pype blind. She's on a
Speaker 2: hunger strike. On Thanksgiving Day, she sits outside of the
Speaker 2: Iowa Utilities Board building, hoping to get their attention.
Speaker 6: I've been up and seeing the atrocities at Standing Rock twice,
Speaker 6: now faced tear gas, and alliance with Indigenous peoples who
Speaker 6: are fighting just to protect their land and their water,
Speaker 6: and our land and our water. They're doing it for
Speaker 6: us as well, and can only return the favor by
Speaker 6: fighting on a local level in my own city, in
Speaker 6: my own backyard, untelling the i Utilities were to do
Speaker 6: their job.
Speaker 2: The Iowa Utilities Board doesn't budge, but then something unexpected happens.
Speaker 2: They're overruled by President Barack Obama, who makes a decision
Speaker 2: During his final weeks in office.
Speaker 3: The Obama administration denied a permit Sunday that would have
Speaker 3: completed the last leg of the Dakota Pipeline project, prompting
Speaker 3: celebrations and can involve North Dakota camps, where the numbers
Speaker 3: of supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe had swelled
Speaker 3: to over five thousand.
Speaker 2: Jessica can't believe the news. Her stomach twists, not from hunger,
Speaker 2: but from shock. Could this be real? Do they just win?
Speaker 2: She ends her strike, breaking her fast with a spoonful
Speaker 2: of chicken soup. Her photo runs in local news and
Speaker 2: she is beaming. After months of tireless protesting, it finally
Speaker 2: seems like the pipeline is dead in the water, but
Speaker 2: the victory is short lived. Just weeks after he takes office,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump reverses Obama's decision. The permits are back, construction resumes,
Speaker 2: and activists like Jessica are right back where they started.
Speaker 2: In February, Jessica links back up with Ruby and they
Speaker 2: discuss their next moves. They both feel like it's time
Speaker 2: to escalate things. Big action when they fire bomb those
Speaker 2: machines in November had made more of a difference than
Speaker 2: anything else they'd done. But they know that property damage
Speaker 2: isn't wholeheartedly accepted by the movement, because once you start
Speaker 2: down that road, you sacrifice the high ground and give
Speaker 2: the other side ammunition. The corporations in the government can
Speaker 2: argue that the entire movement is engaged in acts of
Speaker 2: eco terrorism, but Jessica and Ruby believe that as long
Speaker 2: as no people are getting hurt, then their actions are justified.
Speaker 6: We are removing destructive machinery from construction sites, and we
Speaker 6: are not the destroyers.
Speaker 2: We're the property improvers. So in an effort to improve
Speaker 2: on the property, they get to work. Their new goal
Speaker 2: is to disable the pipeline itself, not just the machines,
Speaker 2: but they have to figure out how to pierce steel.
Speaker 2: They learn that their best bet is to use oxyacetylene
Speaker 2: cutting torches. They go out and buy supplies from welding
Speaker 2: stores out the side of the city to avoid suspicion actually.
Speaker 10: Settling towards it.
Speaker 7: Came with instructions on how to cut and how to weld,
Speaker 7: and we just focused on how to cut because we
Speaker 7: weren't welding it.
Speaker 6: It was a process of trial and error taking ourselves.
Speaker 2: Jessica and Ruby practice until they can slice through a
Speaker 2: valve in under seven minutes, and then they set off
Speaker 2: on their mission.
Speaker 7: So after acquiring that knowledge, we began first in Mahaske County, Iowa,
Speaker 7: piercing through a valve there, and later we continued until
Speaker 7: we ran out of supplies, hitting multiple valve sites.
Speaker 2: Every time they do this they delay construction by days
Speaker 2: or even weeks at a time. Their goal is to
Speaker 2: drain Energy Transfers resources, and by some estimates they'd inflicted
Speaker 2: six million dollars in damages. Then one night in early May,
Speaker 2: they're in Wappolo County, Iowa, torch in hand, same as always,
Speaker 2: only this time they hear something inside the pipe, something
Speaker 2: coursing through it, a low gushing sound. They freeze. There
Speaker 2: is already oil flowing through the pipe. It's a sobering moment.
