[Senate Hearing 106-803]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-803
HATE CRIME ON THE INTERNET
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
RAMIFICATIONS OF INTERNET TECHNOLOGY ON TODAY'S CHILDREN, FOCUSING ON
THE PREVALENCE OF INTERNET HATE, AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON HOW TO SHIELD
CHILDREN FROM THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF VIOLENT MEDIA
__________
SEPTEMBER 14, 1999
__________
Serial No. J-106-48
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
67-653 WASHINGTON : 2001
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
JON KYL, Arizona HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
BOB SMITH, New Hampshire
Manus Cooney, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Bruce A. Cohen, Minority Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., U.S. Senator from the State of Utah........ 1
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont... 3
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 11
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
Panel consisting of Michael J. Gennaco, Assistant U.S. Attorney,
and Chief, Civil Rights Section, Central District of
California, Los Angeles, CA; Abraham Cooper, associate dean,
Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, CA; Wade Henderson,
executive director, Leadership Conference On Civil Rights,
Washington, DC; Howard Berkowitz, national chair, Anti-
Defamation League, Washington, DC; and Joseph T. Roy, Sr.,
director, Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center,
Montgomery, AL................................................. 6
ALPHABETICAL LIST AND MATERIALS SUBMITTED
Berkowitz, Howard:
Testimony.................................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 26
Cooper, Abraham:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Gennaco, Michael J.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Henderson, Wade:
Testimony.................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Roy, Joseph T., Sr.:
Testimony.................................................... 50
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Editorial, Intelligence Report, No. 94, Spring 1999...... 56
Internet Hate Site List, Intelligence Report, No. 93,
Winter 1999............................................ 57
Story on Hate Sites and Related Litigation, Intelligence
Report, No. 93, Winter 1999............................ 60
Story on Hate Sites, Intelligence Report, No. 89, Winter
1998................................................... 62
APPENDIX
Questions and Answers
Responses of Michael Gennaco to Questions from Senator Leahy..... 71
Responses of Howard Berkowitz to Questions from Senator Leahy.... 71
Additional Submission for the Record
Prepared statement of Karen Narasaki, on behalf of the National
Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium........................ 73
HATE CRIME ON THE INTERNET
----------
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1999
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:18 a.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Orrin G.
Hatch (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Also present: Senators Grassley, and Leahy.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ORRIN G. HATCH, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF UTAH
The Chairman. I am sorry I am a little bit late. We will
start this hearing. Good morning. We are happy to welcome all
of you to today's hearing on Hate Crime on the Internet. We are
pleased to have today five impressive witnesses, whom I shall
introduce in short order.
The Internet is a technology that heralds a breadth of
understanding and education never before imagined. It holds a
promise for disseminating knowledge and breaking down barriers
to learning and understanding that is unrivaled, and I have
accordingly been a staunch advocate and proponent of efforts to
keep the Internet unregulated and competitive.
However, today's hearing will focus on ramifications of
Internet technology that can only be described as troubling.
Unfortunately, for many parents, one of the timeless truths of
good parenting, to teach children not to speak with strangers,
has passed from the realm of the possible into a relic of a
bygone day.
We live in a time, according to a recent poll, when a full
60 percent of parents disagree with the proposition that the
Internet is a safe place for kids. And no wonder. In a
technology seldom understood as well by parents as by their
children, the universal information-sharing neighborhood
established by the Internet has come to shelter a league of
misfits intent on marketing their brand of hate to America's
future.
The knowledge of our children's lives, without which we
cannot hope to fulfill our responsibilities as parents, seems
increasingly out of our grasp, and the imagination and
introspection that are so essential to a child's development
are threatened by a technology where the power for advancement
of knowledge exists alongside the possibility of contamination
through hate.
The strangers we warned our children not to speak to are, I
fear, the very ones using the anonymity promised in cyberspace
to prowl for children, to whom they could never hope to endear
themselves on a street corner. This a serious situation indeed.
The facts set out in newspaper accounts and reports by
interested parties are simply staggering. One of our witnesses
today hails from an organization, the Southern Poverty Law
Center, which individually tracked sites for 254 hate groups in
January of this year, up 50 percent from one year ago. Another
group represented here, the Anti-Defamation League, estimated
the presence of some 500 to 600 hate groups on the Web as of
this June.
But numbers hardly tell the story; the Web sites themselves
do. They are not simply crude Web sites with blatantly racist
or anti-Semitic messages. These groups are involved in a
concerted effort to recruit college-bound middle- and upper
middle-class kids, kids who are educated, energetic and
articulate; in other words, precisely the type of kid you would
not expect to see marching in a neo-Nazi parade.
And those wolves come in sheep's clothing. To fulfill their
recruitment objectives, these hate groups can be remarkably
sophisticated, carefully avoiding obvious and explicit appeals
to racism and anti-Semitism. These sites, of course, are
matters of great concern to me. To the extent that these groups
claim to disavow violence, the facts speak for themselves.
The World Church of the Creator appears to have played a
pivotal role in the life of Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, the 21-
year-old whose cowardly evil we recall from his July 4 shooting
of African Americans, Jewish people, and Asians. In addition,
literature from this group was found near synagogues burned
this June in Sacramento, CA.
We must be vigilant and prompt in our efforts to begin
eliminating hate on the Internet, but we must also do so with
exactitude. From this complicated maze of issues, there is
simply no simple answer, and with the First Amendment as our
country's first premise, we know that any solutions that we
endorse must recognize that the surest way to defeat the
message of hate is to hold it under the harsh light of public
scrutiny.
Throughout the course of this hearing and afterwards, I
will be interested to hear from the witnesses their view of the
adequacy of the current state of the law, and I will ask the
witnesses whether more might be done by Congress, consistent
with the First Amendment, to better enable the elimination of
certain types of hate on the Internet, such as non-protected
speech that clearly advocates an imminent act of violence.
But I have some preliminary thoughts on other efforts that
Congress might explore and I will be eager for the witnesses'
views on these other efforts. I have already sought to exercise
leadership in this area in various ways, through the
introduction of legislation that aims to make filtering
technology more readily accessible and that aims to criminalize
the use of the Internet to teach bomb-making. Such a proposal
would include provisions to help Internet service providers
identify those sites that illegally incite violence through
hate speech.
Now, it is my hope that ISP's, Internet service providers,
will then put some procedures in place and take down a site so
designated. To encourage the ISP's in implementing such a
procedure, we might grant them certain immunities from any
liabilities that they might otherwise face.
I am also contemplating a measure to make it a crime to
knowingly or intentionally advocate on the Internet the
commission of a crime of physical violence against a person or
the property of any individual or group or class of
individuals. Maybe with this legislation, we will be able to
deter heinous incitements to violence not yet committed on the
Internet.
Now, I look forward to hearing from each of our witnesses
here today and receiving your thoughts on some of these
proposals.
Finally, prior to closing, I would like to announce that
today I am reissuing an updated timely and valuable report
prepared by the majority staff of the Committee on the
Judiciary. The updated report includes information about the
prevalence of Internet hate, as well as recommendations about
shielding children from the negative impact of violent media.
I hope that this report, entitled ``Children, Violence, and
the Media--A Report for Parents and Policy Makers,'' will
further the discussion about the flood of media violence in
this country, including on the Internet, and what can be done
about it. After all, the problem of youth violence is a complex
problem which demands a comprehensive solution, one which deals
with the need to empower parents to make sure our schools are
safer, and to improve enforcement, deterrence and prevention.
I am very pleased to welcome all of you here today. I would
like to turn to our Democrat leader on the committee, Senator
Leahy, at this time.
STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF VERMONT
Senator Leahy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and as a long-time
member of this committee I will be anxious to read the report
that you and the committee staff have put together. Should you
want any advice or help from this side, feel free to ask.
Today's hearing is a very important one and focuses on the
serious problem of hate crimes, and on the growth of the use of
the Internet to promote the agenda of hate. These are issues
that concern every one of us.
I think of the incidents of recent violent crimes that are
motivated by hate and bigotry and how they have seared the
conscience of this country. Last month, a gunman burst into a
Jewish community center in Los Angeles and sprayed the building
with 70 bullets. I think what strikes me as a parent and a
grandparent so much is the view that we all saw, actually
worldwide saw, with police officers leading the little children
hand by hand, leading them to safety.
Every one of us who have had children in school at that age
or on a playground know how children are going to cross the
street. All the children hold hands, and it is usually a couple
of adults, teachers, doing it. Here, it is police officers in
flack jackets, carrying automatic weapons, probably thinking of
children of their own, leading these children to safety. It is
a searing, terrible, terrible sight to see in our country. When
the man surrendered who had done the shooting, he said his
rampage had been motivated by his hatred of Jews.
We can replicate this with all the other hate crimes based
on religion or color of one's skin or ethnic background. A
murderous string of drive-by shootings in Illinois and Indiana
a month before left two people dead and nine wounded--again,
racial and religious hatred. These are sensational crimes, the
ones that focus public attention. But there is also a toll we
are paying each year in other hate crimes that find less
notoriety, but with no less suffering for the victims and their
families.
I think it is clear that we as a Nation still have serious
work to do in protecting all Americans from these crimes and in
ensuring equal rights for all our citizens. The answer to hate
and bigotry has to ultimately be found in increased respect and
tolerance for all our citizens, but strengthening our Federal
hate crimes legislation is a step in the right direction.
I commend Senator Kennedy for his leadership in this
effort. I am proud to have been an original cosponsor of the
Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This legislation amends the Federal
hate crimes statute to make it easier for Federal law
enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute cases of
racial and religious violence. It focuses the attention and
resources of the Federal Government on the problem of hate
crimes committed against people because of their sexual
preference or their gender or their disability.
We passed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in the Senate this
year as part of the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill.
I know Chairman Hatch has some concerns with the scope of the
legislation. I also know the chairman is one who is totally
opposed to bigotry, and I would hope that he and I and Senator
Kennedy and others can work together to address the concerns
that he has.
I believe the bill in its current form would operate as
intended. It would strengthen Federal jurisdiction over hate
crimes as a backup, but not a substitute, for State and local
law enforcement. The bill has received strong bipartisan
support from State and local law enforcement organizations
across the country, and we should pass this powerful law
enforcement aid.
The Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a tool for combatting
acts of violence and threats of violence motivated by hatred
and bigotry. It does not target pure speech, however offensive
or disagreeable. The Constitution does not allow that. As
Justice Holmes wrote, the Constitution protects not just
freedom for the thought and expression we agree with, but
freedom for the thought we deplore.
There is another concrete action we could take in the
Senate right now to help in the fight against hate crimes. We
should face up to our responsibility to vote on the nomination
of Bill Lann Lee to head the Civil Rights Division. Along with
the Deputy Attorney General, Bill Lann Lee has been at the
forefront of Federal efforts against hate crimes. He has done
an outstanding job in this regard, but the Senate has refused
to vote on his confirmation for 2 years.
I think it is past time for this committee to do the right
thing, the honorable thing, and report this qualified nominee
to the Senate and let the Senate vote up or down on him. If
Senators want to vote against him, fine. But any Senator who
looks objectively at his record, I believe, Republican or
Democrat, would vote for him. Then the Senate could fulfill its
constitutional duty under the Advice and Consent Clause,
because his is a critical position in the fight against hate
crimes. If we want to oppose hate crimes, we ought to confirm
Bill Lann Lee so he could have the full authority of a
confirmed Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, rather
than continue to treat him as if he were a second-class citizen
and as if the efforts he is leading against hate crimes were
unimportant. They are important.
We ought to vote on this good man. We need his problem-
solving abilities in these difficult times. He is spearheading
Federal efforts against hate crimes, against modern slavery and
for equal justice for all Americans. If confirmed, he would be
the first Asian Pacific American to be appointed to head the
Civil Rights Division in its storied history, and the highest-
ranking Federal executive officer of Asian Pacific American
heritage in our 200-year history. I think it would be a very
important step that we could take in our efforts against hate
crimes.
In closing, let me say that it has been said that the
content of the Internet is as diverse as human thought. I am a
strong supporter of the Internet and have been since its
inception. Its diversity is its greatest strength, but it comes
at a cost. We will hear testimony today about how the Internet
has been poisoned by extremists and bigots who use it to spread
hate propaganda and reinforce each other's hateful convictions,
almost as a net to pull in some of this Nation's losers who can
validate themselves only by hating others.
But we will also hear about how the Internet has been used
to track down hate groups, and software that helps parents
shield their children from this venom. As we take stock of the
poison that is making its way to this new medium, we must not
mistake the Internet itself with the actual source of the
hateful content of these Web pages. When it comes to hate on
the Internet, the problem is the message, not the medium. We
have to examine what can be done about hate on the Internet
within the constraints imposed by the First Amendment.
So, Mr. Chairman, I think you have a very important hearing
and I am delighted to join with you in this hearing.
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much, Senator Leahy, for
your good remarks.
I am very pleased to welcome the five members of our panel.
First, we will hear from Mr. Michael Gennaco, who is an
Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California,
and who coordinates that office's hate crimes investigation and
prosecution.
We are very proud of you, Mr. Gennaco. You have been
responsible for securing the first conviction ever against a
hate crime assailant for acts taken on the Internet. I believe
you may have two of those to your credit, and I think it is
time that that happened.
Second will be Rabbi Abraham Cooper, somebody I greatly
admire, who is the Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center. He has been a longtime activist for Jewish and human
rights causes on five continents. And with his efforts, the
Center has produced a CD-ROM interactive report that
illuminates the extent of hate on the Internet. So we are very
grateful to have you here, sir.
Third, we will hear from a friend of mine, Wade Henderson,
who is the Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights. The Leadership Conference is the Nation's oldest
and largest coalition of organizations committed to civil
rights work and has over 180 component organizations.
Did I get that right, Wade?
Mr. Henderson. You did indeed.
The Chairman. Fourth will be Howard Berkowitz, who is the
National Chair of the Anti-Defamation League, a man I greatly
respect. Mr. Berkowitz has been a central figure in advancing
the League's efforts to fight anti-Semitism, racism and
prejudice. And his organization is credited with being the
first non-profit group to develop a hate crime filter for
Internet users. So we are very anxious to hear your testimony
as well.
Last but not least, we will hear from Joseph Roy, who is
the Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence
Project. In that capacity, Mr. Roy gathers intelligence on
extremist activities nationwide, assists law enforcement, and
helps educate community groups on the threat of domestic
terrorism. I have tremendous respect for you and your
organization.
We have, I think, in this panel as good a panel to discuss
these issues as I have ever seen. Now, we are expecting a vote
any minute, but I think we will begin anyway. And if we do have
to interrupt, I hope you will understand it is just the nature
of this beast called the U.S. Senate.
So we will start with you, Mr. Gennaco, first and we will
go right across the table.
PANEL CONSISTING OF MICHAEL J. GENNACO, ASSISTANT U.S.
ATTORNEY, AND CHIEF, CIVIL RIGHTS SECTION, CENTRAL DISTRICT OF
CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, CA; ABRAHAM COOPER, ASSOCIATE DEAN,
SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER, LOS ANGELES, CA; WADE HENDERSON,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS,
WASHINGTON, DC; HOWARD BERKOWITZ, NATIONAL CHAIR, ANTI-
DEFAMATION LEAGUE, WASHINGTON, DC; AND JOSEPH T. ROY, SR.,
DIRECTOR, INTELLIGENCE PROJECT, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER,
MONTGOMERY, AL
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. GENNACO
Mr. Gennaco. Thank you. In September 1996, 62 Asian
American students at the University of California at Irvine
began preparing for another academic year. Almost 3 years ago
to the day, this occurred. It was orientation week, a time of
renewal, a return to campus, a welcoming for both new and
returning students. But the unfortunate greeting that 62 Asian
American students received arrived over the Internet to their
e-mail accounts from a person who called himself ``Asian
Hater.''
``Asian Hater'' e-mailed all 62 students, stating that he
hated Asians, that he blamed them for all of the ills on
campus, and for keeping the reputation of UC-Irvine down. In
the e-mail, ``Asian Hater'' demeaned and derogated Asian
Americans, and told each of the victims that if they did not
leave campus that he would make it his personal career to hunt
down and kill each of them.
After the students received the electronic message, a cloud
of terror hung over the UCI campus for weeks. Some of the
victims left school for home. Others considered transferring to
other schools. Others changed their academic schedules so that
they would not be on campus alone at night. Still others
started carrying mace and changed their commuting habits.
Victims talked about how the threat sent a chill up their
spines, how it caused them to feel unsafe on campus and how
they were constantly looking over their shoulder. They wondered
who ``Asian Hater'' was and whether he would actually come
after them. Fear was cast over the campus by that singular
threat of hate, not only for the 62 students who were the
direct recipients of the threat, but also for the entire Asian
community on campus and the campus as a whole.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I
am Michael Gennaco, a Federal prosecutor for the U.S.
Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. It
was my privilege to represent the United States in the
prosecution against ``Asian Hater,'' the first prosecution ever
under the Federal hate crimes statute involving threats
transmitted over the Internet.
Through that experience, I learned how the Internet can be
used efficiently and effectively to spread racially motivated
terror to scores of unsuspecting individuals. I soon learned
that the UC-Irvine hate crime was only a precursor of other
Internet hate crimes. For example, on the morning of March 5,
1998, 42 Latino faculty members turned on their computers at
Cal State-Los Angeles to read their e-mails. They read a mean-
spirited, derogatory threat against Latinos.
Using the most demeaning racial slurs, the sender told the
faculty members that he hated their race, that he wanted them
to die, that the only reason that the professors were hired was
because of affirmative action, that their race was stupid,
greedy and ugly, and that the sender was going to personally
come down and kill each of them. As with the UC-Irvine case,
many of the Latino faculty members were terrified by the
message of hate, wondering who could hate them that much, a
former unbalanced student perhaps? The professors talked about
how the message left them fearful about being alone on campus
and caused them to be continually looking over their shoulders
in anxiety.
As the Federal investigation continued, the investigative
team learned that the 42 Latino professors were not the only
victims targeted by this messenger of hate. The sender had
searched the Internet for other victims and sent similar death
threats to 25 Latino students at MIT and to Latino employees at
NASA, Xerox, Indiana University, the Texas Hispanic Journal,
and the IRS. Similar concerns of anxiety and fear were
communicated to the FBI from the victims at those institutions
as well.
As a result of the Federal investigations, my investigative
team was able to successfully prosecute the senders of
threatening e-mail in both the UC-Irvine and the Cal State-Los
Angeles cases. However, the climate of fear and foreboding
caused by these electronic threats transmitted over the
Internet vividly illustrates the need for increased vigilance
by all in order to successfully combat this new method of
violating the civil rights of Americans.
Despite some views to the contrary, there is nothing unique
about the Internet that insulates the sender of such hate
threats from the criminal laws of our country. A sender simply
cannot target a group of individuals because of their race,
national origin, or religious beliefs and send them threats via
the Internet.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that threats of
violence are not protected by the First Amendment. In accord
with that jurisprudence, similar threats of violence are not
protected by the First Amendment simply because they are
transmitted in cyberspace.
Because the Internet presents an effective and efficient
way for persons to communicate to numerous individuals, the
ability of individuals and hate groups to terrorize victims has
multiplied exponentially. A person or hate group who wants to
target and threaten scores of individuals can do so simply
sitting at a computer terminal for a few minutes.
Unlike the traditional means of sending threatening
communications via the telephone or through the U.S. mail, the
Internet offers a medium of communication where a skilled user
can spew out hate-laced threats to countless victims throughout
the country with little effort. Moreover, hate mongers can
create threats at their terminal and send out those threats
while hiding behind computer screens. In short, the Internet
has created a whole new class of criminals. Persons who do not
have the fortitude to threaten persons face-to-face or even
over the telephone can hide behind the anonymity of cyberspace
and send out their hate-laced threats.
