SLAPP’d: An Indigenous Nation Fights for Its Water

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[archival video - protestors chanting “Water is life!]

A small crowd of people gathered on the side of North Dakota Highway 1806, just north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. A line of Highway Patrol officers were standing between them and a construction site. Cody Hall, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was in the crowd.

 Those bulldozers were up and, and running. And we saw them moving the earth.

If those bulldozers were allowed to continue, a massive drill would soon bore a hole underneath the Missouri River. To make way for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

 The tension was so thick, that, that something was going to happen physically. And I remember thinking, I was like, Oh gosh, people are really at their boiling point.

I'm sitting there, you know, kind of pacing back and forth,,

I happened to look over to my right and I saw the women and they were singing their death song. And in our culture, when you sing your death song, that means you are obviously not afraid to die.

  um, and then all of a sudden a group of women went and jumped the fence, the barbed wire fence.

Nobody had planned this. The fence marked the edge of the area where police were allowing protest. Beyond it lay the construction site and open grasslands.

I was like, hey, hey, you know, stop. You know, I was like, just, we don't know what's going to happen and they might shoot you, right?

And I remember one of the ladies said she didn't care. She said that she doesn't fear a bullet. She doesn't fear death.

And when I saw her take off, and I, I remember looking back at friends, and I was just like, and people were like, whoa, you know, stop, stop. Hey, come back, come back. And then I said, forget this. I said, every, every man available.

Jump the fence and let's stand behind him, let's go help the, you know, these women defend, defend our lives.

They ran onto the construction site, halting the work.

 We do this to stop the desecration. We do this for the next seven generations. We do this for the unborn children that are [coming to this. You we're protecting the water.

 The momentum was there, the people's energy. It was something I had never felt before in a big group.

 We stand for our land and our water. We'll not let it get desecrated. They're not allowed to make no pipelines on this land!

 We, we had that feeling that we were going to defeat this, this energy company.

You probably already know. The Dakota Access Pipeline was eventually built. But before it was, tens of thousands of people arrived on the prairie just outside the Standing Rock Reservation and attempted to stop it. Standing Rock became the largest Indigenous uprising in the U.S. in the last half century, and it was happening in opposition to an oil pipeline company.

Maybe that’s why the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer, did what it did next. In 2017, After the oil was flowing. After police forced the huge encampments of pipeline opponents and water protectors to go home. Energy Transfer filed a lawsuit. A really big one.

The company claimed that the whole Standing Rock movement, the massive effort to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016, was actually a 

 driven by Greenpeace – the save the whales guys. According to the pipeline company, it wasn’t the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe or other Indigenous people who led the movement, -- despite what numerous media reports, eyewitnesses, and public officials will tell you. It was a giant environmental nonprofit conspiring to take down the fossil fuel industry.

I’m an environmental reporter focused on the criminalization of environmental defenders. I’ve been covering Standing Rock since the early days of the movement. And Energy Transfer’s allegations against 

 defied both what I’d seen with my own eyes at the protests, and what I had learned over years of reporting on the Standing Rock movement.

The story the lawsuit told was soo different from what I’d heard from Cody and others. Source after source had told me Indigenous people and nations made their own decisions to stand up against a company that threatened their water and their rights to land.

Regardless of how ridiculous this lawsuit seemed, in 2025 it made it to trial.

And in March, I found myself sitting in a courtroom in Mandan, North Dakota, listening to a court clerk reveal the verdict. After a three and a half week trial, The jury decided overwhelmingly in favor of the pipeline company’s story. The total damages: over $666 million.  A number that threatened to bankrupt Greenpeace in the U.S.

I’d spent nearly a decade reporting on what had happened with the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock movement. I sat through the lawsuit’s nearly month-long trial, in that same room with those nine jurors. The evidence I had heard was thin. And yet the jury delivered almost precisely what Energy Transfer’s lawyers asked for.

And if an oil company could  push its version of events so successfully here, then what did that mean beyond this courthouse?

This season of Drilled we bring you SLAPP’d. The story of an Indigenous nation fighting for its water, an environmental nonprofit facing extinction, and an energy giant using the courts to punish protestors. I'm Alleen Brown.

 case, we have to start at the beginning, with Cody Hall, who you heard from earlier. He was actually at the center of Energy Transfer's lawsuit -- until he wasn't.

  I’m from the Cheyenne River Indian reservation in South Dakota

The Cheyenne River reservation where Cody lived is immediately south of Standing Rock. Both reservations are home to the Oceti Sakowin people, also known as the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota. The people who live there aren't just neighbors; they're relatives.

Cody helped start the Native Lives Matter movement there. So it was natural that he would be asked to join the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.

I was approached by some elder groups, uh, or an elder group in Eagle Butte there on my home reservation that said there are people gathering, uh, in Standing Rock. Um, can you go up, you know, and just get an assessment of what's going on, Cody?

Cody arrived at a protest encampment on the Standing Rock reservation in early August of 2016.

I went up there with just a backpack of, I think, three days of clothes. You know, um, and then ended up being there months.