Speaker 2: Despite everything they've done, the pipeline is still fully operational,
Speaker 2: and these latest acts of sabotage they haven't even made
Speaker 2: the news. It was crickets. But just because their vandalism
Speaker 2: isn't getting much attention, it doesn't mean that energy Transfer
Speaker 2: isn't taking notice. That's because Tiger swans surveillance net is
Speaker 2: tightening and Jessica and Ruby have no idea. Tiger Swan
Speaker 2: has an operative that's been surveilling Jessica and Ruby's group,
Speaker 2: and their strategy is spelled out in a PowerPoint presentation
Speaker 2: that would later be leaked to reporter at the news
Speaker 2: outlet the intercept. But that PowerPoint it's so ridiculous they
Speaker 2: literally call it Operation Brathian, as in House Brathian from
Speaker 2: Game of Thrones. It is twenty sixteen, but still come
Speaker 2: on either way. Operation Brathian is on. Tiger Swan headquarters
Speaker 2: gets regular updates via coded messages sent over WhatsApp. If
Speaker 2: everything is good, they'll receive an innocuous note, but if
Speaker 2: an imminent action is going to take place, the message
Speaker 2: will say Shit's about to get real, which like is
Speaker 2: an actually coded language, but anyway, the Tiger Swan support
Speaker 2: team responds in civilian speed. They're specifically ordered not to
Speaker 2: use any military syntax. That's because the person leaking this
Speaker 2: information isn't observing the group from afar. They are deep inside,
Speaker 2: pretending to be an activist day after day, sending code
Speaker 2: messages back to Tiger Swann for planning sessions, protests, even
Speaker 2: hotel rooms. And soon the Moles reports will start mentioning
Speaker 2: two new names, Jessica Resnicek and Ruby Montoya. In March
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, while Ruby and Jessica are out on the road,
Speaker 2: sabotaging the pipeline. They're fellow activists start getting weird Facebook messages.
Speaker 2: One of those dms lands in Heather Pearson's inbox. She's
Speaker 2: an activist with Bold Iowa, a grassroots environmental group that's
Speaker 2: been fighting the pipeline since the beginning. The message comes
Speaker 2: from a user going by the name Bert Macklin, which,
Speaker 2: if you don't know, is a shout out to the
Speaker 2: TV show Parks and Recreation. They had a running joke
Speaker 2: about a fake FBI agent with that name. Bert's message
Speaker 2: is short and to the point, Heather, you don't know me,
Speaker 2: and this is a fake Facebook obviously, but I know
Speaker 2: who the Iowa mole was from the pipeline. Macklin then
Speaker 2: sends a link to a military news website. When Heather
Speaker 2: opens it up, she recognizes the face right away. It's Joel,
Speaker 2: the former marine with the friendly dog who'd been providing
Speaker 2: hotel accommodations for the protesters. But his last name isn't Edwards,
Speaker 2: it's actually McCullough. Heather is stunned. Joel must be the mole.
Speaker 2: There had been growing suspicions that someone in Iowa was
Speaker 2: feeding information to the other side, but this message confirms it.
Speaker 2: Heather starts quietly warning others they don't confront Joel directly. Instead,
Speaker 2: they keep an eye on him. Meanwhile, Joel is bouncing
Speaker 2: between activist groups collecting intel. In April, he shows up
Speaker 2: in Chicago for a climate march. He takes pictures and
Speaker 2: videos of the protest, and he subtly or maybe not
Speaker 2: so subtly, starts asking around about Jessica and Ruby. Their
Speaker 2: sabotage work has begun to circulate through activist networks, and
Speaker 2: Joel wants to know if the two of them are responsible.