In addition, I have learned through my prosecution of
Internet hate crimes that certain inherent characteristics of
e-mail make hate threats communicated over the Internet
particularly frightening to targeted victims. Unlike
traditional mail, electronic mail is transmitted
instantaneously. The receiver thus knows that the sender is
thinking the communicated message of harm at the same time the
transmission is received.
Moreover, unlike communications over the telephone, the
electronic message is not accompanied by non-verbal
inflections, tones of voice, or any other auditory cues. The
message simply blips on to the victim's screen. As a result,
the victim cannot gauge, except from the message itself, the
degree to which the sender is intent on carrying out the
threat, whether the sender has the capacity to implement the
threat, or any other information about the person who sends the
hate transmission. This knowledge vacuum makes any threat
received over the Internet particularly disturbing to the
victim.
Finally, because an electronically transmitted message
arrives directly on the victim's computer screen, usually with
a ring or other audio cue, the message is much more invasive
than traditional mail. Regular mail is delivered in a mailbox.
Electronic mail flashes on to a computer screen at the victim's
work station, her home, her bedroom, her children's room,
wherever the victim's terminal happens to be.
There is thus no question that this new mode of
transmitting thoughts, knowledge and ideas, while having great
potential and tremendous advantages over traditional methods of
communication, also presents a new and serious challenge to law
enforcement authorities with regard to those that would abuse
the technology.
The inherent nature of Internet hate crimes investigations
and prosecutions also demands that Federal investigators and
prosecutors assume an active role in bringing hate criminals to
justice for several reasons. First, oftentimes, as with the Cal
State-Los Angeles case, the sender transmits hate mail across
State lines to victims throughout the country.
Second, investigators must have expertise in computer
crimes and sufficient resources in order to track the sender of
the electronic transmissions and recapture any similar message
sent from the sender's computer. The FBI, for example, has the
expertise in its computer crimes units.
Finally, as with both the UC-Irvine and the Cal State
cases, in order to obtain locator information about the sender
and potential victims, one must have the capability to subpoena
Internet service providers. Quite often, those providers reside
outside the State in which the transmission originated.
Accordingly, the Federal Government must play a role in
investigating and prosecuting cyberspace hate crimes.
Of course, because much of the electronically transmitted
hate, while despicable, may be protected by the First
Amendment, criminal prosecution cannot always provide the
answer. For that reason, it is essential that other methods to
combat the spread of hate on the Internet be devised and
implemented, whether through education or new technologies such
as filtering devices.
Internet service providers, civil rights organizations,
Federal and local investigative and prosecutive authorities,
and State and Federal legislators must all play a role in
countering the hate mongers on the Internet. It is only by
working together that we can successfully combat those who
would use the Internet to spread their message of hate and
fear, and in order to ensure a cyberspace consistent with a
world view of racial and religious tolerance.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gennaco follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. GENNACO
HATE ON THE INTERNET
In September 1996, 62 Asian American students at the University of
California at Irvine began preparing for another academic year. It was
orientation week, a time of renewal, a return to campus, a welcoming
for both new and returning students * * * but the unfortunate greeting
that 62 Asian American students received arrived over the Internet to
their e-mail accounts, from a person who called himself ``Asian
Hater''. ``Asian Hater'' e-mailed all 62 students stating that he hated
Asians, that he blamed them for all of the ills on campus, and for
keeping the reputation of UC-Irvine down. In the e-mail, ``Asian
Hater'' demeaned and derogated Asian Americans and told each of the
victims that if they did not leave campus that he would make it his
personal career to hunt down and kill each of them.
After the students received the electronic message, a cloud of
terror hung over the UCI campus for weeks. Some of the victims left
school for home, others considered transferring to other schools,
others changed their academic schedules so that they would not be on
campus alone at night, still others started carrying mace and changed
their commuting habits. Victims talked about how the threat sent a
chill up their spines, how it caused them to feel unsafe on campus, and
how they were constantly looking over their shoulder. They wondered who
``Asian Hater'' was and whether he would actually come after them. Fear
was cast over the campus by that singular threat of hate, not only for
the 62 students who were the direct recipients of the threat, but also
for the entire Asian community on campus and the campus as a whole.
Good morning members of the committee. I am Michael Gennaco, a
Federal prosecutor from the United States Attorney's Office for the
Central District of California. it was my privilege to represent the
United States in the prosecution against ``Asian Hater'', the first
prosecution ever under the Federal hate crime statute involving threats
transmitted over the Internet. Through that experience, I learned how
the Internet can be used efficiently and effectively to spread racially
motivated terror to scores of unsuspecting individuals.
I soon learned that the UC-Irvine hate crime was only a precursor
of other Internet hate crimes. For example, on the morning of March 5,
1998, 42 Latino faculty members turned on their computers at Cal State
Los Angeles to read their e-mails. They read a mean-spirited derogatory
threat against Latinos. Using the most demeaning racial slurs, the
sender told the faculty members that he hated their race, that he
wanted them to die, that the only reason that the professors were hired
was because of affirmative action, that their race was stupid, greedy,
and ugly and that the sender was going to personally come down and kill
each of them. As with the UC-Irvine case, many of the Latino faculty
members were terrified by the message of hate, wondering who could hate
them that much (a former unbalanced student perhaps). The professors
talked about how the message left them fearful about being alone on
campus and caused them to be continually looking over their shoulders
in anxiety.
As the Federal investigation continued, the investigative team
learned that the 42 Latino professors were not the only victims
targeted by this messenger of hate. The sender had searched the
Internet for other victims and sent similar death threats to 25 Latino
students at MIT, and to Latino employees at NASA, Xerox, Indiana
University, the Texas Hispanic Journal, and the IRS. Similar concerns
of anxiety and fear were communicated to the FBI from the victims at
those institutions as well.
As a result of the Federal investigations, my investigative team
was able to successfully prosecute the senders of threatening e-mail in
both the UC-Irvine and the Cal State Los Angeles cases. However, the
climate of fear and foreboding caused by these electronic threats
transmitted over the Internet vividly illustrates the need for
increased vigilance by all in order to successfully combat this new
method of violating the civil rights of Americans.
Despite some views to the contrary, there is nothing unique about
the Internet that insulates the sender of such hate threats from the
criminal laws of our country. A sender simply cannot target a group of
individuals because of their race, national origin or religious beliefs
and send them threats via the Internet. The Supreme Court has
repeatedly said that threats of violence are not protected by the First
Amendment. In accord with that jurisprudence, similar threats of
violence are not protected by the First Amendment, simply because they
are transmitted in cyberspace.
Because the Internet presents an effective and efficient way for
persons to communicate to numerous individuals, the ability of
individuals and hate groups to terrorize victims has multiplied
exponentially. A person or hate group who wants to target and threaten
scores of individuals can do so simply by sitting at a computer
terminal for a few minutes. Unlike the traditional means of sending
threatening communications via the telephone or through the U.S. mail,
the Internet offers a medium of communication where a skilled user can
spew out hate-laced threats to countless victims throughout the country
with little effort.
Moreover, hate mongers can create hate threats at their terminal
and send out those threats while hiding behind computer screens. In
short, the Internet has created a whole new class of criminals--persons
who do not have the fortitude to threaten persons face to face or even
over the telephone can hide behind the anonymity of cyberspace and send
out their hate-laced threats.
In addition, I have learned through my prosecution of Internet hate
crimes that certain inherent characteristics of e-mail make hate
threats communicated over the Internet particularly frightening to
targeted victims. Unlike traditional mail, electronic mail is
transmitted instantaneously--the receiver thus knows that the sender is
thinking the communicated message of harm at the same time the
transmission is received. Moreover, unlike communications over the
telephone, the electronic message is not accompanied by non verbal
inflections, tones of voice, or any other auditory cues. The message
simply blips onto the victim's screen. As a result, the victim cannot
gauge, except from the message itself, the degree to which the sender
is intent on carrying out the threat, whether the sender has the
capacity to implement the threat or any other information about the
person who sends the hate transmission. This knowledge ``vacuum'' makes
any threat received over the Internet particularly disturbing to the
victim.
Finally, because an electronically transmitted message arrives
directly on the victim's computer screen, usually with a ring or other
audio cue, the message is much more invasive than traditional mail.
Regular mail is delivered in a mail box. Electronic mail flashes onto a
computer screen at the victim's work station, her home, her bedroom,
her children's room * * * wherever the victim's terminal happens to be.
There is thus no question that this new mode of transmitting
thoughts, knowledge, and ideas, while having great potential and
tremendous advantages over traditional methods of communication, also
presents a new and serious challenge to law enforcement authorities
with regard to those that would abuse the technology.
The Inherent nature of Internet hate crime investigations and
prosecutions also demands that Federal investigators and prosecutors
assume an active role in bringing hate criminals to justice for several
reasons. First, oftentimes, as with the Cal State-Los Angeles case, the
sender transmits hate mail across State lines to victims throughout the
country. Second, investigators must have expertise in computer crimes
and sufficient resources in order to track the sender of the electronic
transmissions and recapture any similar messages sent from the sender's
computer--the FBI, for example, has the expertise in its computer
crimes units. Finally, as with both the UC-Irvine and Cal State cases,
in order to obtain locator information about the sender and potential
victims, one must have the capability to subpoena Internet service
providers--quite often those providers reside outside the state in
which the transmission originated. Accordingly, the Federal Government
must play a role in investigating and prosecuting cyberspace hate
crimes.
Of course, because much of the electronically transmitted hate,
while despicable, may be protected by the First Amendment, criminal
prosecution cannot always provide the answer. For that reason, it is
essential that other methods to combat the spread of hate on the
Internet be devised and implemented whether through education, or new
technology such as filtering devices. Internet service providers, civil
rights organizations, Federal and local investigative and prosecutive
authorities, and State and Federal legislators must all play a role in
countering the hate mongers on the Internet. It is only by working
together that we can successfully combat those who would use the
Internet to spread their message of hate and fear and to ensure a
cyberspace consistent with a world view of racial and religious
tolerance.
The Chairman. I would like to personally hear all the rest
of the testimony. We have a vote. I am suggesting that we
recess so that we can go and vote, so we can come back and hear
all of you. We appreciated your testimony, Mr. Gennaco.
So it will take us about 5 to 10 minutes to be able to go
over and vote and get back here, but we will try and do that as
quickly as we can. We will just recess for that amount of time
until we can get back from this vote.
Senator Leahy. I would like to also put a statement in the
record by Senator Kennedy.
The Chairman. Without objection, we will keep the record
open for statements from every member of the committee until
5:00 p.m. today.
[The prepared statement of Senator Kennedy follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I welcome this opportunity to discuss once
again this critical issue. Hate crimes continue to be a festering
problem that cannot be ignored by Congress or the American people.
During the last two years, the nation's conscience has been shocked by
the hate and brutality targeted against innocent victims because of
their race, religion, gender, disability or sexual orientation.
Just look at today's newspapers, which contain an article about
Lawrence Brewer, one of the men who dragged James Byrd, Jr. to death in
Texas. Brewer bragged in a jailhouse letter about the ``rush'' he felt
while killing James Byrd. In the letter, Brewer said ``And no longer am
I a virgin. It was a rush and I'm still licking my lips for more.''
According to Jasper prosecutors, by killing James Byrd, Brewer and his
friends intended to give publicity to a new white supremacist group,
the Texas Rebel Soldiers.
White supremacist Benjamin Smith left two people dead and injured
nine people during his July 4th rampage in Indiana and Illinois.
Last month, Buford Furrow, terrorized children and adults at the
North Valley Jewish Community Center, in Los Angeles, wounding three
children and two adults.
These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. Many, many more
hate crimes occur across this country that don't receive nationwide
attention. And, many of them go unreported because the victims are
embarrassed or feel too intimidated to go to the police.
Recently, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that
1,750 hate crimes were reported by California law enforcement agencies
last year--nearly five a day.
The national statistics collected by the FBI show that:
In 1997, 11,211 law enforcement agencies around the country
reported 8,049 bias-motivated criminal incidents to the FBI,
compared to 8,759 in 1996.
Of the 8,049 total incidents, 4,710 were motivated by racial
bias; 1,385 by religious bias; 1,102 by sexual orientation bias
and 836 by ethnicity/national origin bias.
Of the 1,385 incidents reported by religious bias, 79
percent were anti-Semitic.
This report included, for the first time, crimes directed
against disabled individuals.
In 1997, there were 12 crimes reported to have occurred due to a
person's disability.
It is long past time for the Senate to act against the problem of
hate crimes and their impact on the nation. We can continue to do this
by funding organizations such as the National Center for Hate Crime
Prevention, located in Newton, Massachusetts, which organizes hate
crime prevention and response training for practitioners, trainers and
youth across the country. The Center also develops publications and
other resource materials to help professionals and communities address
the complex issues involved in juvenile hate crime and its impact on
society. At the request of city officials, the Center just completed
training sessions in Jasper, Texas, Denver and Los Angeles.
It is clear that tolerance in this country faces a serious
challenge, because of these despicable crimes. As the Southern Poverty
Law Center has noted,
In a year that saw hate groups soar past the 500 mark, the most
dangerous sign was not the rising number of jackbooted sieg-
heilers or hooded cross-burners. It was not even the highly
publicized slayings of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas, and
Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. Instead, it was the
increasing number of reminders that hate-based ideology is
being repackaged as an intellectualized version of white self-
affirmation that seeks mainstream respectability.
We are coming to a new millennium, and enjoying record economic
prosperity and dramatic technological advance. Yet every day, lives
continue to be shattered by hatred and bigotry. The explosion of hate
organizations on websites is an ominous example of the dark side of our
progress in technology. These sites are spewing hate to millions of
people, young and old. No family with a computer is immune from the
infiltration of hate into their home. No family is immune from having
their children, who surf the web unsupervised, come across these sites.
No community is safe from those who seek to carry out violent acts of
prejudice.
Every mindless act of hatred exacts a toll upon the nation. Finding
the right strategies to fight hate is the responsibility of everyone. I
commend the organizations that are represented here today for their
work in combating hate crimes. Together, Congress, state and local
governments and communities must send the powerful message that America
is determined to stop these vicious crimes.
The Chairman. So with that, we will recess until we can get
back.
[The committee stood in recess from 10:45 a.m. to 11:01
a.m.]
The Chairman. We will turn to you, Rabbi Cooper. Sorry for
the delay, but it is just one of those things we have to go
through around here. So we will turn to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ABRAHAM COOPER
Rabbi Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the
400,000 constituent families of the Wiesenthal Center, I first
wish to commend this committee for revisiting the problem of
hate on the Internet and for giving our Center the opportunity
to share its perspective on this crucial issue.
The phenomenal growth of the Internet and its impact on all
aspects of our lives continues to astound even its most ardent
promoters. Consider that as we speak there are more than 109
million users of the Internet in North America alone. By the
year 2000, Europe's online population will increase to 59
million. By 2001, China will have 40 million users. Worldwide
Matrix Information and Directory Services reported that last
year there were 102 million accessing the Internet, up from 57
million in 1997, and projected for 2001, 707 million users.
It is not only the venture capitalists who have understood
the limitless potential of these new technologies. Human rights
groups like the Wiesenthal Center utilize the World Wide Web to
spread their educational mandate free of charge to schools,
researchers, and the media. Recently, our Center has used the
Internet to broadcast the Dali Lama's speech at our Museum of
Tolerance into Asia, beamed your colleague Senator Brownback's
speech from Capitol Hill to an audience in Los Angeles
attending our International Conference on Slavery Today, and
broadcast a live simultaneous conference on Japanese war crimes
from Tokyo and Los Angeles. We have also utilized our Web site
to empower victims of the Nazi Holocaust seeking justice and
restitution from Swiss banks and European insurance companies.
It is this very power of communication and marketing that
extremists, professional bigots, anarchists, and terrorists
have sought to harness in their ongoing efforts to promote
their agendas into the mainstream of our society, with a
particular focus on America's youth. The main weapon of choice
to market hate has become the World Wide Web. For the first
time in the history of our democracy, those promoting hate,
racial violence, and terrorism are able to do so directly into
the mainstream 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in an
unassailable and attractive format.
As our Digital Hate 2000 CD-ROM report shows, many of these
groups, once isolated geographically and marginalized to the
fringes of society, have succeeded in creating an online sub-
culture of hate. This enables extremists to market hate music
CD's alongside practical how-to guides to make bombs in your
home or garage. By the way, Mr. Chairman, I have the current
top 10 list of bomb-making sites, downloaded just this past
Friday.
Digital links are the virtual cement for the skinhead
movement, bridging the geographic distance between the
Charlemagne skinheads in France, for example, to groups in New
Jersey and Colorado. To date, there is no evidence that this
online culture of hate has yet succeeded in creating a mass
movement, but not for lack of trying. Indeed, the World Church
of the Creator, a group linked to this summer's anti-Semitic
and racist violence, has designed Web sites for kids as young
as 9 and 10 years old. The KKK and other extremist groups like
the Aryan Nations have followed suit.
But those behind the changing face of hate in America are
not concerned in the short run about numbers. For them, the
Internet has already succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in
undermining our civil society. Taking a page from the all too
successful game book of international terrorists, they use the
Internet to inspire a social misfit in a high school, a racist
lone wolf, or an unnamed leaderless resistance cell to act out
white power fantasies against blacks, Jews, and Asian
Americans.
In 1999, the Internet can serve as a terrorism tutor. It
did for Eric Harris at Columbine. It provided the theological
justification for torching of synagogues in Sacramento and the
pseudo-intellectual basis for violent hate attacks in Illinois
and Indiana.
While the main activities of these groups and individuals
have been focused on the World Wide Web, there is growing
evidence that other technologies available via the Internet are
being used to promote this agenda, and to also engage in
illegal activities, including the illegal sale of firearms.
So here we are on the eve of the millennium with every
indication that the overwhelming majority of Americans reject
the anti-Semitism, the racism and bigotry repackaged on the
Internet. But we also live at a time when, despite the greatest
period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history, we see the
number of self-proclaimed hate groups soaring to over 400 and
hate crimes continuing unabated. This year, we have also
witnessed individuals prepared to carry out domestic acts of
terrorism, and the young and impressionable being lured to an
online world promoting racist violence and terrorism.
What steps should be taken? First, every law enforcement
department that deals with hate crimes in America has to be
online. Second, parents need to take a more proactive approach
to their kids' Internet activity. The Internet is not a
babysitting service. Talk to your kids, and by all means
utilize a filtering software or work with your kids to set your
own guidelines.
Third, we need the attention and involvement of the
collective genius that is giving us the Internet. We need them
to be good corporate citizens and neighbors. We need their
leadership not only in technology, but in fostering good
citizenship and tolerance.
To give one point, there is no law requiring for-profit
companies to continue to do business and provide services to
individuals and groups teaching and preaching bomb-making and
terrorism. It is preferred that the online community set their
own standards and stick to them. In this connection, the
Wiesenthal Center wishes to commend yahoo.com's recent removal
of racist clubs from their sites as a welcome example of
proactive leadership. Just last night, Yahoo indicated that
they have now taken off probably over 70 of these free clubs
that have been utilized by the Klan and other hate
organizations.
In short, a good rule of thumb in approaching these issues
online is to review what Americans have done in the pre-
Internet world. If we are talking about mail, mail equals
privacy. If there is evidence of illegal activity via e-mail,
as we heard from our distinguished speaker, the same standards
should apply as traditional mail. The same would hold true for
telephonic-type communications.
As for the World Wide Web, it is the new main street of
commerce, marketing, and advertising. It is not generally a
venue for discussion and debate. We would therefore hope that
Internet providers would at least take the basic step of
setting their own standards for use of their service, and that
they would be responsive to those standards and the concerns of
the community.
After Columbine, Sacramento and Chicago, after the North
Valley JCC, we desperately need to work together to marginalize
the message and messengers of terrorism and racism in our
country. The Internet community's direct involvement in this
effort will go a long way in ensuring that our kids will be
living in a safer, more tolerant America.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and if you have any questions, I
would be happy to answer them.
