Let's step away from the usual writing style and add some righteous fury, focusing on something that everyone hates: harassment.

Here's the situation: Dario Ringach, a Neurobiology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, is a researcher who uses primates for testing. Animal rights groups, such as the UCLA Primate Freedom Project and the Animal Liberation Front, pressured him to stop testing on the said primates, even if he was observing the necessary ethical guidelines put forth by the National Research Council. Eventually, he announced that he was giving up primate research as a result of the pressure.

How did these groups do it?

By posting his name and phone number on the internet, which led to a barrage of calls and emails from complete strangers, as well as instances of picketing in front of his house. In the end, he acceded to their "request," and emailed different animal rights groups with the statement, "You win. Please don't bother my family anymore." referring to his entire family, children included, who went under the microscope of public condemnation.

The last straw may have been when the Animal Liberation Front took credit for attempting to place a Molotov cocktail on the doorstep of a fellow researcher, Lynn Fairbanks. However, they made the mistake of putting the explosive in front of Fairbanks' elderly neighbor's house. The results would have been disastrous had it exploded.

The UCLA itself doesn't approve of the behavior of these groups, who have taken protests to an unreasonable extreme. In a statement by Roberto Peccei, UCLA's Vice Chancellor for Research, he deplored activists' actions:

"In recent years, however, animal rights extremists have escalated their activities in a disturbing manner. They post home addresses and phone numbers of researchers on the Internet, along with inflammatory images and slanderous rhetoric about faculty members...

...Although UCLA is an institution that encourages free speech, we condemn and deplore such tactics in the strongest possible terms. Using violence and physical threats to advocate policy or advance a political view is unacceptable in a civilized, democratic society.

Whether or not one agrees with animal testing, there may never be an excuse for harassing people whose views disagree with one's own. When a Molotov actually goes off because of this, be sure that isn't harassment anymore either.

It's terrorism.