Energy Transfer had originally considered putting the Dakota Access Pipeline upstream of the city of Bismarck, which is mostly white. But the federal Army Corps of Engineers rejected that route in part because it could have harmed the city’s drinking water supply. The new, approved route crossed the river just north of the 

and its drinking water intake. To Cody and others this was a case of environmental racism.

People had begun to travel from all around the country to defend the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s drinking water, sacred sites, and land rights. They called themselves water protectors.Facebook Live had launched that spring, and many pipeline opponents were using it.

Buzzfeed clip: You can see there are people walking around all around camp in little pockets, and this is the main camp, there are still other camps like sacred stone, which is up there, and eagles nest and the new cheyenne river camp which is down that way… 

in late summer people began to set up additional tents and teepees on federal land near the pipeline crossing. This new encampment, called the Oceti Sakowin camp, was on land officially possessed by the Army Corps of Engineers -- but that people from Standing Rock still considered theirs.

 it, it, it felt home. it took your spirit back, uh, to a, a much loving time period, uh, of our people. And I thought, you know what? Yeah, there's nothing wrong with taking back land, right?

 The camp was established on unceded territory, an official designation that means that Oceti Sakowin people never agreed to give it up. The area where Energy Transfer was building was also unceded territory.

For the water protectors the pipeline fight was a matter of Indigenous sovereignty. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is a nation. And they argued the Army Corps shouldn't allow the pipeline to pass under the river or over culturally significant areas, without substantial government to government consultation.

Soon after Cody arrived, he was approached by Deb White Plume, a member of the Ogalala Sioux Tribe.

I knew of Deb and, um, knew what she was doing, um, long before any pipeline, uh, came about, uh, in our territories.

Deb died in 2021. But she lived a life dedicated to defending Lakota people. In the 1970s she joined the American Indian Movement. And Deb led a resistance group that protested against the Keystone XL pipeline, which was set to be built through her nation's territory in South Dakota. Now she was bringing a version of that group to Standing Rock. They were called Red Warrior Camp.

I remember she asked me, she said, Cody, you speak so eloquent, right? And she said, I would like for you to be a spokesperson for my resistance camp.

she talked about how people chain themselves, uh, to block the, proceedings of whatever it may be, you know, and I thought, okay, um, especially it being non, non violent. I say, wow, that's kind of what I've been speaking about.

After giving it a couple days thought, Cody agreed to be spokesperson for Red Warrior Camp.

Around the campfire, with the other members of the group, he laid out some ground rules.

I said, I don't want to know what you're doing, what you're planning. if you tell me what you were doing, and I get picked up, let's say, you know, um, and they question me then you start breaking down the chain of resistance.

He also told them he was only interested in supporting 

Hi my name is Cody Hall, spokesperson for red warrior camp. today...

Cody's job was to film short videos and livestreams that he posted to Red Warrior Camp's Facebook page. Some were filmed from within construction sites where people were locked down to machinery. He wasn’t planning the actions, but he became the public face of Red Warrior.

as you can see behind me, one of our warriors put himself on the machinery to stop today’s construction, they are very near…

The fight against the pipeline seemed to be taking off, but really it was only getting started.

Energy Transfer didn't have an easement from the Army Corps yet, which would allow them to drill under the river. But there was nothing stopping the pipeline company from building on private land. Standing Rock had filed a lawsuit in July to stop that construction. But while they waited for a judge to rule, Energy Transfer kept on bulldozing.

Democracy Now!: In north dakota, security guards working for the dakota access pipeline company attacked native american with dogs and pepper spray ans they resisted the 3.8 billion dollar pipeline’s construction. Water Protector: Criminals, you guys are criminals, go get your money somewhere else. Yeah you Amy Goodman: Protesters advanced as far as a small wooden bridge, security unleashes one of the dogs which attacks 2 of the native american’s horses. Security has some kind of gas, people are being pepper sprayed. Water Protectors: We’re not leaving, we’re not leaving

On Labor Day weekend, water protectors spotted bulldozers working right where the Standing Rock Sioux tribe had just identified sacred sites, only the day before. Several people rushed onto the construction site to attempt to stop them.

Democracy Now! captured security dogs attacking the pipeline opponents. And the movement went viral.

 it opened the floodgates, um, and when those gates were opened, craziness ensued,

People from around the world poured into the pipeline resistance camps, from members of Indigenous nations who saw this fight as their own, to everyday people moved by water protectors' social media feeds, to longtime environmental activists who felt a responsibility to show solidarity. Churches, community groups, and individuals donated supplies to keep the camps afloat. A school opened for families with children. Several kitchens served meals throughout the day. By now, nonprofits had joined the fight, too, like 

, Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth, Bold Alliance, and yes, Greenpeace.

It was a powerful moment. But when protests get the sort of international media attention Standing Rock got, it doesn't just attract the people who are committed to the cause.

