By Whitney Webb
Posted on November 13, 2016

Though the recent protests in the US would have you think that the biggest crisis facing the United States is Donald Trump’s surprise win, Native Americans have gathered in historic numbers to defend native territory from the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline, if completed, will span 1,170 miles at a cost of approximately $3.7 billion. The company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, has pushed on with the project, despite covering up its dangers and circumventing the law.

Now, as the pipeline enters its final phase of construction in North Dakota, where most of the resistance to the pipeline is located, Energy Transfer Partners and its hired contractors have escalated tensions with protestors to protect the project as it enters its final phase. The State of North Dakota has also taken to protecting the pipeline. State police have been using rubber bullets, attack dogs, and tear gas on the protestors while North Dakota’s state attorneys have been working to intimidate journalists for covering and filming the protests. In one notable example, a filmmaker now faces up to 45 years in prison for only filming the protestors.

SNIP