 The bill was passed in response to the then-ongoing prosecution of members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), an activist group that worked to close animal testing laboratories.Six members of the group were charged and put on trial for a "multi-faceted" and decentralized grassroots activist campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences.While there was no proof that the actual defendants committed or had any knowledge of the overwhelming majority of the illegal acts at issue, they were convicted under the AETA’s conspiracy provisions.