Speaker 2: After the march, a group of activists head out to
Speaker 2: dinner and Joel tags along. He keeps pressing people about
Speaker 2: plans for the next day, but the group's not as
Speaker 2: forthcoming as usual. Finally, one of the group's organizers pulls
Speaker 2: Joel aside. She tells him flat out that they know
Speaker 2: he's the mole and he's no longer welcome. Joel laughs
Speaker 2: it off, denies it, but after that he quickly fades
Speaker 2: out of the Chicago activist scene, and soon everyone will
Speaker 2: understand just how deep the betrayal went, because the next month,
Speaker 2: the Intercepts starts publishing leak situation reports from Tiger Swan.
Speaker 2: The reports are filled with surveillance of activists and the
Speaker 2: groups that Joel embedded himself in. They're all over the documents.
Speaker 2: The expose also reveals emails and records between Tiger Swan
Speaker 2: and government agencies, and what they show is chilling. Tiger
Speaker 2: Swan was regularly sharing intel with the FBI, the Department
Speaker 2: of Homeland Security, the US Justice Department, the Marshal Service,
Speaker 2: and local law enforcement. In effect, a private oil company
Speaker 2: had its own secret police, treating American citizens like enemy
Speaker 2: combatants and coordinating with actual government agencies and using tactics
Speaker 2: developed in the War on Terror against climate activists on
Speaker 2: US soil. An invoice from that time shows that Tiger
Speaker 2: Swan had built a subsidiary of Energy Transfer seventeen million
Speaker 2: dollars for just fifteen months of work. That's a lot
Speaker 2: of money and a lot of incentive to keep chasing
Speaker 2: activists who are causing problems. Jessica and Ruby aren't named
Speaker 2: in the Intercept article, but they are in actual Tiger
Speaker 2: Swan reports. In July twenty seventeen, a reporter from the
Speaker 2: Intercept reaches out to them. Jessica and Ruby agree to talk,
Speaker 2: but they deny being involved in any pipeline vandalism or sabotage.
Speaker 2: When the interview ends and they're alone again, the question
Speaker 2: lingers should they take credit? Ruby recounts what happened next.
Speaker 10: So, after we got off the phone, we talked together
Speaker 10: and I was like, fuck it, man, let's plain it.
Speaker 10: Because we didn't stop the pipeline. We both feel personally
Speaker 10: responsible for that. And this is the last thing they
Speaker 10: can do, and you know what, people need to talk
Speaker 10: about it.
Speaker 2: It's the morning of July twenty fourth, twenty seventeen. Jessica
Speaker 2: and Ruby wake up knowing exactly what kind of day
Speaker 2: this is going to be. Jessica others are thoughts. Ruby
Speaker 2: pulls on a stop the Pipeline t shirt. They step
Speaker 2: out onto the porch of the Catholic workers home where
Speaker 2: they're living, and they set off for the Iowa Utilities
Speaker 2: Board building. At ten am. They stand in the tall
Speaker 2: grass just in front of the building's sign and they
Speaker 2: begin to read. It's not a protest speech, it's a confession.
Speaker 2: They calmly deliver a full account of everything they've done
Speaker 2: and take responsibility for millions of dollars in damages.
Speaker 11: Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken,
Speaker 11: reacted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor
Speaker 11: personal property. What we did do is find a private
Speaker 11: corporation that has run rapidly across our country, seizing land
Speaker 11: and polluting our nation's water supply.
Speaker 2: When they finish reading their prepared statements, they unzip their
Speaker 2: backpack and pull out a hammer and crowbar. They begin
Speaker 2: ripping letters off the utilities boards sign behind them. They
Speaker 2: each get one letter off before the move in and
Speaker 2: arrest them. They're charged with fourth degree criminal mischief for
Speaker 2: defacing the sign. And that's it for now that there
Speaker 2: is no way that Jessica and Ruby are going to
Speaker 2: get off scott free. They know it, the government knows it.
Speaker 2: It is just a matter of when.
Speaker 9: During two des moin women accused of vandalizing the Dakota
Speaker 9: Access Pipeline have been indicted on federal charges. Prosecutors say
Speaker 9: Ruby Montoya and Jessica Resnachk could each face decades in
Speaker 9: prison if convicted.