Also arriving were crystal chasers, cult members, grifters, and even professional infiltrators looking to get information about the resistance to share with the pipeline company or police. Things started to spin beyond anyone’s control. Tens of thousands of people traveled in and out of the prairie encampments with their egos and their agendas, which sometimes aligned with those of the tribe, and sometimes sat directly in opposition.

Millions of dollars also began pouring into hundreds of Go-Fund-Me pages. Sometimes the projects people promised were built, and sometimes they weren't.

At the same time, the governor of North Dakota called in the National Guard, which joined law enforcement officers from around the [00:24:00] country, to try and disperse the protests. They brought military-grade armored vehicles, surveillance drones, and surface-to-air missiles.

had hired a mercenary security firm fresh from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As far as the water protectors were concerned, the line between police and private security was a blur.

Overhead, helicopters and little cessna planes flown by police and private security buzzed at all hours.

In between the steady beat of protests, a feeling had seeped in that Cody was being targeted.

Then, as he was driving to drop someone off at the airport, a law enforcement officer waved Cody to the side of the road. He was under arrest for trespassing.

 so when I turn around and the patrolman is, is handcuffing me, first thing I did was count how many. They were 18. I saw that physically they were You know, like I said, head to toe and all this SWAT gear. They had helmets on, goggles, um, Face masks, um, body armor, And then they had their AR 15s pointed at me.

they put me in the backseat and I met with cheers, right? Um, as I'm getting in and those law enforcement, those guys dressed in SWAT gear were, you know, were yelling out, We got you, you motherfucker over and over again Ha, And I'm like, what the hell? I said, Whoa, guys, I was like, I was like, I said, man, you guys take it, take it too far.

At the station, Cody says he was stripped naked and searched. Two FBI agents attempted to interview him, but he refused to tell them anything. At night, cold air was blasted into his cell, and every couple hours, an officer would enter and tower over him.

Ultimately he was bailed out. As he left, a young officer told him the FBI had been watching him on cameras the whole time.

I asked Jacob O'Connell, the FBI’s supervisor at the time for the western half of North Dakota , if he remembered this. He said he didn't and that it wasn't something the FBI would have done. The Morton County Sheriff’s office declined an interview request and didn’t respond to a list of questions.

When Cody returned to camp, he says the feeling of being watched was more intense than ever.

 But also felt like, um, that I might be being used as a scapegoat.

Soon after his release, Cody attended a rally at the Morton County courthouse to support other water protectors who had been arrested. He noticed something that seemed off.

 This individual kept, um, tailing me and I thought, well, let me, just let me walk around, right?

And, uh, see if this person is still going to follow me. And sure enough, this, this individual was. So I thought, ah, crap.

 A group of people came up and said, Hey, Cody, um, you got to ride back to camp. And I said, uh, no, I don't.

When Cody realized who the driver was, he hesitated. It was that same guy who seemed to be following him around. But his friends reassured him that the guy was vetted and had been staying at the camp.

I just remember there's like 13 of us that packed into this van

When he asked me to sit with him up, up front tonight, I thought, oh, shit. Okay, one, I need to ride back to camp. Um, I'm just going to use this ride. But then two, my alert's already going off. Cause I was like, why is he asking me to sit up front? Hmm.

I open the door up, and he said, Hey, hold on one second, Cody. Can I have a word with you? And I thought, oh shit. And I Got back inside. Didn't close the door all the way. I remember I still had it latched open. Right? And I was looking at him and I said, said, what do you And then he started to reach on his left Pocket of his jacket inside.

Like, I don't know what you're reaching for, but I said, this is the wrong idea to do at this camp, but I said, I don't, I said, I'll fuck you up. I literally will fuck you up before anything happens. And then he kind of, he showed an envelope. didn't open it, he just pulled his envelope out. And he said, I got money for you. And I said, what, what do you mean?  He said, we at Greenpeace pile up all this money. And because we watched one of your videos looking for support.

So we gathered up supplies and we have monetary donations here. So I want to give it to you.

I asked Greenpeace about this, they said they are so careful about money that this isn’t something they would have done. Cody said the man offered him over $200,000.

And I said, no, no, I don't. I said, I'm not, I'm not taking anything, man. Okay. And, I remember my instinct said get the hell out of there, get out of this guy's vehicle.

I walked away, walking backwards, looking at this guy. He drove away, and I just remember telling security, Hey, watch that individual. It's some sketchy.

Cody didn't mention the details of what happened to anyone. It was another bizarre incident, amongst the mountain of them piling up every passing week. But the envelope man incident would come to take on greater meaning later.

By the end of October 2016, Cody was clashing with members of Red Warrior Camp.

 people were being shot with rubber bullets, //so called nonviolent in the law enforcement area, right, um, in their point of view.

Transcription

Greenpeace, which was only tangentially involved in the Standing Rock protests, has been slapped with a $666 million bill for damages...despite the fact that the Dakota Access Pipeline was built, and has been making Energy Transfer millions of dollars for years. How did we get here? Cody Hall, an Indigenous activist who was a key figure during the Standing Rock protests and was initially also targeted in Energy Transfer's suit, walks us through how things went down back in 2016 and 2017, and where this suit began.

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