The Chairman. Thank you, Rabbi Cooper.
[The prepared statement of Rabbi Cooper follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER
Mr. Chairman; on behalf of the 400,000 constituent families of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, I first wish to commend this committee for
revisiting the problem of hate on the Internet and for giving our
Center the opportunity to share its perspective on this crucial issue.
The phenomenal growth of the Internet and its growing impact on all
aspects of our lives--continues to astound even its most ardent
promoters. Consider that as we speak, there are 109.23 million users of
the Internet in North America alone. By the year 2000, Europe's online
population will increase to 59 million. By 2001 China will have 40
million users.
Worldwide, Matrix Information and Directory Services reported that
in 1998, there were 102 million accessing the Internet, up from 57
million in 1997. Projected for 2001?--707 million users!
And it's not only the venture capitalists who have understood the
limitless potential of these new technologies. Human rights groups like
the Wiesenthal Center utilize the Worldwide Web to spread their
educational mandate--free of charge--to schools, researchers and the
media--free of charge. Our Center has used the Internet to broadcast
the Dali Lama's speech at the Museum of Tolerance into Asia, beamed
Senator Brownback's speech from Capitol Hill to our audience in Los
Angeles attending our International Conference on slavery, and
broadcast a live, simultaneous conference on Japanese war crimes from
Tokyo and Los Angeles. We have also utilized our Website to empower
victims of the Nazi Holocaust seeking justice and restitution from
Swiss banks and insurance companies.
It is of course, this very power of communication and marketing
that extremists, professional bigots, anarchists and terrorists have
sought to harness in their ongoing efforts to promote their agendas
into the mainstream of our society--with a particular focus--on
America's youth.
The main weapon of choice to market hate is the Worldwide Web. For
the first time in history of our democracy, those promoting hate,
racial violence ant terrorism have been able to do so directly into the
mainstream, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in an unassailable and
attractive format. And as our Digital Hate 2000 CD-Rom report shows,
many of these groups, once isolated geographically and marginalized to
the fringes of society, have succeeded in creating an online subculture
of hate. This enables extremists to market hate music CD's alongside
practical how-to guides to make bombs in your own home or garage.
Digital links are tee `virtual' cement for skinhead movement, bridging
the geographic distance between the Charlemagne skinheads in France to
groups from New Jersey to Colorado.
To date, there is no evidence that this online culture of hate has
yet succeeded in creating a mass movement of hate. But not for lack of
trying. Indeed, the World Church of the Creator, a group linked to this
summer's antisemitic and racist violence has designed Websites for kids
as young as 9 or 10 years old. The KKK and other extremist groups, like
the Aryan Nations have followed suit.
But those behind the changing face of hate in America are not
concerned in the short run about numbers. For them the Internet has
already succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in undermining our civil
society. Taking a page from the all-too-successful gamebook of
international terrorists, they use the Internet to inspire a social
misfit in a high school, a racist lone wolf--or an unnamed leaderless
resistance cell to act out white power fantasies against blacks, Jews
or Asian Americans.
In 1999, the Internet can serve as a terrorism tutor--it did for
Eric Harris at Columbine; it provided the theological justification for
the torching of synagogues in Sacramento, and the psuedo-intellectual
basis for violent hate attacks in Illinois and Indiana.
And while the main activities of these groups and individuals have
been focused on the Worldwide Web, there is growing evidence that other
technologies available via the Internet are being used to promote this
agenda and to also engage in illegal activities including the illegal
sale of firearms.
So here we are, on the eve of the millennium, with every indication
that the overwhelming majority of Americans reject the antisemitism,
the racism and bigotry repackaged on the Internet. But we also live at
a time when, despite the greatest period of sustained economic growth
in U.S. history, we see the number of self-proclaimed hate groups
soaring to over 400, and hate crimes continuing, unabated. This year,
we have also witnessed individuals prepared to carry out domestic acts
of terrorism and young, impressionable, being lured to an online world
promoting racist violence and terrorism.
What steps should be taken? First every law enforcement department
that deals with hate crimes in America has to be online. Secondly,
parents need to take a more proactive approach to their kids Internet
activity. The Internet is not a babysitting service. Talk to your kids
and by all means utilize a filtering software or work with your kids to
set your own guidelines. Third, we need the attention and involvement
of the collective genius that has given us the Internet. We need them
to be good corporate citizens and neighbors. We need their leadership,
not only in technology, but in fostering good citizenship and
tolerance. To give just one suggestion, there is no law requiring for-
profit companies to continue to do business and provide services to
individuals and groups teaching and preaching bomb making and
terrorism. It is preferred that the online community set their own
standards and stick to them. (Yahoo.com's recent removal of racists
clubs from their sites is a welcomed example). In short, a good rule of
thumb in approaching these issues online is to review what Americans
have done in the pre-Internet world. If we are talking about `mail'--
mail-privacy. If there is evidence of illegal activity via e-mail, the
same standard should apply as traditional mail. The same would hold
true for telephonic-type communications. As for the Worldwide Web, it
is the new mainstreet of commerce, marketing and advertising--it is not
generally a venue for discussion and debate. We would therefore hope
that Internet providers would at least take the basic step of setting
their own standards for use of their service and that they would be
responsive to those standards and the concerns of the community.
After Columbine, Sacramento, Chicago, after the North Valley JCC,
we desperately need to marginalize the message and messengers of
terrorism and racism in our country. The Internet commmunity's direct
involvement in this effort will go a long way to ensuring that our kids
will be living in a safer, more tolerant America. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. We will turn to you now, Mr. Henderson.
STATEMENT OF WADE HENDERSON
Mr. Henderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Wade
Henderson. I am the Executive Director of the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights. I also serve as counsel to the
Leadership Conference Education Fund. I am pleased to appear
before you today on behalf of both organizations to discuss the
issue of hate on the Internet.
As you noted, Mr. Chairman, the Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights is the Nation's oldest, largest, and most diverse
coalition of organizations committed to the protection of civil
and human rights in the United States. Since its establishment
in 1950, the Leadership Conference has promoted the passage and
monitored the implementation of laws designed to achieve
equality under law for all persons in the United States. The
Leadership Conference Education Fund was founded in 1969 as the
education arm of the civil rights coalition and continues to
fill that role today.
Hate, whether it is purveyed on the Internet, on the
printing press or on the street corner, is a matter of
fundamental concern to the Leadership Conference. Hatred of
people because of who they are, where they worship, or the
color of their skin is the antithesis of what we stand for as
an organization. Hate makes a mockery of our accomplishments
and undermines our half century of work to rid the United
States of vestiges of slavery and oppression.
Hate manifests itself in many ways, ranging all the way
from a muttered remark in the workplace to brutal killing
sprees. All hate must be condemned, but society's response to
hate must be tailored to the manner in which it is expressed.
Specifically, it is important to recognize a distinction
between hate speech and hate crimes.
In my testimony today, I will outline the Leadership
Conference's concern about the proliferation of both hate
speech and hate crimes, and explain our view of the
relationship between these two phenomena. In doing so, however,
I will make it clear that we believe the legislative reply to
hate speech and hate crimes should be very different.
At the outset, I want to emphasize that I believe the
Internet is a wonderful development. It dramatically lowers the
barriers to those who wish to enter the marketplace of ideas,
enabling many more people to publish information and
disseminate their views. Indeed, the Internet is perhaps the
most democratic form of communication ever invented. In just a
few years, the Internet has already revolutionized such diverse
fields as medicine, law and commerce. Over time, I believe it
will contribute greatly to the civil life of the Nation as
well.
The Internet is profoundly non-judgmental. It transmits
information, whether the information is good or bad, true or
false, helpful or hurtful. In the realm of civil rights, that
means that the Internet is a forum for messages of racial
healing, as well as messages of racial hatred. For reasons I
will explain, I am ultimately optimistic that, on balance, the
Internet is a force for social reconciliation. But while we
marvel at the Internet's potential for good, we can't afford to
ignore that which is frightening.
The Leadership Conference abhors hate speech on the
Internet and, of course, we abhor hate speech conveyed through
any other medium. But we recognize that hate speech on the
Internet reaches a wider and perhaps more impressionable
audience, and that sophisticated hate mongers can use the
Internet to enlist converts to their cause.
As other witnesses have already described, hate groups are
increasingly well-established in cyberspace, using the Internet
to promote and distribute their propaganda, recruit members,
and exchange information. Their messages are disturbing,
despicable, and must be condemned in the strongest possible
terms. But the existence of these viewpoints in cyberspace
merely confirms their existence in American culture. The
Internet does not create hatred; it illuminates it. It reminds
us of the long road we must travel before we reach a truly
race-blind society.
The Leadership Conference believes that the best antidote
for offensive speech is more speech on the other side, and
therefore we have sought to answer hate speech on the Internet
with anti-hate speech on the Internet. We have aggressively
used the Internet to disseminate our message of racial harmony
and non-discrimination to a broader audience, and to make more
widely available the tools that we believe can combat bigotry.
For example, 2 years ago, with the assistance of the Bell
Atlantic Corporation, we launched a new Web site,
www.civilrights.org, to educate the public about the history
and goals of the civil rights movement and to counter those who
espouse hatred because of individuals' race, ethnicity, gender,
disability, religion, or sexual orientation. A central
component of this Web site is the Hate Crimes Prevention
Center, initiated by the Leadership Conference Education Fund.
It is an interactive clearinghouse for information about
bigotry and hate crimes.
These initiatives, inspired by the White House Conference
on Hate Crimes, have dramatically extended our institutional
presence in combatting prejudice in cyberspace and elsewhere.
Our online Hate Crimes Prevention Center, for example, now
provides updated information on Federal and State hate crime
statutes and statistics, community-based law enforcement
strategies to respond to bigotry and violence, materials for
parents and teachers to help them raise a generation of
children who will grow up to embrace diversity and non-
discrimination, and, of course, links to other relevant
resources.
In addition, the Leadership Conference has entered into a
long-term relationship with America Online to develop a portal
that will serve as the seminal resource on the Internet on the
history and future of the civil rights movement in this
country. As a leader in information technology, America Online
believes strongly in the power of combatting prejudice and
improving inter-group understanding utilizing the Internet.
These are but some of the steps we are taking to counter
hate speech on the Internet, to drown out bigots with a chorus
of harmony. But for two very important reasons, the Leadership
Conference emphatically does not endorse proposals to censor
hate speech on the Internet.
First, we want the Internet to thrive, and we believe that
the Internet by its nature cannot thrive in a climate of
censorship. We want it to thrive because we recognize the
Internet's potential as a force for cohesion and tolerance. It
empowers individuals to reach across racial, ethnic, and
religious lines like never before. It fosters dialogue. We
support robust speech on the Internet because we are convinced
we are right, that the hate mongers are wrong, and we know that
reason will ultimately prevail over prejudice in the
marketplace of ideas.
Second, the Leadership Conference is deeply committed to
the First Amendment. There was a time not too long ago when the
message of the civil rights movement was seen as subversive and
offensive. There was a time when civil rights leaders invoked
the constitutional principle of free speech to confront threats
of censorship and repression. Now that we are in the mainstream
and the bigots are on the fringes, we will not abandon the
principles and protections that brought us as a Nation to where
we are today.
Now, one reason we must be so vigilant about countering
hate speech is that, left unchallenged, hate speech can incite
violence. When bigots cross over the line from speech to action
and carry out their warped ideology through violence, we leave
the realm of hate speech and enter the realm of hate crimes.
And whereas hate speech must be condemned but tolerated in our
constitutional system, hate crimes must be condemned and
prosecuted.
While we do not believe that Congress should attempt to
censor or crack down on hate speech, the Leadership Conference
strongly believes that a fresh legislative response to the
epidemic of hate crimes is both necessary and appropriate. And
for that reason, we do support the passage of the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act of 1999.
I won't discuss the hate crimes bill, Mr. Chairman. I know
that you are familiar with it. But I will say that it does
remove anachronistic and unnecessarily burdensome limits on
Federal prosecution, and that for us is a very important
matter.
And I will just make one final point to conclude. We know
that the limits of current law are evident from the prosecution
of Buford Furrow, the avowed white supremacist who shot up a
day care center and killed a Federal employee. While the murder
of Federal postal worker Joseph Ileto, because of his
ethnicity, has resulted in a Federal indictment, Furrow's
brutal assault on four children because of their religion did
not constitute a Federal crime and therefore must be prosecuted
by the Los Angeles district attorney's office in State court.
The fact that the children are not Federal employees and
were not engaged in a federally-protected activity does not
make the assault on them any less of an infringement on Federal
interests. Buford Furrow's crime was deliberately intended to
shatter the ideals of equality and tolerance, on which our
Federal Government was founded and which are embodied in the
Federal Constitution. We hope that Congress will act soon to
strengthen the Nation's hate crime laws.
Now, where is the line between speech and action? As the
Federal prosecution described by my colleague initially makes
clear, there are times when hate speech takes the form of
threats so specific and so imminent that law enforcement may
appropriately intervene. The line is not always bright,
especially as we come to grips with the promise and perils of
the Internet, but we rely on the courts to define that line in
individual cases. And I want to commend the prosecutor for
being able to do that through his case.
The aftermath of the Matthew Shepard case, however,
contains a lesson about the promise and perils of the Internet.
Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, wrote recently that almost
overnight after the killing, memorial Web sites for Matthew
appeared. But then the huge number of hate-filled messages left
at some of them forced the web masters to shut down their guest
books.
Ms. Shepard notes that, ``It is in the environment of
institutionalized intolerance that our senses are bombarded
almost daily with incident after incident of violence and
hate.'' But then she writes, ``For all who ask what they can do
for Matthew and other victims, my answer is to educate and
bring understanding where you see hate and ignorance, bring
light where you see darkness, bring freedom where there is
fear, and begin to heal.''
Judy Shepard is exactly right. The way to fight those using
the Web to promote hate is to counter speech with more
compelling speech, promoting the vision of America where we
live together in mutual respect and celebrate our diversity.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Henderson.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Henderson follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF WADE HENDERSON
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: My name is Wade
Henderson and I am the Executive Director of the Leadership Conference
on Civil Rights. I also serve as Counsel to the Leadership Conference
Education Fund. I am pleased to appear before you today on behalf of
the Leadership Conference to discuss the issue of hate on the Internet.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is the nation's oldest,
largest and most diverse coalition of organizations committed to the
protection of civil and human rights in the United States. Since its
establishment in 1950 by A. Philip Randolph, Arnold Aronson, and Roy
Wilkins, three civil rights leaders who would eventually receive the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, LCCR has promoted the passage and
monitored the implementation of laws designed to achieve equality under
law for all persons in the United States. Today, LCCR consists of over
180 organizations working in concert to advance the cause of equality.
Our coalition includes groups representing persons of color, women,
labor organizations, persons with disabilities, older Americans, gays
and lesbians, major religious groups, and civil liberties and human
rights interests. It is a privilege to represent the civil and human
rights community in addressing the Committee today. LCEF was founded in
1969 as the education arm of the civil rights coalition and continues
to fill that role today.
Hate--whether it is purveyed on the Internet, on the printing
press, or on the street corner--is a matter of fundamental concern to
the Leadership Conference. Hatred of people because of who they are,
where they worship or the color of their skin, is the antithesis of
what we stand for as an organization. Hate makes a mockery of our
accomplishments and undermines our half century of work to rid the
United States of the vestiges of slavery and oppression.
The Leadership Conference proudly participated in historic
struggles that led to enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Americans
with Disabilities Act of 1990, and many other landmark civil rights
laws. As difficult as those campaigns may have been, that may have been
the easy part. Much more difficult is the struggle to change attitudes,
to overcome bigotry, to build harmony. All the laws in the world cannot
exorcise the demons of hatred, racism, sexism, xenophobia and
homophobia that still plague this society.
Hate manifests itself in many ways, ranging all the way from a
muttered remark in the, workplace to brutal killing sprees. All hate
must be condemned; but society's response to hate must be tailored to
the manner in which it is expressed. Specifically, it is important to
recognize a distinction between hate speech and hate crimes. In my
testimony today I will outline LCCR's concern about the proliferation
of both hate speech and hate crimes, and explain our view of the
relationship between these two phenomena. In doing so, however, I will
make clear that we believe the legislative reply to hate speech and
hate crimes should be very different.
HATE SPEECH
Some bigots keep their thoughts to themselves, never uttering a
hateful remark or engaging in a hateful deed. Others, unfortunately,
make themselves heard. They spread their vile opinions through casual
conversation, or by confronting the object of their hatred with verbal
abuse. Still others go so far as to disseminate their views through
leaflets, pamphlets, books or broadcast media. Hitler's Mein Kampf is
one of history's most notorious examples of published hate speech, but
the ugly tradition both predates Hitler and survives him. And today,
hate speakers have a new medium through which to express themselves:
the Internet.
At the outset, I want to emphasize that I believe the Internet is a
wonderful development. It dramatically lowers the barriers to those who
wish to enter the marketplace of ideas, enabling many more people to
publish information and disseminate their views. Indeed, the Internet
is perhaps the most democratic form of communication ever invented. In
just a few years the Internet has already revolutionized such diverse
fields as medicine, law and commerce; over time, I believe it will
contribute greatly to the civic life of the nation as well.
The Internet is profoundly non-judgmental. It transmits information
whether that information is good or bad, true or false, helpful or
hurtful. In the realm of civil rights, that means the Internet is a
forum for messages of racial healing as well as racial hatred. For
reasons I will explain, I am ultimately optimistic that, on balance,
the Internet is a force for social reconciliation. But while we marvel
at the Internet's potential for good, we cannot afford to ignore that
which is frightening.
The Leadership Conference abhors hate speech on the Internet. Of
course we abhor hate speech conveyed through any other medium; but we
recognize that hate speech on the Internet reaches a wider and perhaps
more impressionable audience, and that sophisticated hate-mongers can
use the Internet to enlist converts to their cause.
As other witnesses have described, hate groups are increasingly
well-established in cyberspace, using the Internet to promote and
distribute their propaganda, recruit members, and exchange information.
In 1995, Ku Klux Klan leader Don Black established the Stormfront site
that ``serves as a clearinghouse for traditional white supremacist
materials, addresses, and links to Home Pages * * * [of other hate
groups].'' Skinheads USA also maintains a web page that begins with a
warning: ``If you are not interested in the survival of the White race,
piss off.'' The page also includes a game called ``write a caption''--
on one day the photograph to be captioned was of an African-American
man being assaulted by a Caucasian.
Another web page by a group calling itself CNG expresses the view
that ``all non-Whites must be either exported or segregated to prevent
further bastardization of our people, domination of our land, jobs and
positions of education and employment.'' Still other ``hate pages'' on
the Internet are run by individual extremists such as the site
``Independent White Racialists'' whose organizer, a self-described
skinhead, says his page ``is evidence that concerned White people don't
have to be members of an organization to fight our freedom for White
survival.''
Such messages are disturbing, despicable and must be condemned in
the strongest possible terms. But the existence of these viewpoints in
cyberspace merely confirms their existence in American culture. The
Internet does not create hatred; it illuminates it. It reminds us of
the long road we must travel before we reach a truly race-blind
society.
What, then, is the proper response to Internet-spread hate speech?
In our view, it is not sufficient to turn off the computer or slap on
filtering software; these voices of disunity must be countered. Over
seventy years ago Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote:
[T]he fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones * * * If
there be time to expose through discussion the falsehoods and
fallacies, to avert the evil by processes of education, the
remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only
an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if
authority is to be reconciled with freedom. Such, in my
opinion, is the command of the Constitution.
Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375 (1927) (Brandeis, J.,
concurring) (emphasis added).