Speaker 2: Two years after their press conference, Ruby and Jessica are
Speaker 2: officially hit with nine felony counts for intentionally damaging energy infrastructure.
Speaker 2: They face up to one hundred and ten years in
Speaker 2: prison plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. At first,
Speaker 2: Ruby's hopeful that the trial will go their way.
Speaker 7: I was a preschool teacher last year. Now I'm pure
Speaker 7: facing felonies or whatever, so.
Speaker 10: We don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 7: I don't think it's going to be this open and
Speaker 7: shut throw us in usself. I think will be surprised
Speaker 7: we get acquitted.
Speaker 2: But after about a year and a half of legal
Speaker 2: back and forth, they agree to plead guilty to one
Speaker 2: of the charges, conspiracy to damage and energy facility. It
Speaker 2: seems like a strategic move to avoid the harshest penalties.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors have other plans, because then, after they've already pled guilty,
Speaker 2: the government pushes for a terrorism enhancement. It's an additional
Speaker 2: penalty reserved for acts considered a threat to national security.
Speaker 2: Because the pipeline was classified as critical infrastructure, their protest
Speaker 2: is rebranded as terrorism. It feels like a total bait
Speaker 2: and switch. The government coakexed a guilty pleay out of
Speaker 2: them in exchange for a lighter punishment, only to hit
Speaker 2: them with an even harsher sentence after the fact. Ruby
Speaker 2: is sentenced to six years in prison, and Jessica ends
Speaker 2: up getting sentenced to eight. She plans on appealing the
Speaker 2: terrorism enhancement, hoping to get her sentence reduced.
Speaker 12: I'm very well convinced that I am not a terrorist. Yeah,
Speaker 12: I'm a little confused as to how like this this
Speaker 12: came to be, particularly when the actions that I took
Speaker 12: were against a private industry, not against any public office,
Speaker 12: any public official. And the judge was very clear that
Speaker 12: she was sentencing me harshly so as to make it
Speaker 12: a deterrent from others to make similar stands.
Speaker 2: The judge argued that Ruby and Jessica put the lives
Speaker 2: of pipeline workers and firefighters at risk, and because their
Speaker 2: actions were intended to quote affect the conduct of government
Speaker 2: by intimidation or coercion, they met the federal definition of terrorism.
Speaker 2: It's a frightening precedent that, if if applied elsewhere, could
Speaker 2: have a chilling effect on climate activism. And that's not
Speaker 2: the only thing. In recent years, lawmakers in twenty one
Speaker 2: states have passed so called critical infrastructure protection laws that
Speaker 2: make it a felony to even trespass around oil and
Speaker 2: gas pipelines, as well as ports, refineries, and waterways. In
Speaker 2: the past few years, dozens of activists have been arrested
Speaker 2: and charged under these laws and face up to ten
Speaker 2: years in prison, the kind of punishment once reserved for
Speaker 2: violent offenders. And it's not just the punishment that's escalating,
Speaker 2: but the machinery behind it, surveillance, infiltration, federal terrorism enhancements,
Speaker 2: which the judge rationalized using the Patriot Act. Of all things.
Speaker 2: These are Posts nine to eleven tactics used on American activists,
Speaker 2: all spurred by a private security firm deputized by a
Speaker 2: fossil fuel company. In twenty eighteen, the CEO of that company,
Speaker 2: Energy Transfer, spoke at an industry conference and he was
Speaker 2: asked about his views of environmental activists.
Speaker 8: Well, for example, you're talking about somebody needs to be
Speaker 8: removed from the gene pool.
Speaker 2: We had people.
Speaker 1: Drilling holes in our pie drilling holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you heard that right, somebody that needs to be
Speaker 2: removed from the gene pool for an extra dose of irony.
