"'Protesters as terrorists': growing number of states turn anti-pipeline activism into a crime", 08 Jul 2019

From the Standing Rock camps in North Dakota to tree-sits in Texas, activists have attempted to stop pipeline construction with massive shows of civil disobedience. Now they could be forced to change those tactics, or face heavy penalties... Conservative lawmakers have put forward laws criminalizing protests...in at least 18 states since 2017. The laws purport to only criminalize violence and property damage in service of pipeline safety, but...their greater intent appears to be to deter nonviolent civil disobedience by framing it as...violent in itself...

• Seven states have passed laws that ratchet up the penalties...protesting or even planning protests of oil and gas pipelines and other “critical infrastructure”...

• At least six more...are considering such laws...

• ...[M]isdemeanors are elevated to felonies, and criminal and civil punishments are escalated drastically...

• The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights have mounted challenges against such laws in Louisiana and South Dakota...

The bills have mostly found fertile legislative ground in places where gas and oil companies already wield significant political and economic power and where...protests have been especially successful. But watchdogs say...more of these types of laws will be passed...The laws appear designed not just to deter individuals..., but also to cut off material support from organizations by levying steep fines...