The Leadership Conference has taken Justice Brandeis' wisdom to
heart. We believe that the best antidote for offensive speech is more
speech on the other side, and therefore we have sought to answer hate
speech on the Internet with anti-hate speech on the Internet. We have
aggressively used the Internet to disseminate our message of racial
harmony and non-discrimination to a broader audience and to make more
widely available the tools we believe can combat bigotry.
For example, in November 1997, with the assistance of Bell Atlantic
Corporation, we launched a new Web site, www.civilrights.org, to
educate the public about the history and goals of the civil rights
movement and to counter those who espouse hatred against individuals
because of their race, ethnicity, gender, disability, religion, or
sexual orientation. A central component of this web site is the Hate
Crimes Prevention Center, located at http://civilrights.org/lcef/hcpc/,
an interactive clearinghouse for information about bigotry and hate
crimes. These initiatives, inspired by President Clinton's challenge at
the White House Conference on Hate Crimes for Americans to find ways to
overcome the fears that lead to bigotry and violence, have dramatically
extended our institutional presence in combating prejudice in
cyberspace and elsewhere.
Since that time, with funding from the Levi Strauss Foundation and
the Gill Foundation, the Leadership Conference has expanded
``civilrights.org.'' Our on-line Hate Crimes Prevention Center, for
example, now provides updated information on federal and state hate
crime statutes and statistics; community-based and law enforcement
strategies to respond to bigotry and violence; materials for parents
and teachers to help them raise a generation of children who will grow
up to embrace diversity and non-discrimination; and of course links to
other relevant resources.
In the near future, the Leadership Conference expects to take
another major step forward in the on-line fight against hatred. With
the assistance of Ripple Effects, a San Francisco-based software
company, we are developing a multimedia tool, deliverable over the
Internet, that will proactively spread our message of racial and ethnic
tolerance to pre-adolescents before the destructive thoughts and
behaviors that can lead to violence take root. Combining the power of
technology and cutting-edge behavioral research, we believe this module
will effectively leverage the digital medium to help counter all forms
of bigotry and hate.
In addition, the Leadership Conference has entered into a long-term
relationship with America Online to develop a portal that will serve as
the seminal resource on the Internet on the history and future of civil
rights in this country. As a leader in information technology, America
Online believes strongly in the power of combating prejudice and
improving intergroup understanding utilizing the Internet.
These are some of the steps we are taking to counter hate speech on
the Internet, to drown out the bigots with a chorus of harmony. But for
two very important reasons, the Leadership Conference emphatically does
not endorse proposals to censor hate speech on the Internet.
First, we want the Internet to thrive; and we believe that the
Internet, by its nature, cannot thrive in a climate of censorship or
heavy-handed government regulation. We want it to thrive because we
recognize the Internet's potential as a force for cohesion and
tolerance. It empowers individuals to reach across racial, ethnic and
religious lines like never before. It fosters the dialogue that is the
sine qua non of reconciliation. We support robust speech on the
Internet because we are convinced we are right, the hate-mongers are
wrong, and we know that reason will eventually prevail over prejudice
in the marketplace of ideas.
Second, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is deeply
committed to the First Amendment. There was a time, not too long ago,
when the message of the civil rights movement was seen as subversive or
offensive. There was a time when our leaders invoked the constitutional
principle of free speech to confront threats of censorship and
repression. Now that we are in the mainstream, and the bigots are on
the fringes, we will not abandon the principles and protections that
brought us to where we are today.
HATE CRIMES
One reason we must be so vigilant about countering hate speech is
that, left unchallenged, hate speech can incite hate violence. When
bigots cross over the line from speech to action and carry out their
warped ideology through violence, we leave the realm of hate speech and
enter the realm of hate crimes. Whereas hate speech must be condemned
but tolerated in our constitutional system, hate crimes must be
condemned and prosecuted.
The Leadership Conference believes that hate crimes are a more
serious problem than is generally recognized, and that the problem
requires a more unified and determined response by governmental, civic,
religious and educational organizations. Two years ago, in conjunction
with the Leadership Conference Education Fund (LCEF), we published
Cause For Concern: Hate Crimes in America, one of the first
comprehensive assessments of the hate crime problem in the United
States. That investigation confirmed our fear that violence motivated
by hatred is both prevalent and on the rise.
Even in the short time since we published Cause for Concern, there
have been a series of hate-related crimes that serve as painful
reminders of the bigotry still simmering in our society. On June 7,
1998, the dismembered body of 49 year-old James Byrd, Jr., an African
American male, was found in a wooded area in Jasper, Texas. The
assailants chained Byrd to the back of their pickup truck and dragged
his body along a rural dirt road. When found, Byrd's head and right arm
were missing. Three white males were subsequently arrested and charged
with his murder.
In October of the same year, three white males tied Matthew Shepard
to a wooden fence along an old dirt road, and pistol-whipped him with
the butt of a .357 Magnum until they believed he was dead. They broke
his skull. Then they took his wallet, his patent leather shoes and took
off to burglarize his house. Matthew died a few days later in the
hospital.
Earlier this year, Steven Mullins admitted to crushing the head of
Billy Jack Gaither, an Alabama gay man with repeated blows of an ax
handle, after stabbing him in the neck and ribcage.
Most recently, avowed white supremacists Benjamin Smith and Buford
O. Furrow, Jr. went on shooting sprees in two Midwestern states and at
a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, respectively. Smith killed
two and wounded nine others while Furrow shot five individuals,
including four children, before, killing a Filipino postman. Furrow
said he wanted the community center attack to be ``a wake-up call to
America to kill Jews.''
These are crimes against individuals, but they also represent an
attack on the American ideal that we can forge one nation out of many
different people. The violence reverberates beyond the immediate
victims, scarring every other member of the targeted minority group and
cracking the bedrock of peaceful tolerance on which our country was
founded.
While we do not believe that Congress should attempt to censor or
crackdown on hate speech, the Leadership Conference strongly believes
that a fresh legislative response to the epidemic of hate crimes is
both necessary and appropriate. For that reason, we support passage of
the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 (S. 622 and H.R. 1082),
legislation cosponsored by members of both parties in both Houses,
including Senators Kennedy, Specter, Leahy and Schumer on this
Committee.
S. 622 would strengthen the current federal hate crimes statute in
two respects. First, it would remove unnecessary and anachronistic
obstacles to federal prosecution of hate crimes under current law.
Second, it would bring within the ambit of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 245 crimes
committed due to the victim's disability, sexual orientation or gender.
The limits of current federal law are evident from the prosecution
of Buford Furrow, the avowed white supremacist who shot-up a day care
center and killed a federal employee. While the murder of Post Office
employee Joseph S. Ileto, because of his ethnicity has resulted in a
federal indictment, Furrow's brutal assault of 4 children because of
their religion did not constitute a federal crime and must be
prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office in state
court. The fact that the children are not federal employees and were
not engaged in a federally protected activity does not make the assault
on them any less of an infringement on federal interests. Furrow's
crime was deliberately intended to shatter the ideals of equality and
tolerance on which our federal government was founded and which are
embodied in the federal constitution.
Consider other brutal hate crimes beyond the reach of federal law:
On June 18, 1995, Thai Mai, a 23 year old Vietnamese
American was attacked by three young white males at a nightclub
in Michigan. After yelling racial slurs at Mai, the three men
beat him until he fell against the cement floor splitting his
head open. Mai died five days later from major head trauma.
Randy Lawson, a white male and father of three was attacked
and murdered by two African Americans on April 9, 1994.
Lawson's attackers later admitted that they had killed him
because he was white and they did not like white people. The
murder incited intense outrage within the community and lead to
two other racially motivated killings.
On January 4, 1996 Fred Mangione, a gay man was brutally
murdered in Houston Texas by two neo-Nazis who bragged about
hating homosexuals. The two assailants, both members of a white
supremacist group, stabbed Mangione 35 times.
To be sure, the assailants in each of these cases were prosecuted
in state court. But our support for the Hate Crimes Prevention Act does
not rest on the assumption that perpetrators of violent crimes will go
unpunished. Most often state prosecution will suffice. But we believe
it is important for there to be a federal backstop to ensure adequate
punishment if local authorities are unable or unwilling to prosecute.
More important, we urge passage of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act
on the grounds that federal law should reflect the federal interest in
protecting all minorities from bigotry and hate-motivated violence.
Just as there is symbolic value in congressional condemnation of hate
speech on the Internet, we think Congress should express the entire
nation's outrage at these heinous hate crimes by including them within
the protection of federal criminal law. That is a legitimate function
of the criminal law.
The civil rights community is frustrated, frankly, that this
Congress, which is so quick to deploy the federal criminal law to
condemn other conduct that could be left to state prosecutors, has been
suddenly overcome by abstract concerns about federalism when it comes
to condemning hate crimes. We respectfully submit that the slaying of
Matthew Shepard by homophobic bigots implicates federal interests far
more than the sale of two marijuana cigarettes on a city street corner.
Yet Congress has not hesitated to mobilize federal law and federal
resources against the latter crime, despite the existence of concurrent
state criminal jurisdiction over drug distribution.
One other criticism of hate crimes legislation is that it somehow
infringes on the right of free speech. As I have made clear, the
Leadership Conference takes a back seat to no organization in its
support of civil liberties, including the liberty of free speech. That
is why it is important to recognize the distinction between hate speech
and hate crimes. Until a hate-monger crosses the line from speech to
action, he is cloaked in the protection of the federal Constitution.
When he does cross the line, we believe the federal criminal law should
be available to protect his victims.
Where is the line between speech and action? As the federal
prosecution described by my colleague on the first panel makes clear,
there are times when hate speech takes the form of threats so specific
and so imminent that law enforcement may appropriately intervene. The
line is not always bright, especially as we come to grips with the
promise and perils of the Internet, but we rely on the courts to define
that line in individual cases.
CONCLUSION
The aftermath of the Matthew Shepard case, in particular, contains
a lesson about the promise and perils of the Internet.
Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, wrote recently that ``[a]lmost
overnight [after the killing], memorial Web sites for Matthew
appeared--but then the huge number of hate-filled messages left at some
of them forced the Web masters to shut down the guest books.'' Mrs.
Shepard notes that ``it is in this environment of institutionalized
intolerance that our senses are bombarded, almost daily, with incident
after incident of violence and hate.''
But then she writes, ``For all who ask what they can do for Matthew
and other victims, my answer is to educate and bring understanding
where you see hate and ignorance, bring light where you see darkness,
bring freedom where there is fear, and begin to heal.''
Judy Shepard is exactly correct. The way to fight those using the
Web to promote hate is to counter hate speech with more compelling
speech promoting the vision of an America where we live together in
mutual respect and celebrate our diversity.
The Chairman. Mr. Berkowitz, we will turn to you.
STATEMENT OF HOWARD BERKOWITZ
Mr. Berkowitz. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am
Howard Berkowitz, National Chairman of the Anti-Defamation
League. I am accompanied here today by Abraham Foxman, National
Director, by Jess Hordas, ADA's new Washington Director, and by
Michael Lieberman, the League's Washington counsel. ADL very
much appreciates this opportunity to testify on hate on the
Internet.
Hate groups and extremists have moved quickly to the
Internet. This is the dark side of the information
superhighway. What attracts all of these hate groups to the
Internet is fairly easy to understand. First, it is very cheap.
Second, it is easily accessible to literally hundreds of
millions of people. Third, it provides them a new method of
communication which is far better than what they have had in
the past. And, fourth, it is anonymous. People can go to their
Web sites. Nobody knows they have been there, and therefore
they are very much in every one of our homes 24 hours a day.
As a vehicle for spreading hate, the Internet is more
powerful than any extremist of the past decade could have
imagined. Anti-Semites and racists use the Internet to recruit
new members and threaten their enemies with violence. Online
membership firms make it easy to join. Online, they become part
of an electronic community of like-minded individuals which
helps to reinforce their hateful convictions.
While hundreds of hate sites currently online comprise only
a tiny portion of the World Wide Web, these sites are just as
easily accessible to the 100 million Americans using the
Internet as is the Web site of the U.S. Senate. Children who
explore the Internet, whether visiting Web sites, reading e-
mail messages, or conversing in chat rooms, run the risk of
encountering hate. Many hate groups specifically target the
young. These hateful messages can deeply influence and affect
impressionable young children, seducing them with very
sophisticated graphics, rock music, and even crossword puzzles.
They may stumble on these sites inadvertently. For example,
a child doing a homework assignment on World War II or the
Holocaust might enter the term ``holocaust'' into a search
engine. In response to his query, the search engine will
provide the child with links to historic Holocaust Web sites,
but also will include sites prepared Holocaust deniers and
white Aryan racists.
The propaganda presented by hate sites is aimed at
influencing not just attitudes, but also behavior. Hate crimes
in Chicago, Sacramento, and Los Angeles this summer demonstrate
how online propaganda can lead to action. Matthew Williams, a
primary suspect in the murder of a gay couple in Redding, CA,
and the Sacramento synagogue arsons in June, was drawn into the
hate movement by white supremacist Web sites.
Benjamin Smith, a member of the racist and anti-Semitic
World Church of the Creator who shot at six orthodox Jews and
murdered a Korean student and a black man over the July 4
weekend, repeatedly viewed the group's Web site and
complimented its web master on his work.
At the Web site of hate group Aryan Nations, Internet users
can order the extremist book that Los Angeles gunman and former
Aryan Nations security guard Buford Furrow had in his car at
the time of his vicious attacks in Los Angeles in August.
Many of the groups and individuals creating hate sites have
extensive histories of violence. In the League's written
statement, we have included additional material on all these
extremist individuals, groups and movements that I have
mentioned above.
But what can be done about hate on the Internet? There are
no simple answers to this question. We feel strongly that
censorship is not the answer. The First Amendment's protection
of free speech shields most extremist propaganda. However, the
First Amendment does not protect speech that threatens or
harasses other people.
What can be done? The ADL carefully monitors and documents
Internet hate and promotes public awareness of the plans and
histories of online bigots. In line with our view that exposure
will lead to the rejection of the haters and their propaganda,
we continue to publish materials concerning hate on the
Internet. These can be found on our own Web site, and are
included in our new report called ``Poisoning on the Web,''
which has been provided to all members of Congress.
Additionally, in cooperation with the Learning Company of
Massachusetts, ADL has released a new software filter. This
software filter is entitled the ADL Hate Filter. It provides
parents and others with the ability to block access to Internet
sites that ADL believes promote hate. It is a site-specific
filter, not a word-specific one, and it also offers those being
blocked from the site an educational experience to learn why
the site is being blocked.
We have several other recommendations that we think could
be very helpful in trying to deal with hate on the Internet.
First, provide education and training for Federal prosecutors
in the use of Federal criminal civil rights statutes to
prosecute incidents of bias-motivated threats on the Internet.
In addition, we urge Congress to enact the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act. This necessary complementary legislation would
authorize the Department of Justice to assist local
prosecutions and, where appropriate, investigate and prosecute
cases in which bias violence occurs because of the victim's
sexual orientation, gender, or disability.
Second, mandate a new study by the Commerce Department's
National Telecommunications Information Authority on the impact
of electronic hate on bias crimes. The NTIA's very useful
December 1993 report, ``The Role of Telecommunications in Hate
Crimes,'' pre-dates the widespread use of the Internet by these
organized hate groups.
Third, provide funds for the Department of Education to
develop outreach and educational programs to protect our
Nation's children by teaching teachers how to develop their
students' critical thinking skills and responsible use of the
Internet.
Fourth, civic leaders and politicians should take a
leadership role in speaking out against bigotry, anti-Semitism
and racism on the Internet and wherever it occurs. Americans of
goodwill must join together to reject the efforts of extremists
to exploit the Internet for their own propaganda purposes.
Fifth, encourage the ISP's to identify and eliminate hate
sites that are on the ISPs' programs. And, six, penalize
knowingly advocating an action of physical violence to an
individual.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for these hearings and
for all that you are doing in this area.
The Chairman. Well, thank you, Mr. Berkowitz. We appreciate
that.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Berkowitz follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HOWARD BERKOWITZ
hate on the internet: the anti-defamation league perspective
Concerns about online extremism are not new. In January 1985, the
Anti-Defamation League released a report entitled Computerized Networks
of Hate. Years before the Internet became a household word, that report
exposed a computerized bulletin board created by and for white
supremacists and accessible to anyone with a modem and a home computer.
Aryan Nations, a paramilitary group affiliated with the ``Identity
Church'' pseudo-theological hate movement, sponsored the bulletin board
and named it ``Aryan Nation Liberty Net.'' The project was the work of
two individuals: Louis Beam, then a Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and
Aryan Nations leader, and George Dietz, the man behind the largest neo-
Nazi publishing mill in the United States.
This bulletin board was a forerunner of extremism on the Internet.
Computerized Networks of Hate detailed five ways the ``Aryan Nation
Liberty Net'' served the white supremacist movement, all of which
remain important to extremism on the Internet today. First, the
bulletin board was designed to draw young people to the hate movement
with appealing propaganda. Second, the network helped stir up hatred
against the ``enemies'' of white supremacy. Third, the bulletin board
was a means to make money. Fourth, the system offered the potential for
circulating secret, coded messages among extremists, and finally, it
bypassed embargoes that nations outside of the United States placed on
hate literature.
Though Computerized Networks of Hate noted little to suggest that
Aryan Nation Liberty Net represented a great leap forward in the spread
of anti-Semitic and racist propaganda, it warned that ``complacency''
about this development ``would be unwise.'' At the time, Beam wrote
that the bulletin board was a ``patriotic brain trust'' and boasted
that ``computers are now bringing their power and capabilities'' to the
white supremacist movement. ``The possibilities,'' Beam remarked,
``have only been touched upon.''
The same month that ADL released Computerized Networks of Hate,
white supremacist Stephen Donald (Don) Black was released from prison.
While serving just over two years, Black had learned to use computers.
In 1981, Black was arrested with a group of nine other neo-Nazis and
Klansmen in Slidell, Louisiana, and charged with plotting to invade the
Caribbean island of Dominica, overthrow its government, and turn it
into a ``white state.'' He was convicted, and following an unsuccessful
appeal, he surrendered to Federal marshals in December, 1982.
In the years following his release, Black gradually withdrew from
white supremacist activism, eventually becoming a computer consultant.
However, he did not disavow his racism. It was Black who would launch
Stormfront, the first extremist hate site on the World Wide Web, a
decade after ADL reported on ``Aryan Nation Liberty Net.'' ``There is
the potential here to reach millions,'' Black said of the Internet. ``I
think it's a major breakthrough. I don't know if it's the ultimate
solution to developing a white rights movement in this country, but
it's certainly a significant advance.''
Initially, Black could find only a handful of other Web sites that
reflected his anti-Semitic, racist message. Today, hundreds of bigotry-
laden sites promoting a variety of philosophies have joined Stormfront
on the Web. The propaganda presented by these sites, from subtle to
heavy-handed, is aimed at influencing both attitudes and behavior.
Though it is not always easy to draw a connection between online
speech and violence, extremist groups with histories of violence have
extensive Web sites. Additionally, extremists have used the Internet to
comment favorably on violent acts. One Web site calls John William
King, convicted murderer of James Byrd, an ``American Hero'' and asks
readers to ``give thanks to God'' for King's act. Another site's
``Memorial'' to gay murder victim Matthew Shepard claims he ``got
himself killed'' because of his ``satanic lifestyle'' and ``will be in
hell for all eternity.''
Many extremist sites target the young. Hate groups such as the
World Church of the Creator have posted Web sites filled with simple
propaganda devoted specifically to wooing children. Bigotry-laced hard
rock and the Internet have proved a natural match for racist Skinheads
trying to capture the minds of teens.
While deeply disturbing, the growth of hate and extremism on the
Internet simply mirrors the expansion of Internet use. What began as a
small computer network used primarily by scientists and academic
researchers has become a mass medium. Computers and Internet access are
in workplaces, homes, schools and libraries, and prices for both are
falling rapidly. For many Internet users in the United States, going
online costs nothing. Large numbers of U.S. workers have free access to
the Internet at their offices. Many U.S. residents use free Internet
access at their local public libraries, and educational institutions
regularly connect their students to the Web free of charge.
