Since late 2005, the federal government, through a number of agencies, has been engaged in a crackdown on environmental activists who engage in direct action.  This crackdown has come to be known as the 'Green Scare', as a throwback to the 'Red Scare' of the 1950s and 60s, in which thousands of innocent people were accused by the Federal government of being communists, and persecuted for their alleged political beliefs.