Angeline Cheek is a Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota activist, community organizer, and teacher from Ft. Peck Reservation. She is a pipeline opponent, as she fears the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could break and spill, destroy her tribe’s water, and desecrate sacred Native American sites. The government has characterized pipeline opponents like her as “extremists” and violent criminals and warned of potential “terrorism”, according to recently released records (DHS report said pipeline protesters were engaged in “criminal disruptions and violent incidents”). The documents suggested that police were organizing to launch an aggressive response to possible Keystone XL protests, echoing the actions against the Standing Rock movement in North Dakota where officers engaged in intense surveillance and faced widespread accusations of excessive force and brutality. The proposed TransCanada project would carry a daily load of 830,000 barrels of oil over 1,204 miles – from Alberta, Canada to Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, linking to the existing Keystone pipeline and Texas refineries. US government has long labeled activism as “terrorism”, once claiming that filing public records requests was an “extremist” tactic. “It’s an effective way of suppressing protest activity and creating an enormous burden for people who want to go out and express their concerns.”