Most Internet Service Providers willingly ``host'' their customers'
World Wide Web pages; in return for a user's access fee, they provide
nearly unlimited use of the hardware and communications lines necessary
for creating a site on the Web. Some Web-based services, such as Tripod
and GeoCities, host Internet users' pages free of charge. All of the
above provide free, easy-to-use Web development tools, making it
simple, even for those who know nothing about computer programming, to
create their own Web pages.
Beyond low cost and availability, the Internet provides a new type
of information distribution, since time and distance are compressed.
Information posted there is available instantaneously, 24 hours a day,
from anywhere on the planet. The World Wide Web creates the illusion
that all information is present in the user's computer at the instant
it is needed. Accessing information has never been easier. What's more,
the Internet has done more than that, for it has turned every user into
a potential publisher. It has never been easier for any individual to
broadcast his or her ideas to the world.
A worldwide collection of computers linked by high-speed phone
lines, the Internet displays remarkable versatility, sometimes
resembling a letter, on other occasions a telephone, and still other
times a television. Like a printed letter, the Internet provides a way
to communicate directly with others, near or far, but on the Internet,
``E-mail'' (electronic mail) is delivered nearly instantaneously (E-
mail arrives so much more quickly than standard printed correspondence
that users of the Internet sometimes call traditional letters ``snail
mail''). Furthermore, E-mail users pay nothing for the transmission of
messages; their accounts are charged a flat fee for service, if they
pay for their accounts at all.
Like a telephone, the Internet provides a way to communicate in
``real time'' with others. A person using a chat room or Internet Relay
Chat channel to converse with friends can engage in a fast-paced
conversation, for friends' words appear on the screen mere seconds
after they've been typed. Like television, the Internet can
``broadcast'' information to vast audiences. Millions of Internet users
can view the same World Wide Web site simultaneously, and Web sites,
like television programs, are able to transmit text, sound, photos, and
moving images. The growth of the Internet represents a revolution in
communication as significant as that begun by the development of the
printing press in the 15th century. Yet the time needed for its impact
to be felt has been drastically telescoped. What took centuries is now
taking place in a matter of a few years.
Even before Stormfront appeared on the Web, extremists had begun
exploiting other ways to use the Internet, and these practices continue
today. Lively conversations take place on numerous extremist Internet
Relay Chat channels. The USENET, a collection of thousands of public
discussion groups (or newsgroups) on which people write, read and
respond to messages, attracts hundreds of thousands of participants
each day, both active (those who write) and passive (those who simply
read or ``lurk''). Newsgroups have been compared to community bulletin
boards. Haters of all sorts debate, rant, and insult their opponents on
newsgroups with titles such as alt.politics. white-power and
alt.revisionism.
Electronic mailing lists (or ``listservs'') flourish as well. Such
lists are like private ``bulletin boards'' available only to
subscribers. While some lists keep their subscription information
confidential, most are easy to join. Postings to some of these lists
are moderated (i.e., monitored by the list operator who applies certain
standards of acceptability), but others are entirely unregulated.
In fashioning their lists, extremists and racists create an
``electronic community'' of like-minded people. Before the Internet,
many extremists worked in relative isolation, forced to make a great
effort to connect with others who shared their ideology. Today, on the
Internet, bigots communicate easily, inexpensively, and sometimes
anonymously with hundreds of fellow extremists. Online, extremists
reinforce more easily each other's hateful convictions.
Extremists also use E-mail, which allows them to communicate with
one another directly, their missives ostensibly hidden from public
view. In fact, E-mail is not truly private: computer-savvy individuals
can intercept and read private messages. Some users, nervous about
eavesdroppers, now use cryptographic programs. Cryptography converts
written material using a secret code, rendering it unreadable by anyone
who does not have the means to decode it. With encrypted E-mail,
extremists have found a secure forum in which to exchange ideas and
plans. E-mail can also be used to spread hate propaganda. With a
mailing list and a message, hate mailings can easily reach the
mailboxes of large numbers of people. Enterprising haters have managed
to mass-mail hate materials to tens, hundreds, or even thousands of
unsuspecting people without revealing their identity.
Though purveyors of hate make use of all the communication tools
the Internet provides, the World Wide Web is their forum of choice. In
addition to its multimedia capabilities and popularity with Internet
users, the Web allows bigots to control their message. Organized haters
complain about civil rights activists who critique their manifestoes in
USENET newsgroups and other interactive forums. In contrast, haters can
refuse to publish critical messages on their Web sites, just as a TV
station can refuse to broadcast another station's opinions over its
airwaves. Furthermore, it is impossible for someone surfing the Web to
know if any particular organization, other than one with a national
reputation, is credible. Both the reputable and the disreputable are on
the Web, and many Web users lack the experience and knowledge to
distinguish between them. Increasingly, Web development tools have made
it simple for bigots to create sites that visually resemble those of
reputable organizations. Consequently, hate groups using the Web can
more easily portray themselves as legitimate voices of authority.
DON BLACK
Since its creation, Stormfront has served as a veritable
supermarket of online hate, stocking its shelves with many forms of
anti-Semitism and racism. In its first two years, Stormfront featured
the writings of William Pierce of the neo-Nazi National Alliance; David
Duke; representatives of the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical
Review and other assorted extremists. By 1997, Black's site became home
to the Web pages of other extremists, such as Aryan Nations and Ed
Fields, racist publisher of The Truth At Last, a hate-filled newspaper.
He also posted new reprints of white supremacist articles and essays,
such as The Talmud: Judaism's holiest book documented and exposed.
Meant to inflame Christians by characterizing the Talmud as primarily
anti-Christian and filled with ``malice,'' ``hate-mongering'' and
``barbarities,'' this particularly scurrilous tract willfully distorts
and misrepresents an important religious document while demonstrating a
complete lack of understanding of its history, complexity, and role in
Jewish religious practice.
Some of Black's recent efforts have involved the expansion of
Stormfront: enlarging its collection of links, adding an interactive
chat room, and housing additional racist Web sites. One of these sites,
Our Legacy of Truth, offers the text of works such as ``Proof of Negro
Inferiority'' by Alexander Winchell and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, as
well as Willie Martin's ``1001 Quotes By and About Jews.'' This
pernicious compendium of quotations strings together mistranslated
remarks made by Jews, statements of well-known non-Jews taken out of
context, and the ravings of anti-Semites, so as to give readers the
impression that Jews are constantly striving for global control.
Another site now housed by Black, White Singles, serves as a free
dating service for white supremacists. ``Women and men listed on WS
[White Singles] are heterosexual, white gentiles only,'' its Home Page
declares. Well over 200 men and women have registered for this service,
many of them submitting pictures of themselves for viewing by
prospective mates. A third new site at Stormfront, White Nationalist
News Agency (NNA), posts the text of articles from the Associated Press
and other reputable news sources, seemingly without legal permission.
Attached to these articles are the racist and anti-Semitic comments of
Vincent Breeding, NNA editor and National Alliance activist of Tampa,
Florida.
Beyond his additions to Stormfront, Black has begun to help other
white supremacists by hosting their sites without publicly admitting
that he is doing so. Unlike sites such as The Truth at Last or White
Nationalist News Agency, which are housed by Black and are in effect
part of Stormfront, it is not readily apparent that he services these
other sites.
Adrian Edward Marlow of Suisun City, California, maintains one of
these sites, White Pride World Wide.\10\ In fact, Marlow owns Black's
Web server, the computer that contains his Web site and makes it
available to Internet users. Black rents this server from Marlow and
controls it electronically from a remote location: his home in West
Palm Beach, Florida.\11\ Marlow also uses his own server to co-host
white supremacist sites with Don Black.
Not surprisingly, White Pride World Wide is advertised on
Stormfront and links to the mailing lists and chat room at Black's
site. The rest of the site reflects Black's values as well: it includes
``1001 Quotes By and About Jews,'' Madison Grant's racist tract The
Passing of the Great Race and transcriptions of Louis Beam's speeches.
Like Stormfront, White Pride World Wide also houses other racist Web
sites, such as Verboten (a German-language extremist site) and
women.wpww.com (a site created by and for white supremacist women).
Black hosts a site named Blitzcast, which Stormfront and White
Pride World Wide recommend for those seeking online, racist audio
``broadcasts.'' Using free audio software easily downloadable from the
Web, visitors to Blitzcast can listen to the speeches of American Nazi
Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, the weekly radio addresses of
National Alliance leader William Pierce, and the ravings of anti-
Semitic Jew Benjamin Freedman. Also appearing at Blitzcast is Frank
Weltner, who uses the pseudonym ``Von Goldstein Mohammed'' and runs Jew
Watch, yet another site hosted by Black.
Jew Watch organizes its anti-Semitic materials much in the same way
a popular Web directory might group more benign information. Weltner
presents accusations that Jews were behind the terrors caused by
Russia's Communist regime in ``Jews, Communism, and The Job of Killing
Off the USSR's Christians.'' ``Jewish Genocides Today and Yesterday''
describes an alleged Jewish plan to deport non-Jews from the U.S. in
1946. ``90 percent of All United States News-papers Are Owned and Run
by Jews'' repeats the oft-heard charge that Jews run the media, and
``The Rothschild Internationalist-Zionist-Banking-One World Order
Family'' claims that Jews control the world of finance. Adolf Hitler's
writings, transcripts of Father Charles Coughlin's anti- Semitic radio
broadcasts, and the text of Henry Ford Sr.'s bigoted International Jew
are all available at Jew Watch as well.
When Marlow created Web sites at more than ten domain names that
resembled the names of major daily newspapers, another misleading Web
venture involving Black garnered attention. In October 1998, Marlow
linked these sites directly to Stormfront. Consequently, Web users
looking for news about Philadelphia at ``philadelphiainquirer.com,''
for example, ended up visiting Don Black's site, not the Philadelphia
Inquirer Home Page (which is located at phillynews.com). Other
newspapers affected included the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Chicago
Sun-Times, the Atlanta Constitution, and the London Telegraph.
As Black's site has grown and he has aggressively continued to
promote it, an increasing number of Web users have been visiting
Stormfront. Black told the Associated Press that the number of contacts
to Stormfront doubled during the domain name incident, to 2,000 per
day. According to Black, Web surfers have accessed Stormfront more than
a million times since its debut.
Web users visiting Stormfront right now will likely find a bold
advertisement in the lower left-hand corner of their screens. By
clicking on it, they arrive at the Web site for perhaps America's best-
known and most politically active racist: Black's mentor, David Duke.
DAVID DUKE
Like Don Black, David Duke first became an active racist as a teen-
ager. Soon after, as a student at Louisiana State University, he
founded the neo-Nazi group White Youth Alliance. After his graduation,
Duke founded the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and launched a publicity
blitz that boosted its membership.
Duke's days as a Klan leader ended abruptly in 1980, after he was
accused of trying to sell his group's membership list. Duke left the
Klan to establish and head the National Association for the Advancement
of White People (NAAWP), which he himself confirmed was simply a Klan
without robes. Though Duke shed his official role in the NAAWP when he
became more politically active, he continued to maintain ties to the
group and its agenda continued to parallel his.
Running as a Republican, Duke won a Louisiana State Legislature
seat in January 1989, despite scrutiny and opposition from national
Republican leaders. While in office, he continued to sell neo-Nazi
literature. While claiming that he had repudiated racism, Duke made
statements such as ``Jews are trying to destroy all other cultures.''
Duke won 43.5 percent of the vote in an unsuccessful 1990 U.S. Senate
race and 700,000 votes in a 1991 race for the governorship of
Louisiana.
After an unsuccessful Presidential bid in 1992, Duke retreated from
the political arena but continued to concentrate on raising his media
profile. He tried his luck as a radio talk show host in 1993, but his
controversial program, the ``David Duke Conservative Hotline,'' proved
unpopular. Two years after Duke failed to raise the $7,000 needed to
continue broadcasting his program, he established The David Duke Report
Online, a less costly venue for disseminating his views.
David Duke has embraced the Internet as a key to the future of the
white supremacist movement. An article featured prominently at his
site, ``The Coming White Revolution--Born on the Internet,'' outlines
his high hopes that the Internet will ``facilitate a world-wide
revolution of White awareness.''
Concerned that the ``non-white birthrate,'' ``massive
immigration,'' and ``racial intermarriage'' will ``reduce the founding
people of America into a minority,'' Duke boasts at his Web site about
the ``genetic potential'' of ``our people,'' stressing the ``innate
intellectual and psychological differences'' between whites and Blacks.
In another piece posted at his site, ``Race and Christianity,''
Duke writes, ``I truly believe that the future of this country,
civilization, and planet is inseparably bound up with the destiny of
our White race. I think, as the history of Christianity has shown, that
our people have been the driving force in its triumph.''
In November 1998, Duke renamed and redesigned his site. The site,
now simply called David Duke, pictures Duke amid colorful images of an
American flag, the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore, and the White
House. A ``David Duke Biography'' portrays the former Klan leader as a
respectable citizen, listing the awards and degrees he has received and
pointing out that he is a ``publicly-elected Republican official''
(Duke currently serves as the Chairman of the St. Tammany, Louisiana,
Republican Parish Executive Committee). Duke's site also sells his
autobiography, My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding; Duke
promises to personally autograph all copies of the book ordered from
the site.
Though Duke's site does not possess the depth or breadth of a site
like Stormfront, his well-known name may attract curious, potential
extremists browsing the Web. This is particularly troublesome
considering Duke's expressed belief in the Internet as a white
supremacist recruitment tool and his recent offline activities.
After years spent denying his racism in order to advance in
politics, Duke has once again openly embraced the white supremacist
movement. In a July 1997 article published by The Tallahassee Democrat,
he acknowledged that his politics were becoming ``more radical'' in
reaction to what he referred to as a `` `growing undercurrent' of white
frustration.'' Most disturbing are his speeches given in 1997 and 1998
at four separate events sponsored by the National Alliance, a group the
Anti-Defamation League has identified as the single most dangerous
organized hate group in the United States today.
the national alliance
The National Alliance (NA) was originally established as the
``Youth for Wallace'' campaign in support of the failed 1968
Presidential bid of Alabama Governor George Wallace. After Wallace
lost, the group was renamed the ``National Youth Alliance.'' In 1970,
William Pierce, a former American Nazi Party official, joined the
group, and in 1974 (around the time that David Duke founded his Knights
of the Ku Klux Klan), Pierce took the reins and dropped the word
``Youth'' from the organization's name.
Now in his mid-60's, Pierce still leads the group out of a compound
in West Virginia. Using the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, he authored the
novel The Turner Diaries, which details a successful world revolution
by an all-white army, and the systematic extermination of Blacks, Jews,
and other minorities. Many extremists regard The Turner Diaries as an
explicit terrorism manual, and the novel is believed to have inspired
several major acts of violence, including the April 1995 Oklahoma City
bombing. Pierce continues to encourage violence, viewing it as the
ultimate solution to what he terms ``the Jewish problem.'' His weekly
radio program, American Dissident Voices (ADV), is rife with incendiary
speech. Between his novels and his broadcasts, Pierce provides bigots
with both an ideological and a practical framework for committing acts
of mass destruction.
The National Alliance is currently the largest and most active neo-
Nazi organization in the nation. In the past several years, dozens of
violent crimes, including murders, bombings and robberies, have been
traced to NA members or appear to have been inspired by the group's
propaganda. At the same time, the organization's membership base has
experienced major growth, with its numbers more than doubling since
1992.
The NA's current strength can be attributed to several factors: its
willingness to cooperate with other extremists (such as David Duke);
its energetic recruitment and other promotional activities; its
vicious, but deceptively intellectualized propaganda, and a skillful
embrace of the Internet.
A former physics professor at Oregon State University, Pierce was
quick to understand the potential power of the Internet. Today, the
NA's site is one of the best-organized and most informative hate sites
on the Web. It promotes Pierce's Nazi-like ideology: biological
determinism, hierarchical organization, an emphasis on will and
sacrifice, and ``a long-term eugenics program involving at least the
entire populations of Europe and America.''
In the section of its site entitled ``What is the National
Alliance?,'' the NA calls for the creation of ``White Living Space''
purged of all non-whites and demands the formation of a government
``wholly committed to the service of [the white] race and subject to no
non-Aryan influence.'' On the site, this section is reprinted in
Swedish, Dutch, and German, as are French and German translations of
The Turner Diaries and the text of selected ADV broadcasts in Swedish.
Also included on the NA's site are Pierce's anti-Semitic screed
``Who Rules America'' (a particular favorite among online bigots) and
articles from the NA's print publications, Free Speech and National
Vanguard. These documents contain familiar themes: America is in
decline, its vital essence polluted by non-Aryans, and only the
revolutionary program of the NA can save it.
The NA Web site also features an online version of the NA's
National Vanguard Books catalog, which offers an extensive selection of
racist and anti-Semitic books, videotapes, and cassettes. These items
are divided into categories such as ``National Socialist Revolution'';
``Race: Science and Sociology''; and an especially long list of
materials concerned with ``Communism, Zionism, Feminism, and the
Jews.''
Visitors can order books from the National Alliance by downloading
a user-friendly order form from the NA site, printing it out, and
sending it to the NA with payment. Additionally, ``any White person (a
non-Jewish person of wholly European ancestry) of good character and at
least 18 years of age who accepts as his own the goals of the National
Alliance'' can apply for membership using the Web, by downloading and
printing out a membership form and mailing it to the group. Users can
also find items relating to a particular topic by plugging in key words
to the site's search engine; over 250 items turned up when searching
for the term ``Jews.''
NA sympathizers have also increased the group's exposure by using
public Internet forums, sending unsolicited E-mail messages, and
disrupting USENET newsgroups. In the ``Reviews and Commentaries''
section of the Web site for Amazon.com, visitors are invited to comment
on books they have read. In at least two reviews (no longer at the
site), NA supporters promoted their organization's message. Reviewing
The Turner Diaries, one of these sympathizers urged other readers to
``contact the author's organization, the National Alliance, and get
involved in the struggle for self-determination and freedom for our
people.'' Another commentary lamented that whites who ``just sit on
their butts all day and allow the Jewish takeover of the U.S. to
continue unchallenged really need to read the chapter called the `Day
of the Rope.' Everyone else who wants to fight needs to join the
[NA].''
In October 1994, thousands of people in four states received an
unsolicited E-mail message containing NA propaganda from an untraceable
address. An action like this is considered a serious breach of
``netiquette'' (responsible Internet use). The NA disavowed this act
but noted its interest in sending unsolicited messages in its
newsletter.
A similar transmission of another National Alliance piece occurred
in 1995, on the eve of the Jewish High Holy Days, and again in February
1998, when hundreds of people received an unsolicited E-mail message
containing the transcript of Pierce's ADV program entitled ``Bill,
Monica, and Saddam.'' In it, Pierce claimed that by writing about the
Monica Lewinsky affair, the ``Jewish media bosses'' harmed President
Clinton, who ``would do whatever they told him to do,'' but ``had
screwed up so many times that he had become a liability for them.''
Those sympathetic to the NA have also targeted specific
institutions, such as Southwest Texas University. In April 1998, three
Black students there were charged with raping two white students at a
dormitory party. The campus NAACP chapter voiced opposition to the
charges and criticized school administrators for a ``rush to
judgment.'' In response, a National Alliance supporter sent 16,000
unsolicited E-mail messages to students and faculty calling on the
NAACP to apologize to ``victims of rape'' and all white women. ``The
truth is,'' the E-mail read, ``White people in this country are under
attack by an ever-growing population of black criminals.'' NA
sympathizers have also posted thousands of messages to USENET
newsgroups, seeing them as a way to broadcast their message widely. In
its July 1995 Bulletin, the NA encouraged ``the Alliance's seasoned
cybernauts'' to spread its Web site address ``as widely as possible.''
