By Patricia Abbott

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started out as a joke. One day, a bored cartoonist dared a co-worker, "Let's pitch this to the boss like we're serious." Likewise, a few years ago I think that enviro-wonk Mike Roselle and a bunch of his friends must have gotten together and come up with the most far-fetched idea they could and then sent it to the IRS for approval as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. The incredible result was the Ruckus Society, an organization whose name is no coincidence and whose sole purpose is to run bootcamps to train would-be environmental protestors to break the law. Right now the non-profit world is all agape that someone suggested that the IRS investigate the tax-exempt status of these environmental warrior-type groups. This should not be a huge shock. The crazy thing is not that their tax-exempt status is being challenged, but that sometime during the environmental love-in that was 90s, the IRS actually granted this group tax-exempt status in the first place!

A 501(c)(3) organization is a non-profit charitable organization that the government considers a worthy cause and allows to operate without taxing its income and allows to collect tax-deductible contributions. The test is supposed to be rigorous, but the last few years, the IRS has been awarding 501(c)(3) status like everyday is Christmas. Later scrutiny involved in maintaining tax-exempt status has been almost non-existent. Because of this lack of enforcement, there are now many maverick 501(c)(3)'s out there blatantly violating 501(c)(3) restrictions. One such organization is the Ruckus Society.

It was organized in 1995 by Mike Roselle, the former founder of the EarthFirst! terrorist organization, and founder of the Rainforest Action Network. Ruckus's express purpose is to "provide training in the skills of non-violent civil disobedience to help environmental and human rights organizations achieve their goals." In other words, this group exists to train would-be protestors to break the law. The Ruckus Society is purportedly non-violent, but the symbol of the Ruckus society-- a set of mechanical gears jammed by a monkey wrench-- speaks for itself.

Ruckus's main activity is their Action Camps where in the past six years, upwards of 3,500 people have undergone Ruckus training. Mike Roselle boasts that the result is nationwide network of activists ready to mobilize with just a phone call. "Say we've got a boatload of mahogany coming into Charlotte and we need 50 people out there to stop the ship unloading. That's a pretty difficult action, but we could do it. We can do bridges, cranes, large buildings, and pretty much anything that moves." Wow. It's awe-inspiring to see American tax dollars at work.

The problem is not that Ruckus Society exists and is training people to lock themselves to trees with bike locks. That's free speech. The problem is that they have the audacity to do it under the guise of a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and with a tax-payer subsidy. Ruckus society has the right to protest whatever they want. That was never in question. However, 501(c)(3) status is a privilege, not a right and, by definition, does not apply to everyone.

It certainly should not apply to Ruckus Society. One of the primary tenets of a 501(C)(3) organization is that it cannot engage in activities that are "illegal or contrary to a clearly defined and established public policy..." Ruckus violates this restriction daily. One of Ruckus's main objectives is to have its protestors arrested for publicity. They have been warned by authorities, even by their own ACLU lawyers, that their training camps in which they train volunteers to form human blockades and to scale large buildings are illegal.

Ruckus camps nearly always train protestors for specific protests. Ruckus held a training camp in Malibu, California from July 13-19 to train protestors specifically for the Democratic National Convention. Malibu Camp curriculum included training and practice in such skills as "tree sits, tripods, lockboxes, railboxes, barrel blockades, vehicle blockades, water blockades, bridge actions" and more. Ruckus prospectus material offered as further incentive, "Lean how to lock your head to something." All of these blockades are illegal when used in public because they involve police defiance, disrupting traffic, and blocking access to private property, among other things. The Malibu camp attendees also learned how to climb and hang themselves from urban structures. When used in direct actions, climbing buildings to display banners necessarily involves trespassing on private property. So, when Ruckus teaches volunteers these strategies, they obviously intend to instill skills that are only useful in breaking the law.

As a direct result of the planning and direct training that took place at the Malibu camp, 129 protestors were arrested on misdemeanor charges during the DNC protests last August. Many of those arrests were for forming human blockades. Four protestors, including at least one Ruckus trainer, were arrested for trespass after climbing a building and attempting to unfurl an anticorporate banner. In addition, four protestors were charged with felony counts. These arrests were the proximate, foreseeable, and indeed, the intended result of the Malibu Camp training. Ruckus leadership should not be surprised if, in the future, they can add conspiracy charges to their already prodigious personal rap sheets. It should be further noted that under the California Penal Code, as well as in many other jurisdictions, a conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor can be punished as a felony. If the Ruckus society wants to assume the risk of prosecution for its actions, that's well and good. However, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and tax-payer dollars should not be used to subsidize felonious behavior.

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Patricia Abbott is an Adjunct Scholar at Frontiers of Freedom, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans and restoring constitutional limits on the extent and power of government.