Speaker 2: Jessica signed her plea deal on January sixth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: the same day as the Capital insurrection, but unlike many
Speaker 2: high profile J six defendants, Jessica and Ruby were the
Speaker 2: ones who got the terrorism enhancements, and last I checked,
Speaker 2: President Trump hasn't given them a pardon. Today, both women
Speaker 2: remain incarcerated. Ruby is expected to be released in October
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six and Jessica in October twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2: So what does it mean when climate defenders are punished
Speaker 2: more harshly than those who stormed the capitol? Why is
Speaker 2: protecting a pipeline treated like a national security priority while
Speaker 2: protecting the water and land it threatens isn't. Jessica and
Speaker 2: Ruby's story is messy. There are a lot of activists
Speaker 2: that see their action as harmful to the broader environmental movement.
Speaker 2: They believe that violence, if that's what you want to
Speaker 2: call property damage, is the fastest way to alienate potential allies.
Speaker 2: But Jessica sees it differently.
Speaker 12: There are many who have come before me who have
Speaker 12: spent time in prison for their convictions, and spent time
Speaker 12: in prison and really affected change in this nation and
Speaker 12: in the world.
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, a year after Jessica and Ruby stood
Speaker 2: in that grassy field in Iowa and took responsibility for
Speaker 2: what they had done, the United States became the number
Speaker 2: one producer of crude oil in the world, surpassing Russia
Speaker 2: and Saudi Arabia. Joe Biden had promised no more drilling
Speaker 2: on public lands, but approved as many new permits for
Speaker 2: oil and gas as Trump, who is now vowing to
Speaker 2: drill baby drill. Today, the Dakota Access Pipeline is still running,
Speaker 2: transporting roughly seven hundred and fifty thousand barrels of oil
Speaker 2: a day. But even though she wasn't able to stop
Speaker 2: the pipeline, Jessica says she has no regrets.
Speaker 12: I can't imagine having done it differently because I conducted
Speaker 12: myself with integrity. I think there are times when I
Speaker 12: was like, I shouldn't have claimed responsibility for these actions.
Speaker 12: They didn't have any evidence to hold against me. But
Speaker 12: those aren't the things that keep you up at night
Speaker 12: being honest.
Speaker 6: I can sleep still being.
Speaker 2: Honest, whether or not you agree with their tactics. Jessica
Speaker 2: and Ruby didn't simply throw up their hands when it
Speaker 2: comes to the threat of climate change, because for them,
Speaker 2: the only thing scarier than the consequences of their actions
Speaker 2: are the consequences of inaction.
Speaker 10: I was a preschool teacher, and I love kids, and
Speaker 10: we're not leaving them anything, and it's it's scary. It's
Speaker 10: scary what everyone is going through. And I think it's
Speaker 10: feared that prevents people from acting. And I was afraid
Speaker 10: as well, but it had to be done.
Speaker 2: Coming up next week, the story of the largest green
Speaker 2: energy scam in US history, carried out by a seriously
Speaker 2: unlikely duo. Levaughn was a bel Air billionaire and gas
Speaker 2: station tycoon when he joined forces with members of the
Speaker 2: polygamous Kingston Clan. We use a lot of sources when
Speaker 2: researching our and for this episode, we really recommend you
Speaker 2: check out Allen Brown's reporting from her time at the
Speaker 2: Intercept and Julius Shipley's piece from Grist and Rolling Stone
Speaker 2: called You Strike a Match, and also Democracy Now for
Speaker 2: the interviews of Ruby and Jessica. Lallas Planet is produced
Speaker 2: and hosted by me Zach Goldaum. Alex Burns wrote this episode.
Speaker 2: Our senior producer and story editor is Derek John. Senior
Speaker 2: producers for Wondery are Peter Racooney and Andy Herman. Our
Speaker 2: senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is
Speaker 2: Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Pierre. Music
Speaker 2: and sound design by Kenny Kusiak, dialogue edit by George
Speaker 2: Draving Hicks. Our music supervisor is Scott Velaskin is for
Speaker 2: freezon Sync fact checking by A Naomi bar Our. Legal
Speaker 2: counsel is Deb Druze. Executive producers are Marshall Louis, ern
Speaker 2: Old Flaherty, Nigerie Eaton and Jenny Lauer Beckmann. For Wondering, Okay,
Speaker 2: thanks for listening. To see you next week by Well
Speaker 7: Wondering