In a 1996 speech to the NA's Cleveland unit, Pierce described the
NA's organized effort to dominate discussions in USENET newsgroups. He
outlined the operations of an ``Alliance Cybercell,'' a group of NA
supporters active in USENET newsgroups. ``We have organized members
working as teams, not identifying themselves as Alliance members but
going into these discussion groups and virtually taking them over,''
Pierce explained. These cell leaders ``decide what discussion groups
they want to get into * * * analyze the situation, analyze the types of
propaganda that have been presented by the other side and we go in
there and just tear them apart.'' Though Pierce encouraged online NA
supporters to shift their recruiting activities from public debate to
private discussions, one still finds NA members descending on USENET
newsgroups and other public forums where they believe they might find
sympathizers, spewing their hateful propaganda and inviting people to
visit the NA Web site.
NA members correspond privately via E-mail not only with potential
recruits, but also with each other. The organization claims to have
established a ``Rapid Response Team (RRT),'' a group of NA volunteers
who are contacted via E-mail to respond to special situations.
According to the NA, this team serves many purposes, from gathering
information to quickly alerting other NA members in their area when an
``emergency'' arises.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WHITE PEOPLE
While David Duke has recently allied himself with the National
Alliance, his NAAWP has also jumped on the Internet bandwagon. Duke
once described the NAAWP as ``a perfect foil for me.'' Around 1990,
soon after his successful run for the Louisiana State Legislature, he
resigned from leadership of the group, but he still remained active
behind the scenes. Duke's campaign treasurer, Paul Allen, became the
NAAWP's leader, and the office for Duke's unsuccessful 1991
gubernatorial campaign served as the group's headquarters. The NAAWP
has described Duke as ``former NAAWP President and still, best friend
to the organization,'' and Duke's Web site proudly identifies him as
``founder and former National President of the NAAWP.''
The NAAWP portrays itself as a non-profit ``white rights''
organization that defends white interests and rights in the same
fashion that the NAACP works for the ``Advancement of Colored People.''
Unlike some groups that proudly embrace the label of ``racist,'' the
NAAW is more subtle in its hate. As early as 1985, the NAAWP encouraged
its followers to mute their white supremacist views and ``never refer
to racial superiority or inferiority, only talk about racial
differences, carefully avoiding value judgements.'' The NAAWP North
Carolina chapter Web site responds to the question ``Is the NAAWP a
`hate group'?'' with a firm ``absolutely not.'' At the national NAAWP
site, a group leader writes, ``I don't condemn black people. I want the
best for them, both from a compassionate Christian-point-of-view, and
because if they escape from the cycle of poverty, drugs, and crime,
then we too will be better off.'' According to the NAAWP Michigan
chapter, ``the NAAWP doesn't stand for hating anyone, and more
importantly it never has. It's about building a new, better society. A
homogeneous community where everyone contributes, everyone benefits,
and all share a common set of values and cultural beliefs.''
The NAAWP, like David Duke, has tried to hide its hate, but its
racist and anti-Semitic views, like those of its founder, are evident.
NAAWP News, the group's newsletter, has regularly published articles
with titles like ``Anti-Semitism is normal for people seeking to
control their own destiny''; ``Jewish control of the media is the
single most dangerous threat to Christianity,'' and ``Why most Negroes
are criminals.''
On its Web sites as well, the NAAWP shows its true colors. ``Tired
of Black History Month, Martin Luther King Day, Miss Black USA, Black
Entertainment Network, The United Negro College Fund, [and] Affirmative
Action?'' asks the NAAWP Arkansas chapter site. The Hawaii chapter's
site calls gays ``the worst predators on [sic] our children'' and
declares, ``the Jesse Jacksons of this World just want White Women
around to Pimp for Money and Drugs and to make the White Man Pay.''
The National NAAWP Web site offers particularly clear examples of
the bigotry that underlies the NAAWP's talk about ``white rights.'' It
presents an anti-Semitic essay by National Alliance member Kevin Alfred
Strom with the comment, ``this essay is a real call to all arms for all
the races and nations of the world to rise up against these hypocrites,
deceivers and tyrants--the j*ws [sic].'' The site also posts another
essay by Strom, ``The Beast as Saint,'' which purports to discredit Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. as a plagiarizer and a patron of prostitutes. A
third document at the site, ``Jews, Jews, Jews,'' offers ``proof that
the Jew really does control the media'' in the way of a list of
``Jewish CEO's.
KU KLUX KLAN
NAAWP members sometimes attend rallies organized by an older,
better-known hate group: the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). For more than 130
years, the Klan has provided a model for extremists by actively
practicing and promoting bigotry, intimidation and violence.
The strength of America's oldest hate group has fluctuated, peaking
and receding at various times in American history, coinciding with the
rise and decline of social and economic discontent in the nation. The
economic, political and cultural changes in the South after the Civil
War, the dislocations in the early 1920's and the struggle for civil
rights in the 1950's and 1960's all fueled Klan growth.
In recent years, as a result of the counteractions of law
enforcement and civil rights groups, changing fashions in the extremist
movement, and internal power struggles, the Klan has lost much of its
clout. David Duke's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which fell into
decline when Don Black went to jail, underwent a major split in 1994.
Other large, national Klans active in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's
have also disintegrated. For instance, a 1987 Southern Poverty Law
Center legal victory effectively dismantled the United Klans of America
after its members lynched a Black teen-ager, Michael Donald. A 1993
court order disbanded the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
after group members pelted civil rights activists with rocks and
bottles during a brotherhood march in Forsyth County, Georgia.
Still, in the 1990's, Klan members remain active and violent,
planning terrorist bombings and burning Black churches. In April 1997,
three Klan members were arrested in a plot to blow up a natural gas
refinery near Fort Worth, Texas. Three more men with links to the Klan
were arrested in February 1998 for planning to poison water supplies,
rob banks, plant bombs, and commit assassinations. In a July 1998 court
judgment, the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, its South Carolina
state leader Horace King, and several other Klansmen were held
responsible for their roles in a conspiracy to burn down a Black
church.
Like other white supremacist groups, the Klan has turned to the
Internet as a means to revitalize their movement and attract a new
cadre of supporters and activists. ``Up until last month, the Knights
of the Ku Klux Klan Realm of Florida was very small,'' writes Brian K.
Bass of his Klan group. ``But now we have a website up, and our numbers
are growing dramatically. We picked up 6 new members in just the last
two weeks, and have other applications under consideration. I feel that
this is due to the website.'' On the Web, some Klan factions favor the
toned-down rhetoric associated with the NAAWP and other hate groups
trying to appear mainstream. The first Klan page on the Web belonged to
a group that adopted this strategy: Thom Robb's Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan.
Robb's site presented a ``kinder, gentler'' Klan that teaches white
racial pride but professes to be neither anti-Black nor anti-Catholic.
Whites ``have a right to be proud of their race'' the site explains,
adding that the popular image of a racist Klan is a lie deliberately
spread by the liberal media.
Nonetheless, Robb's site relied on traditional Klan themes: whites
are victims of intolerance who face racial extinction from a horde of
Blacks and foreigners eager to intermarry and destroy American culture
and religion; America should belong to Americans, not Asians, Arabs or
Jews. Furthermore, early incarnations of Robb's site reprinted the
``Franklin Prophecy,'' a vile, anti-Semitic speech falsely attributed
to Benjamin Franklin.
Today, Robb's Klan site reflects even stronger efforts to appear
respectable, particularly in stating, like Duke, that the Klan's goal
should be ``political power.'' This ``political power'' is to be used
to combat ``anti-white and anti-Christian propaganda'' and to promote
``White Christian civilization.'' Robb remains dismissive of the Klan's
violent image, claiming his group ``is well known through out [sic] law
enforcement for being non-violent.''
Some Klan members are not content with this toned-down language.
One unabashedly bigoted Klan with more than a few Web sites, the
Knights of the White Kamellia was founded in Louisiana in 1993. This
group seeks to ``maintain and defend the superiority of the White
race,'' maintain ``a marked difference between the White and Negro
race,'' prevent the government ``from falling into the hands of the
Negro and or the ungodly,'' and educate ``against miscegenation of the
races.''
Many other Klans are also now on the Web. Web users can find a
membership application for the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
perhaps today's most vocal and active Klan, at that group's Web site. A
few sites use the old Klan moniker ``Invisible Empire,'' among them
America's Invisible Empire of Alabama and Pennsylvania's Invisible
Empire KKK. Smaller regional groups, such as the Southern Cross
Militant Knights and the Northwest Knights, are active on the Internet
as well.
While the Klans on the Web represent different factions and espouse
various viewpoints, their Web sites are formatted in similar ways. Most
Klan sites contain a membership application, a list of upcoming
rallies, a statement of principles, an explanation of customs (such as
cross burning), and a spurious account of Klan history. At many sites,
the three latter items are adaptations, if not direct appropriations,
of the materials originally posted at Robb's Klan sites. In fact, Robb
threatened another Klan group with legal action for posting a document
that Robb claims belongs exclusively to his Klan.
Furthermore, some Klan sites link to other Klan sites with which
they are not affiliated. For instance, the North Georgia White Knights
Web site links to many chapters of the Knights of the White Kamellia,
the New Order Knights, and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The site
for America's Invisible Empire links to the Web pages of the Northwest
White Knights and Knights of the White Kamellia, among others. Such
links, as well as the similarities between KKK sites, demonstrate the
bonds among the different Klan factions, despite their infighting.
IDENTITY CHURCH MOVEMENT
The Identity Church movement, a pseudo-theological manifestation of
racism and anti-Semitism on the far right, first came to light in the
U.S. during the late 1970's and early 1980's, though its roots lie in
the late years of the last century, with the British movement known as
Anglo-Israelism.
Anglo-Israelism held that white Anglo-Saxons are descended from the
Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Adherents to this doctrine believed that
England and the U.S. are the true Israel in which Biblical promises to
the ``Chosen People'' are to be fulfilled. The Identity movement takes
the position that white Anglo-Saxons--not Jews--are the real Biblical
``Chosen People;'' that Jews are the descendants of a union between Eve
and Satan; and that the white race is inherently superior to other
races. Identity believers assert that Blacks and other nonwhites are
``mud people,'' on the same spiritual level as animals, and therefore
without souls.
A nationwide movement, Identity has filled dozens of ``churches''
with its hate. Additionally, Identity has become the ``religion'' of
choice for many hate groups, including Aryan Nations and the Posse
Comitatus, in addition to some factions of the Ku Klux Klan.
Numerous Identity ``churches'' have established a Web presence in
recent years, among them America's Promise Ministries, Stone Kingdom
Ministries, and Kingdom Identity Ministries. Many of these
organizations have made good use of the Web to market their pamphlets,
books, and videotapes to their supporters. America's Promise Ministries
offers Web users a vast online catalog of books, pamphlets, audio
tapes, and video tapes filled with their racist beliefs. Along with a
section full of online Identity books and book reviews, the Stone
Kingdom Ministries Web site lists hundreds of ``Bible Studies on
Audiocassettes'' for sale. Among bumper stickers, decals, charts, and
other merchandise, the Kingdom Identity Ministries Web site retails
Identity-based books written for children. Also at the Kingdom Identity
site, Web users can enroll in a correspondence course, which consists
of studying almost 300 pages of Identity materials, to receive a
``Certificate in Christian Education.''
With links to these ``churches'' at its Web site, the bimonthly
newspaper The Jubilee of Midpines, California, serves as a national
umbrella publication for Identity believers. Like the Web sites for
those groups, the Jubilee site puts the power of the Web to use to
raise funds. In addition to selling books and videotapes that the
Jubilee guarantees ``you won't find in the B. Dalton bookstore,''
visitors to the Jubilee site can sign up for subscriptions to the
newspaper's print edition; buy advertising in its print or online
versions, and purchase inexpensive, long distance telephone service
that will benefit The Jubilee.
While some Identity ``churches'' focus on the Web's commercial
potential, paramilitary Identity groups such as the Posse Comitatus and
Aryan Nations have used it to encourage action.
POSSE COMITATUS
William Potter Gale created an Identity group named Posse
Comitatus, which means ``power of the county'' in Latin. Other Posses
unaffiliated with Gale sprang up in its wake, particularly during the
1970's and 1980's. Loosely affiliated bands of armed anti-tax and anti-
Federal government vigilantes and survivalists, these Posses believed
that all government power is rooted at the county, not Federal, level.
Because they are convinced that the Federal government is
controlled by ``enemies'' (usually Jews), Posse adherents resist paying
taxes as well as other duties of law-abiding citizens. Aspects of the
Posse's ideology, most notably its fierce hostility to Federal
authority, reverberate among today's militia and common law court
activists.
In the 1970's, Posses attracted Klan members and other anti-Semites
(among them David Duke), and in 1983, these groups gained nationwide
attention when active Posse member Gordon Kahl murdered two Federal
Marshals in North Dakota and became a fugitive. When Kahl died in a
shootout with Arkansas law enforcement officers, Posses and other
Identity groups made him a martyr.
In 1991, James Wickstrom, an Identity minister and Posse leader
based in Michigan, was convicted of plotting to distribute $100,000 in
counterfeit bills to white supremacists at a 1988 Aryan Nations event.
He was released from prison in 1994 and today runs a Posse Web site
with fellow Identity ``Pastor'' August Kreis of Pennsylvania.
At his Posse Web site, Kreis calls ``the occupying forces'' of the
``zionist [sic] or jewish [sic] occupied government'' the enemies of
``We the People'' and describes them as the reason that the government
has ``grossly overstepped its bounds.''
Kreis and Wickstrom also use their Web site to editorialize about
current events. Written by Kreis, ``Villain or American Folk Hero?''
voices support for alleged abortion clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph.
Kreis claims that ``those who call themselves Identity'' and ``a
growing consensus of conservative Christians'' believe Rudolph has
``done the will of * * * God.''
In justifying Rudolph's alleged actions, Kreis stresses that ``it
is * * * an inarguable matter of Scriptural mandate that those involved
with [abortion] have committed capital murder--a crime punishable by
DEATH!'' Kreis maintains that ``several hundred [Jewish Occupational
Government] agents'' are chasing Rudolph to ``execute him'' on the
spot, and he urges ``the proud European White folk living in this
country'' to ``rise up against this tyrannical, parasitic [Jewish]
communist government.'' Perhaps Rudolph engenders greater sympathy
among this group because he himself may be an Identity believer: in
1984, he and his family spent several months at the Schell City,
Missouri, Church of Israel compound run by Identity preacher Dan
Gayman.
With regard to the brutal murder on October 23, 1998, of Dr.
Barnett Slepian of upstate New York, likely targeted because he
performed abortions, Kreis and Wickstrom comment, ``Not much needs to
be said. The justice in the `putting to DEATH' of this jewish [sic]
abortionist says it all! * * * Pray that other True Israelite Warriors
across this land continue to rid our country of these murdering
bastards!''
ARYAN NATIONS AND THE ORDER
A contemporary of Posse Comitatus co-founder William Potter Gale,
Wesley Swift was a Klan organizer who served as an aide to Gerald L.K.
Smith, for many years America's most notorious peddler of anti-
Semitism. During the 1950's, Swift was a leader of a Los Angeles church
called the ``Anglo-Saxon Christian Congregation.'' When Swift died,
``Rev.'' Richard G. Butler proclaimed his ``Church of Jesus Christ
Christian'' (CJCC the direct successor to Swift's church. In the early
1970's, Butler formed a new group around his church: Aryan Nations
(AN). Since then, he has held court at a 20-acre AN/CJCC compound in
Northern Idaho, anticipating the creation of an exclusively white
``national racist state'' in the Pacific Northwest. At its Web site, AN
preaches that God's creation of Adam marked ``the placing of the White
Race upon this earth''; and that ``the twelve tribes of Israel'' are
``now scattered throughout the world'' and are ``now known as the
Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Teutonic, Scandinavian, Celtic peoples.'' As a
corollary, all non-whites are seen as inferior, but it is the Jews who
are singled out as the special object of AN's ``theologically'' based
hatred.
AN vilifies Jews as ``the natural enemy of our Aryan (White) Race.
This is attested by scripture and all secular history. The Jew is like
a destroying virus that attacks our racial body to destroy our Aryan
culture and the purity of our Race.''
Citing the Book of Revelation, AN envisions a ``battle'' being
fought ``between the children of darkness (today known as Jews) and the
children of light * * * the Aryan Race, the true Israel of the bible.''
According to AN, there will ``soon'' be a ``day of reckoning,'' in
which ``the usurper will be thrown out by the terrible might of
Yahweh's people, as they return to their roots and their special
destiny.''
In this struggle between the Jews and ``the children of light,'' AN
claims that the Jews have a surrogate: the United States Government,
often referred to as ``ZOG'' (Zionist Occupied Government). In 1996, AN
posted to its site an ``Aryan Declaration of Independence,'' which
declared, ``the history of the present Zionist Occupied Government of
the United States of America is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations * * * [all] having a direct object--the establishment of an
absolute tyranny over these states.'' Holding ``the eradication of the
White race and its culture'' as ``one of its foremost purposes,'' this
``ZOG'' is accused of relinquishing the ``powers of government to
private corporations, White traitors and ruling class Jewish
families.''
AN perceives itself as literally surrounded by enemies: vigorously
fighting back is not only a solution to its problems, but a duty.
According to AN, those whites who resist ``ZOG'' are ``chosen and
faithful,'' and the white ``Racial Nation has a right and is under
obligation to preserve itself and its members.''
Although primarily an Identity group, AN embraces a neo-Nazi
philosophy. Richard Butler himself has praised Hitler, and at the AN
Web site, which announces, ``WE BELIEVE in the gam-ma'di'on * * * a
cross formed of four capital gammas * * * in the figure of a
swastika,'' he is pictured giving the raised stiff-arm Nazi salute.
One of the most ambitious Identity Web sites, the AN site contains
a membership application, a substantial book catalog, an online
``Literature Archives'' of hateful texts, and a long list of links to
other hate sites.
AN is no stranger to violence. During the early 1980's, several of
Butler's followers joined members of the neo-Nazi National Alliance and
some Klan splinter groups to form a secret organization called The
Silent Brotherhood, also known as The Order, which planned to overthrow
the U.S. government.
To raise money for its planned revolution, The Order engaged in a
crime spree involving murder, counterfeiting, bank robberies, and
armored-car hold-ups. Ostensibly, the group's activities ended with the
death of its founder and leader, Robert J. Mathews, in a shootout with
Federal agents in December 1984 and the incarceration of many of its
members. Yet The Order has taken on a new life on the World Wide Web,
serving as inspiration for today's Identity adherents and other white
supremacists.
Hosted by the same Internet Service Provider as the AN Web site,
the 14 Word Press Web site is devoted to the work of David Lane, an
imprisoned member of The Order. Lane's best-known legacy is the ``14
words'': ``We must secure the existence of our people and a future for
White children.'' Despite the fact that Lane is a convicted felon
serving a 190-year sentence in a high-security prison, his writings,
including pieces from his monthly Focus Fourteen newsletter, can reach
millions through the Internet. Among his columns, many of which are
offered at the 14 Word Press site, is a sympathetic letter to convicted
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
NEO-NAZIS
The symbols associated with Hitler's Nazis are attractive to bigots
on the Web because they suggest anti-Semitism in an immediate, forceful
way to the general public.
