Biography
Daniel Gerard McGowan is an American environmental activist previously affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front. He was arrested and charged in federal court on multiple counts of arson and conspiracy in relation to arsons committed at Superior Lumber company in Glendale, Oregon on January 2, 2001 and Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon on May 21, 2001. His arrest is part of what the US government has dubbed Operation Backfire, a crack down on animal rights and environmentalist activists. Facing a life sentence if convicted, he accepted a non-cooperation plea agreement and was sentenced to a 7 year (84 month) sentence on June 4 in Eugene Federal Court. In prison, he is in the Communication Management Unit, a unit created to heavily monitor communications of its prisoners. Daniel Gerard McGowan is a former environmental and social-justice activist who participated in two Earth Liberation Front arsons in Oregon in 2001 — the burning of Superior Lumber and the burning of Jefferson Poplar Farm — both targeted for their roles in old-growth timber harvest and genetically modified poplar research, respectively.
He was arrested in December 2005 in the FBIs Operation Backfire roundup of the Eugene-based ELF cell known as The Family. He pleaded guilty to two counts of arson and conspiracy in a non-cooperating plea agreement. On June 4, 2007 he was sentenced by federal Judge Ann Aiken to 84 months (7 years) in federal prison, with the federal terrorism enhancement applied. He served his sentence largely at the federal Communications Management Unit at Marion, Illinois, the most restrictive non-supermax facility in the federal system, and was released to a halfway house in 2012 and home in 2013. The 2011 documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, in which he is the central figure, was nominated for an Academy Award. He has since worked as an organizer with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