Like Identity ``churches,'' neo-Nazis use the Web to market
merchandise, selling items emblazoned with the instantly recognizable
symbols of Hitler's Nazi party. Naming itself for the Shutzstaffel, the
elite section of the Nazi Party that ran Hitler's extermination camps,
the online store SS Enterprises specializes in selling Nazi-related
paraphernalia, including newly-designed T-shirts, pins, patches, hats,
stickers, flags, belt buckles, arm bands, and helmets bearing
swastikas, the initials ``SS,'' a German eagle, or an iron cross. Also
available are Nazi patches, pins, rings, and hats designed during
Hitler's era. Like the T-shirt a music fan might buy at a rock concert,
one shirt reads ``Adolf Hitler European Tour 1939-1945,'' listing the
nations that Hitler invaded during those years. Other white supremacist
T-shirts sold by SS Enterprises feature racist slogans such as ``If we
knew they were going to be this much trouble, we'd a picked our own
damn cotton!!'' or depictions of Klansmen behind phrases like ``Boyz N'
the Hood.'' Another shirt depicts a ``Black Family Tree'': a tree with
nooses hung from it, seemingly ready for a Klan-style lynching.
At Our Hero's Library Web site, twenty something neo-Nazi Tom Smith
proudly displays a picture of his ``Aryan hero,'' Adolf Hitler, flanked
by animated, swirling swastikas. Hosted by Don Black's Stormfront,
Smith's site features numerous Hitlerian essays covering topics such as
eugenics and ``Aryan'' culture. Amidst photos of Jews with their eyes
blacked out, he lists Jewish ``powerlords'' and posts a Jewish
``surname index.'' ``Before buying anything always check to make sure
the company is not j*wish [sic],'' Smith writes. Seeing Jewish
conspiracies everywhere, he calls Bob Dole, Bill Clinton, Ross Perot,
and Pat Buchanan Jewish ``marionettes''; blames Jews for schoolyard
violence in Arkansas, and declares them responsible for the conflict
between Ireland and Britain. ``The J*w has been and is always very
aware of the conflict amongst non-j*ws, and is tireless in his pursuit
of trying to profit from the internal feuds of his enemies,'' Smith
writes. ``When these feuds are not [innate] in and of themselves, the
j*w creates new feuds via his presence in each of the opposing
countries to create a new profit-scenario for himself.'' Also available
at Our Hero's Library are downloadable copies of Smith's extensive
messages to USENET newsgroups, the Internet's system of electronic
bulletin boards.
Other neo-Nazis on the Web represent more established organizations
and have been active in the white supremacist movement much longer,
since the days of American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell.
Following Rockwell's assassination by a disgruntled party member in
1967, Matthias (Matt) Koehl took over his American Nazi Party, renaming
it the National Socialist White People's Party. In 1970, NSWPP member
Frank Collin started his own group, the National Socialist Party of
America (NSPA), made famous by its attempts to march through the
predominantly Jewish town of Skokie, Illinois in 1977. Another former
NSWPP member, Harold Covington joined the NSPA in the mid-1970's. At
that time, Gary ``Gerhard'' Lauck, who went on to found the NSDAP-AO (a
German acronym meaning National Socialist German Workers Party--
Overseas Organization), was also a member of Collin's group. Covington
took over the NSPA in 1980, after Collin was sentenced to seven years
in prison for sexually abusing children. In 1982, Koehl dropped the
name NSWPP in favor of the name ``The New Order,'' and Covington's NSPA
disbanded. In 1994, Covington founded a new group using the old name
once used by Koehl: NSWPP. Today, Covington and Lauck both have a
presence on the World Wide Web.
Harold Covington was one of the first neo-Nazis on the Web,
establishing a site as early as 1996. Covington's original site defined
National Socialism as ``a world view for White People'' and listed
guiding principles such as ``Racial Idealism'' and ``The Upward
Development of the White Race.'' The site listed ``Ten Basic Principles
of National Socialism,'' which urged ``Aryan'' racial purity and
conquest of the world. Covington lauded Rockwell at length and provided
links to other white supremacist sites.
``Gerhard'' Lauck has also been online for many years. In the early
days of cyberspace, Lauck's materials were circulated on a closely
guarded computer network named the ``Thule Network,'' a bulletin board
system similar to the ``Aryan Nation Liberty Net.'' In order to gain
access to the network, prospective users had to pass a loyalty test and
a background check. According to some estimates, over 1,500 neo-Nazis
in Germany had access to Lauck's propaganda via the ``Thule Network,''
which remains active today.
In 1995, Danish authorities, acting on international warrants,
arrested Lauck and agreed to extradite him to Germany, where he was
sentenced in 1996 to four years in prison for inciting racial hatred by
disseminating anti-Semitic and racist material. Lauck was released in
March 1999 and deported to the United States.
While he was in jail, Lauck's Web site featured the headline,
``Free Gerhard Lauck!'' The site said about Lauck's arrest and
imprisonment: ``these illegal and reprehensible acts by the anti-White
authorities are a direct assault upon ALL pro-White organizations. YOU
are under attack now! If International Jewry is allowed to kidnap
Gerhard Lauck their next step will be to systematically silence all
pro-White leaders, organizations, and members worldwide one by one.''
Like other neo-Nazis, Lauck has expressed intense approval for
Hitler and hatred for Jews. He has stated that ``anything that is bad
for the Jews is good for us'' and told a Danish audience that ``the
Jews were treated too nicely in the concentration camps.'' Yet buried
among the Nazi-themed books sold at his Web site were a group of texts
that question whether the Holocaust took place, bearing titles like
``Auschwitz: Truth or Lie?'' and ``Did Six Million Really Die?''
HOLOCAUST DENIAL
Why would an anti-Semitic neo-Nazi such as Gerhard Lauck deny that
the Holocaust took place? A July 1996 message from fellow neo-Nazi
Harold Covington to his National Socialist White Peoples Party E-mail
mailing list provides some possible reasons. Covington comments, ``take
away the Holocaust and both the National Socialists and the Jews become
very different people, almost reversing roles.''
Viewing the Holocaust as a ``seemingly bottomless gold mine in the
form of `reparations' which has financed murderous Israeli aggression
in the Middle East and numerous anti-White Jewish institutions,''
Covington wonders: ``without the Holocaust, what are the Jews?'' His
answer: ``Just a grubby little bunch of international bandits and
assassins and squatters who have perpetrated the most massive, cynical
fraud in human history.''
Likewise, Covington thinks the general public would be ``stunned
with admiration for the brilliance of Adolf Hitler'' \29\ if it
believed the Holocaust did not happen. Paraphrasing prominent Holocaust
historian and Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt, he declares
that ``the real purpose'' of Holocaust denial is ``to make National
Socialism an acceptable political alternative again.
Since 1979, when Willis Carto founded the Institute for Historical
Review (IHR), a sizable Holocaust denial movement has surfaced.
Holocaust deniers make the mendacious claim that the account of Nazi
genocide universally accepted by legitimate historians is false, either
in its entirety or in most of its central facts. To support this claim,
they distort and even fabricate history.
Unlike Harold Covington, most in the Holocaust denial movement try
hard to mask the anti-Semitism underlying their claims. Instead, hoping
to make their views seem respectable, they pretend that their sole goal
is to ``correct'' the historical record. Posing as historians and
cloaking themselves in ersatz scholarship, the deniers claim that the
Holocaust is a Jewish fabrication, not the product of Nazi hatred.
Holocaust deniers' thousands of pages of propaganda on the Web,
presented as academic fact or in the guise of free and open ``debate,''
take particular advantage of many Web users' difficulty distinguishing
between reputable and disreputable Web sites.
When ADL first reported on Holocaust denial Web sites in 1996, only
three existed: Greg Raven's IHR site, Bradley Smith's site for the
Committee for Open Discussion of the Holocaust Story (CODOH), and the
Zundelsite, which promotes the work of Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst
Zundel. Today, these sites are still among the most significant
manifestations of Holocaust denial on the Web, but have been joined by
more than a dozen others, as well as numerous sites with Holocaust-
denial materials alongside other hateful propaganda.
INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW
The California-based IHR, which split with Willis Carto in 1993,
remains the world's single most important outlet for Holocaust-denial
propaganda. While the IHR seeks to gain credibility by working under
the guise of scholarship and impartiality, many of its staffers and
Editorial Advisory Committee members often participate in pro-Nazi and
anti-Jewish activities. Current director Mark Weber was an activist in
the National Alliance during the 1970's, and editorial advisor Robert
Faurisson was convicted three times of violating French hate-crime laws
because of his anti-Semitic activities. Other active participants in
IHR include David Irving, the leading Holocaust denier in England, and
Ernst Zundel, Canada's most notorious neo-Nazi.
From 1996 to 1998, IHR Associate Director Greg Raven housed
extensive IHR materials at his ``personal'' Web site, which he claims
is ``not supported, sponsored, or financed by the Institute for
Historical Review.'' Raven's ``personal'' site continues to exist,
though he moved all of his IHR materials to a separate, ``official''
IHR site in March 1998.
The IHR Web site contains hundreds of online ``revisionist''
pamphlets, books, and articles, as well as a complete index of the JHR.
Among IHR's leaflets, one finds ``Auschwitz myths and facts,'' which
claims that ``Auschwitz was not an extermination center'' and that
``the story of mass killings in `gas chambers' is a myth.'' Many JHR
articles are reprinted in their entirety, including ``Is The Diary of
Anne Frank genuine?'' Additionally, IHR publishes the full text of a
few books at its site, such as Did Six Million Really Die? by British
``revisionist'' Richard Harwood.
BRADLEY SMITH AND CODOH
Formerly the ``Media Project Director'' for IHR, longtime Holocaust
denier Bradley Smith joined current IHR leader Mark Weber in founding
the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) in 1987. On his
Web site, Smith presents himself as an intellectually honest gadfly
with no ax to grind.
Smith works hard to create the image of a man who wants to
encourage reasonable debate among reasonable people. His admission that
``the Hitlerian regime was antisemitic [sic] and persecuted Jews''
seems meant to show that it is intellectual honesty, not anti-Semitism,
that leads him to deny that ``the German state pursued a plan to kill
all Jews or used homicidal `gassing chambers' for mass murder.''
For many years, Smith has been at the center of the deniers'
college outreach program. He first drew public attention when about 70
college newspapers published his Holocaust denial ads, which he still
regularly sends to campus editors, in the early and mid-1990's. All of
these ads are reprinted at the CODOH Web site.
At first, Smith's ads featured long essays that outlined the
deniers' position, such as Mark Weber's ``The `Jewish soap' myth.''
Smith's first widely published ad stated ``the figure of 6 million
Jewish deaths is an irresponsible exaggeration, and * * * no execution
gas chambers existed in any camp in Europe which was under German
control.'' This ad went on to note that the ``purpose'' of accounts of
the Holocaust is ``to drum up world sympathy and political and
financial support for Jewish causes, especially for the formation of
the State of Israel.'' Another early CODOH ad claimed ``The U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum displays no convincing proof whatsoever of
homicidal gas chambers.''
Upset about the high cost of these lengthy ads, Smith soon realized
the power of the Internet. He began to place brief, inexpensive ads in
school papers that merely listed his Web site and E-mail addresses. Not
only did these ads cost less money, they also hid Smith's agenda. In
addition, Smith tried to draw his readers' attention with misleading
slogans such as ``Ignore the Thought Police'' and ``Judge for
yourself.''
Smith's savvy marketing technique was tailor-made for students,
many of whom are comfortable with the Internet, predisposed against
authority, and willing to challenge received wisdom. Students
responding favorably to these deceptive ads would realize Smith's
intention to deny the Holocaust only after visiting the CODOH Web site,
where they would receive his message without mediation.
Once at the CODOH site, students are targeted further. They are
urged to distribute CODOH leaflets on their campuses and fight what
Smith calls the ``Campus Thought Police'' (that is, legitimate
Holocaust historians). Also, students are offered a set of links and
asked to ``choose a major'' such as ``Mathematics,'' ``Science,'' or
``Politics.'' By clicking on a ``major,'' they are linked to Holocaust
denial articles specially tailored to their areas of interest. Also
presented is an innocuous-sounding section titled ``Hot Links to Higher
Learning,'' which contains links to a variety of Holocaust denial
sites; Smith classifies such sites as ``Social, Political and
Historical Activism & Commentary.''
The CODOH Web site today contains a vast amount of Holocaust-denial
information. Visitors to the site can look for any one of over 1,000
separate documents using one of the site's eight search tools, such as
its index of articles by subject and its chronological list of
additions. Particularly troublesome are the sections titled ``War
Crimes Trials'' and ``The Tangled Web: Zionism, Stalinism, and the
Holocaust Story.'' ``War Crimes Trials'' offers articles that attack
the objectivity and legal validity of the post-war Nuremberg Trials,
where much information about the Holocaust first became public, and
where the basic history of the genocide was first established. ``The
Tangled Web'' suggests that Jews were responsible for Bolshevism in the
Soviet Union while linking Zionism to Fascism. CODOH manages to present
Jews as both International Communist conspirators and ultra-nationalist
bigots who willingly cooperated with violent anti-Semites.
ZUNDEL AND RIMLAND
Another longtime ``revisionist,'' Ernst Zundel has been the leading
Holocaust-denial propagandist in Canada for more than two decades. In
the early 1970's, Zundel penned pro-Nazi materials under the name
Christ of Friedrich, including the book The Hitler We Loved and Why. In
the late 1970's, ads for his Samisdat Publishers Ltd. in George Dietz's
neo-Nazi Liberty Bell magazine (based in West Virginia) offered
Holocaust-denial books for sale, and Zundel wrote articles for Liberty
Bell and another Dietz publication, White Power Report. In the early
1980's, the German government named Zundel as one of the world's
largest distributors of neo-Nazi material. Mid-1995 marked the debut of
the Zundelsite. Though Zundel, a German citizen, lives in Canada, the
site has been hosted by an Internet Service Provider in California.
Zundel has denied that he operates the Zundelsite. Rather, he claims,
the site is run by his ``webmaster,'' Dr. Ingrid Rimland of California.
Currently, the site is called ``Ingrid Rimland's Zundelsite'' and
declares, ``the Zundelsite, located in the USA, is owned and operated
by Dr. Ingrid A. Rimland, an American citizen.'' Regardless of who
actually maintains the Zundelsite, its agenda is clearly that of its
namesake.
From its first appearance on the Internet, the Zundelsite made its
Holocaust denial agenda unambiguous, challenging assertions that there
``was a Fuhrer order for the genocidal killings of Jews, Gypsies and
others''; disputing the fact that gas chambers were ``designed for the
express purpose of targeting groups of human beings,'' and refusing to
believe that ``the numbers of victims claimed to have been killed are
anywhere near the number of people who actually died in concentration
camps of whatever cause.'' The site rejects claims that ``World War II
was fought by the Germans to kill off the Jews as a group,'' arguing
that these are ``deliberately planned, systematic'' deceptions
``amounting to financial, political, emotional and spiritual
extortion.''
Early editions of the Zundelsite provided readers with Zundel's
writings on ``revisionism,'' including the text of his newsletters,
book reviews and editorials. The site today focuses mostly on other
sources of Holocaust denial propaganda, though it continues to sell
audio and video tapes featuring Zundel.
The Zundel site contains an archive of daily ``ZGram'' E-mail
messages sent by Ingrid Rimland to the site's supporters; almost a
thousand messages are archived, dating back to early 1996. A passionate
admirer of Zundel, Rimland shares his views on the Holocaust, seeing it
as an extortion ``racket'' run by Jews for the purpose of financing
Israel and humiliating Germany and Germans.
Both Zundel and Rimland lived through the defeat of the Nazis, and
both lament it. Rimland holds high hopes that Holocaust ``revisionism''
will help revive the image of Hitler as a man who made Germany ``the
most progressive and advanced Nation of its time.'' In her view,
teaching the facts of the Holocaust is emblematic of a systematic
assault against people of German descent. ``Holocaust teaching,'' she
writes, ``is * * * child abuse. It is adult abuse. It is ethnic abuse.
I want to go on record that it is soul-abuse.'' Additionally, unlike
many other Holocaust deniers, who go to great lengths to deny the anti-
Jewish sentiment that fuels their views, Rimland has openly voiced her
approval for anti-Semitism, calling it ``a responsible and, indeed,
unavoidable response to relentless provocation against the gentile
culture and tradition conflicting with a Jewish culture and
tradition.''
The Zundelsite also reprints a book originally published by
Zundel's Samisdat press: the infamous ``Leuchter Report.'' Despite the
fact that he has publicly acknowledged his lack of scientific
credentials, Fred Leuchter claimed to have taken scientific ``samples''
from death camp gas chambers that prove they could not have been used
to exterminate people. Notwithstanding the discredited nature of
Leuchter's work, deniers like Zundel still pass his report off as fact,
and the IHR continues to market it as ``essential revisionist
reading.'' Also posted at the Zundel site is the fallacious ``Rudolf
Report,'' by German ``scientist'' Germar Rudolf, which defends
Leuchter's work. Rudolf also claims to have taken ``samples'' from
masonry in gas chambers and found no trace of poison gas.
AHMED RAMI
One high-profile Arab Holocaust denier is Swedish-based Moroccan
exile Ahmed Rami, creator of the Radio Islam Web site. Once a
lieutenant in the Moroccan military, Rami reportedly played a leading
role in a failed 1972 coup d'etat and fled, gaining political asylum in
Sweden. In 1987, Rami began using a public access Swedish radio station
to broadcast Radio Islam, ostensibly a public relations program for
Sweden's Muslims but in fact a vehicle for unvarnished anti-Semitism.
Rami has rationalized his bigotry as support for Palestinian
causes. While he has become a source of embarrassment for serious
Palestinian activists, Holocaust deniers have unabashedly and
enthusiastically associated with him. Rami spoke at the 1992 IHR
conference and has often been praised by Ingrid Rimland, among others.
Off the air from 1993 to 1995, Rami's program returned in 1996, the
same year that he established the Radio Islam Web site. From the start,
Rami's site offered visitors anti-Semitic material in English, French,
German, Swedish and Norwegian. Early versions of the site described the
``so-called `holocaust' '' as a tool used by ``Zionists'' to win
``sovereign rights to oppress and vilify other people,'' namely
Palestinians. These ``Zionists,'' according to Radio Islam, have a
monopoly over ``information services in the West'' and bribe Western
politicians to support them in their ``Anti-Arab and anti-Moslem
racism'' and ``hatred against everything German.''
Today, visitors to the Radio Islam site are greeted with a
statement that seems to deny Rami's extremism: ``No hate. No violence.
Races? Only one Human race.'' Yet his site has become even more bigoted
than ever and demonstrates the implicit connection between Holocaust
denial and other forms of anti-Semitism. Radio Islam promotes a myriad
of anti-Semitic works in addition to those of Holocaust deniers such as
Robert Faurisson, Greg Raven, John Ball, and Bradley Smith.
The Radio Islam site continues to portray the Holocaust as part of
a Jewish conspiracy to draw the world's attention away from ``the
ongoing Zionist war waged against the peoples of Palestine and the
Middle East'' and ``Zionism's totalitarian and racist backgrounds.'' To
support this theory, it provides numerous anti-Semitic texts that
allege Jewish conspiracies for political domination, such as The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Expanding on the anti-Semitism expressed by its denial of the
Holocaust, Radio Islam equates ``Jewish Racism,'' envisioned as Jewish
prejudice against Muslims, with ``Jewish `Religion,' '' as outlined by
the Talmud. Visitors to Radio Islam can read ``The Truth About The
Talmud'' by Michael A. Hoffman II and Alan R. Critchley, which asserts
that Jews are impelled, by religious law, to mistreat and attempt to
dominate non-Jews. The Nature of Zionism by Vladimir Stepin, also
available at the Radio Islam site, declares that Zionism rests on three
basic beliefs: that Jews are ``God's chosen people''; that all others
are ``merely two-legged animals (goys),'' and that ``Jews have both the
right and the obligation to rule the world.''
Furthermore, according to Radio Islam, the Jews are not the
``chosen people'' for they are not `` `descendants' of the mythic Jews
of the Bible.'' Rather, today's Jews are ``descended from Mongolians
and other Asiatic peoples who had adopted `Judaism' as their `religion'
over 1,000 years ago and had become know as `Jews.' '' Often advanced
by Identity believers, this theory alleges that most, if not all,
Ashkenazic Jews descended from the Khazars, an obscure Turkic people
whose leaders converted to Judaism in the eighth century. While
Identity adherents employ this theory in order to bolster their
assertion that Anglo-Saxon whites are actually the biblical Church of
Israel, Rami uses it to demonstrate that the ancestors of the Jews were
not from Palestine, implying that Israel has no right to exist.
WORLD CHURCH OF THE CREATOR
In 1973, Ben Klassen announced the birth of the Church of the
Creator, publishing a 511-page book entitled Nature's Eternal Religion.
In it, Klassen wrote, ``we completely reject the Judeo-democratic-
Marxist values of today and supplant them with new and basic values, of
which race is the foundation.'' Sharing the Identity movement's view
that non-whites are subhuman ``mud people,'' Klassen believed ``that
which is good for the White Race is the highest virtue'' and ``that
which is bad for the White Race is the ultimate sin.'' ``Rahowa,'' an
acronym for ``Racial Holy War,'' was Klassen's battle cry and remains a
rallying point for ``Creators'' today. The heart of his ``religious
creed'' was ``total war'' against Jews and non-whites, ``politically,
militantly, financially, morally and religiously.''
Under Klassen's leadership, Church of the Creator grew slowly but
steadily. That growth stopped abruptly two decades later, in 1992, when
George Loeb, a Church Reverend, was convicted of first-degree murder
for killing Harold Mansfield Jr., an African-American Persian Gulf War
veteran. In 1994, Mansfield's family, represented by the Southern
Poverty Law Center, won $1 million in damages from Klassen's Church.
Klassen appears to have anticipated this lawsuit, as he tried to rid
the group of its assets and committed suicide in 1993.
Continuing legal problems forced Klassen's successor, Richard
McCarty, to dissolve the group. In two separate incidents in
California, police averted potential bombing sprees that were to be
directed at Jews, Blacks, and homosexuals. In both cases, the would-be
terrorists were closely affiliated with branches of Klassen's Church.
Church of the Creator was reborn in 1996 with the emergence of the
young, charismatic Matt Hale as its leader. Following Hale's ascension
as Pontifex Maximus (an ancient Roman title designated for the Church's
supreme leader), the Church of the Creator became known as World Church
of the Creator. Aggressive pamphleteering ensued; new local chapters
were created, and membership has grown. Since Hale's ascension,
Creators have been arrested in Florida for attacking an African-
American boy and his father.
Additionally, WCOTC spawned dozens of sites on the World Wide Web,
probably because most of its members are young and computer-literate.
While Klassen was in his 70's when he led the Church, Hale is in his
20's, and he has taken his Church onto the Web with a vengeance.
At the group's main site, a document entitled ``Expanding
Creativity on the Net'' (referring to the racist, anti-Semitic
``religion'' practiced by WCOTC) outlines Hale's plan for an ``Internet
Blitzkrieg.'' Calling the WCOTC central site ``one of the finest White
Power pages out there,'' Hale asserts that the Internet ``has the
potential to reach millions of White People with our message and we
need to act on that immediately.''
``We call on all Creators and White Racial Comrades to go to
[Internet discussion groups] and debate and recruit with NEW people,''
he declares, ``post our URL everywhere, as soon as possible.''
Updated frequently, the WCOTC Home Page features books for sale,
articles about WCOTC, editorials by Hale from The Struggle newsletter,
and Hale's weekly ``Voice of The Struggle'' audio-on-demand broadcasts.
The site makes WCOTC membership easy, providing a membership form,
dozens of ``contact points'' in the United States, and a lengthy
membership manual that covers topics from a WCOTC ``Wedding Ceremony''
to ``Dealing with Law Enforcement.''
According to this manual, ``the inferior mud races are our deadly
enemies, and the most dangerous of all is the Jewish race.'' Creators
are urged to ``relentlessly expand the White Race, and keep shrinking
our enemies.'' Also spreading anti-Semitism, the ``Jew Watch'' section
of the site contains the full text of Henry Ford's hate tract The
International Jew. The online version of FACTS That the Government and
the Media Don't Want You to Know, a pamphlet widely distributed by
WCOTC, claims that Jews control the media, promotes the myth of a
``Kosher Food Tax,'' and reprints spurious anti-Semitic documents
purportedly penned by Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.
Connected in a ``Creator Webring'' (which links WCOTC sites, one to
the next, in a virtual circle), the World Church subsidiary sites serve
a variety of purposes, though they share significant content with the
group's main site. Many World Church sites have been housed at
WCOTC.COM, which claims to be ``dedicated to hosting all the WCOTC Web
Pages all over the White World.''
A formerly active World Church site highlights WCOTC's aggressive
recruiting techniques: World Church of the Creator Kids! With a site
like this, easily accessible to young Web surfers, the danger to
impressionable youngsters posed by hate's reach on the World Wide Web
becomes evident. The WCOTC Kids! site (subtitled ``Creativity for
Children!'') utilized enticing graphics to lure young Web users. For
instance, the site posted a picture of a white family next to the
phrase, ``The purpose of making this page is to help the younger
members of the White Race understand our fight.'' While many of the
documents at the site were copied directly from the WCOTC membership
manual, one--``What It Means To Be A Creator''--is an adaptation of a
membership manual piece, ``The Essence of a Creator.'' The children's
version of this hateful tract simplified and tones down its language,
making its racist ideology easier for children to understand.
Also available at the Kids! site were ``Coloring Pages'' and
``Crossword Puzzles.'' Children were urged to ``have fun'' solving
these puzzles while helping ``educate'' themselves ``in the Creed of
Creativity.'' Kids are encouraged to E-mail the site so that Creators
can ``answer any questions'' they might have about the crosswords. It
is suggested that youngsters print out and color illustrations bearing
calligraphic, medieval designs, apparently upheld by WCOTC as artistic
accomplishments of the ``white race.''
At the White Berets Web site, a drawing of white men holding guns
and a WCOTC flag is set against a green, camouflage background. It
describes the Church's ``security legions,'' composed of ``White
Berets'' and ``White Rangers,'' who are charged with providing
``security services for members and Church property.'' Though these
uniformed militants are urged to ``abide by the law of the land,'' they
are instructed to own a handgun, practice ``martial arts,'' and school
themselves in ``police communications.''
The White Berets site also links to a ``Frequently Asked
Questions'' pamphlet about racist Skinheads (violent, shaven-headed
youths). In fact, the ``White Berets'' pictured at the site are
themselves racist skinheads: they have shaved heads, wear suspenders,
and sport combat boots. WCOTC has courted racist skinheads since the
1980's, a few WCOTC sites are specifically designed to target that
element of the white supremacist ``movement.''
Visitors must click ``OK'' in a window that declares ``Whites
Only'' before entering the Skinheads of Racial Holy War site, where
they are greeted by a drawing of a giant WCOTC ``White Beret'' crushing
a tiny, Hasidic Jew in his closed fist. The Web site for the SS
Bootboys, who are referred to as the WCOTC ``Church Band,'' also
reflects a skinhead theme. This group of skinhead musicians, which has
been active in the San Francisco area since the mid-1990's, plays what
it calls ``WP metal'' [white power heavy metal music]. In addition to
racist and anti-Semitic articles by William Pierce and Don Black, the
SS Bootboys site provides Web users with audio recordings of the
group's songs to download, such as ``Coon'' and ``White Patriot.''
Along with these WCOTC skinhead sites, Resistance Records, a racist
Skinhead rock-and-roll record label, has long had a site on the Web.
Resistance was founded by three Church members, and its former
president, George Eric Hawthorne, has been described as ``a top honcho
in the Church of the Creator.'' While the Resistance Records site was
one of the first racist skinhead sites on the Web, there are now dozens
of sites that promote skinheads and their hate-filled brand of rock
music.
RACIST ROCK
The skinhead phenomenon originated in the early 1970's, when groups
of menacing-looking, shaved-head, tattooed youths in combat boots
appeared on the streets of England. For some, the racist and
chauvinistic attitudes held by these gangs developed into a crude form
of Nazism with a penchant for violence, exemplified by frequent,
racially motivated attacks on Asian immigrants (``Paki-bashing'') and
homosexuals (``fag-bashing'').
In the years that followed, the Skinhead movement spread from
England to the Continent and beyond. Racist Skinheads are found today
in almost every industrialized country whose majority population is of
European stock, though not all Skinheads are racists. Skinheads are
almost uniformly white youths in their teens and twenties, who respond
to the movement's seductive sense of strength, group belonging and
superiority over others.
Generally, neo-Nazi Skinheads' views have varied. Some believe in
orthodox Nazi ideology, while others adhere to a mixture of racism,
populism, ethnocentrism and ultranationalist chauvinism, along with a
hodgepodge of Nazi-like attitudes.
Their numbers have gown substantially since Neo-Nazi Skinheads
first appeared in the United States during the mid-1980's. Predictably,
this growth has been matched by violence: since 1987, racist Skinheads
have committed at least 43 murders in the United States as well as
thousands of lesser crimes such as beatings, stabbings, shootings,
thefts, and synagogue desecrations. In addition to World Church of the
Creator, Skinheads in the U.S. have also linked up with other
established hate groups, such as Aryan Nations, the Ku Klux Klan, and
Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR). On November 12, 1988, three
members of a skinhead gang in Portland, Oregon, killed an Ethiopian
immigrant, Mulugeta Seraw. In a suit brought by the Southern Poverty
Law Center and ADL, it was later shown that Metzger and his son John
had incited these Skinheads to murder Seraw. A jury awarded Seraw's
family $12.5 million in damages, one of the largest civil verdicts of
its kind in U.S. history.
A major aspect of Skinhead life is devotion to bands that play
``oi'' white power music, a hard-driving brand of rock and roll whose
lyrics pound home a message of bigotry and violence. Music is the
Skinhead movement's main propaganda weapon and its chief means of
attracting young recruits. Skinhead use of the Internet has almost
exclusively focused on racist music. Bigotry-laced hard rock and the
Internet have proved a natural match in being used by white
supremacists trying to capture the minds of youngsters.
Bigoted music companies sell their hateful music on the Web. The
Tri-State Terror Web site peddles Aryan vs. Alien by the group Mudoven,
which features a cover photo depicting corpses from Nazi concentration
camps. According to that site, over 900 copies of this release have
already been sold. Also available there are Racially Motivated Violence
by Angry Aryans and Murder Squad by Blue-Eyed Devils, which displays a
photo portraying three lynched Jews on its cover.
The huge Plunder and Pillage Web site serves as two fans' tribute
to white power music. These lovers of racist rock, who go by the names
``Plunder'' and ``Pillage,'' give their fellow fans the latest news on
new releases and concert appearances of Skinhead bands; reviews of the
latest white power records; reports on recent concerts; lyrics from
various albums and transcripts of their interviews with over a dozen
music groups. The Plunder and Pillage site also provides racist rockers
a historical perspective in ``Oi! The Classics,'' which features
reviews of and sound clips from early ``oi'' albums that have ``earned
a spot in every skinhead's record collection.''
The Skinhead who maintains The White Pride Network registered his
site under Ian Stuart's name in order to hide his identity. At his
site, he goes by the name ``Micetrap.'' Though he cloaks himself with a
pseudonym, Micetrap doesn't hide his hateful views. Claiming to ``have
been involved in the skinhead movement for many years,'' Micetrap
declares the Holocaust ``the biggest financial scam in history'' and
glorifies the Skinhead movement as ``a sub-culture built for pissed off
Pro-White youth to rebel against the ZOG system.''
Formerly known as Whitepower, The White Pride Network features
Micetrap's reviews of the latest racist rock records and houses the
page for ``Patriot Video Services,'' which stocks video tapes of white
power bands performing. In addition to music-oriented pages, The White
Pride Network pays tribute to Hitler; posts some of William Pierce's
allegations of Jewish media control, and contains a ``Skinhead Cyber
Tattoo Parlor,'' which pictures racist designs etched in ink on
Skinheads' arms, backs, and skulls. Micetrap also encourages his
supporters to become active, offering to sell them E-mail addresses and
space for Web sites, connecting them with each other in his ``Personal
Ads & Pen Pals'' section, and giving them advice on how to use Internet
Relay Chat (IRC).
Though not a Skinhead, Alex Curtis also uses the Internet as a tool
to bring together and motivate the ``youth of the Aryan Struggle.''
Along with racist Skinheads and WCOTC devotees, Curtis, who is still in
his mid 20's, represents the new, young face of white supremacy on the
Web.
ALEX CURTIS
Alex James Curtis, an anti-Semitic and racist activist based in San
Diego, is a rising star among bigots on the Web. Originator of the
Lemon Grove (San Diego) Ku Klux Klan, Curtis has described himself as a
history student at San Diego State University.
The Nationalist Observer Web site is the online version of the
print publication of the same name, which was founded by Curtis in
1996. Curtis is the editor of this online edition, posting his ``Lead
Editorials'' from the print edition as well as content available
exclusively online. Curtis also includes transcripts of his telephone
hotline message; an archive of hateful articles by propagandists such
as David Lane of The Order and neo-Nazi Matt Koehl, and a catalog of
racist audio and video tapes. Additionally, readers can find Curtis'
``White Power Manual,'' which suggests white supremacist propagandizing
strategies and offers assistance to aspiring hatemongers.
Curtis believes Jews have corrupted the white race, using the media
to convert whites into ``comfort-loving cowards'' who ``sit passively''
as Jews and minorities seize power. His Nationalist Observer ``Tribute
to Jewry'' consists of a picture of ``Jew York City'' being destroyed
by an atomic bomb under the caption ``The quickest way to exterminate 6
million vermin!''
Curtis thinks the answer to whites' problems is separatism.
``Racial separation seeks the preservation of life, whereas racial
integration is the realization of the death of peoples,'' he writes.
According to Curtis, white supremacists should not regard themselves as
U.S. citizens, but as members of the white race who should concentrate
on ``moving into separatist areas or assisting in dismantling the
system.'' He envisions a ``race-centered'' state in which ``citizenship
and residency will be explicitly stated as restricted to those of pure
White ancestry.''
He feels that only the elite of the white supremacist movement
should participate in creating this state. ``We believe the Aryan
struggle to be an elite one,'' Curtis writes on the Nationalist
Observer Home Page. ``We don't promote democratic or mass appeals. We
support the unity of our movement and the revolutionizing of our spirit
into a combined force to take back control of our Race's destiny, by
any means necessary.''
Unity among white supremacists is central to Curtis' vision. He
sees many different white supremacist movements as part of a single
``White Nation.'' ``We go by names such as White nationalists, White
separatists, Skinheads, National Socialists, Ku Klux Klansmen, and
Identity Christians, or others,'' Curtis writes, ``but these people who
put White Racial survival as their highest priority are members of the
White Nation.''
HOMOPHOBIA ONLINE
Many racist and anti-Semitic Web sites also contain anti-gay
propaganda, but some Web pages, in particular C.N.G. (Cyber
Nationalists Group) and S.T.R.A.I.G.H.T (Society To Remove All Immoral
Godless Homosexual Trash), focus their hatred primarily on gays and
lesbians. Perhaps the most vile and best-known anti-gay Web site is God
Hates Fags, which is maintained by Benjamin Phelps, grandson and
compatriot of Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) leader Fred Phelps.
Incorporated May 15, 1967 as a not-for-profit organization adhering
to Calvinistic Baptist beliefs, WBC (which is located in Topeka,
Kansas) is well-known for picketing the funerals of AIDS victims and
others it perceives as homosexual or connected to homosexuality. God
Hates Fags contains an archive of photos depicting Fred Phelps and his
supporters picketing, carrying signs bearing slogans such as ``No Fags
in Heaven''; ``Thank God for AIDS,'' and ``2 Gay Rights: AIDS and
Hell.'' According to God Hates Fags, WBC has ``conducted some 10,000
such demonstrations during the last five years at homosexual parades
and other events,'' including the funeral of slain University of
Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.
The site reprints dozens of flyers promoting its activities,
including a few regarding Shepard. One states:
Matt Shepard now believes the Bible. He checked into Hell Oct.
12 [1998] where the worm that eats on him never dies and the
fire is never quenched * * * Not the wealth of the world, nor
an act of Congress, nor a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, nor
all the prayers of mankind, nor any power on earth--can buy
Matt Shepard a drop of water to cool his tongue or ease his
pain--or ease his sentence a day short of eternity.
Citing the Book of Romans, WBC asserts that the Bible deems gays
and anyone who supports them ``worthy of death.'' The group believes
the activities of gays and their supporters encourage God's anger
against humankind. Addressing homosexuals, WBC states, ``it was your
ilk who brought destruction on Sodom, and it will be your ilk who fuels
God's wrath to the point that there will be no remedy.''
Reflecting a conspiracy-oriented outlook, WBC declares that gays
have an ``agenda'' they are trying to impose on an unsuspecting public.
This agenda involves ``desensitizing the public,'' convincing people
``to affirm their filthy lifestyle,'' and turning them away from
Christianity. WBC believes, homosexuality is no longer classified as a
mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association only because
gays used ``guerrilla theater tactics'' at that group's convention for
two successive years. WBC also believes that gays ``infiltrate the
house of God to try to make themselves look holy,'' and calls religious
congregations that welcome gay members, ordain gay ministers, or
perform gay marriages, ``fag churches.''
While WBC's anti-gay activities have received much press coverage,
its anti-Semitism has gone largely unnoticed. According to God Hates
Fags,
The only true Jews are Christians. The rest of the people who
claim to be Jews aren't, and they are nothing more than
typical, impenitent sinners, who have no Lamb. As evidence of
their apostacy [sic], the vast majority of Jews support fags.
In 1995, WBC picketed a synagogue in Kansas because it was holding
a commemoration for victims of the Holocaust, including homosexuals.
``militias'' and ``common law'' courts: ``patriots'' online
In mid-1994, bands of armed right-wing militants calling themselves
``militias'' began to appear in several states. Often spouting mistaken
interpretations of early American history to justify their actions,
militia members are united in their obsession with ``protecting''
Americans' Constitutional rights, which they claim the Federal
government has trampled. A variety of activists make up the militia
movement. There are those militia adherents who merely discuss the
Constitution and perceived Federal intrusions. Others trade conspiracy
theories at gun shows. At the extreme are members of heavily armed
paramilitary units.
``Common law court'' adherents declare themselves exempt from the
laws of the United States. Using pseudo-legal theories based on
selective--and often bizarre--interpretations of the Bible, the Magna
Carta, state and Federal court decisions, and the U.S. and state
constitutions, these activists present a serious threat to the rule of
law by using phony liens, money orders, and documents in an attempt to
defy the authority of legitimate courts.
Militia activists and common law court adherents refer to
themselves as ``patriots.'' Like anti-Semites and racists, these
``patriots'' have a fondness for historical distortions and conspiracy
theories (such as the contention that the Federal Reserve runs the
United States). Elements of overt anti-Semitism and racism have
frequently surfaced in the ``patriot'' movement, which has been
inspired by the activities of the Identity group Posse Comitatus.
Though many ``patriots'' deny the movement's racial and religious
bigotry, its intolerance is apparent on the Web. For instance, though
the Patriot Knowledge Base Web site states that ``the enemy'' is ``not
the Jewish masses,'' it posts the Protocols of the Learned Elders of
Zion, one of the world's most widely circulated anti-Semitic works.
Similarly, the U.S.A. The Republic page links to the vicious Identity
site God's Order Affirmed in Love while claiming ``We Are Not Anti-
Semitic.''
Even though militia membership dwindled following the Oklahoma City
bombing in 1995, militia members continue to plan bombings and
robberies. Meanwhile, new militia-oriented Web sites continue to
appear. Likewise, despite the fact that legitimate authorities have
cracked down on unlawful common law court activities, common law court
advocates persist in threatening violence and common law Web sites are
still active. Currently, there are more than a hundred ``patriot''
sites on the Web.
Common law Web sites often post legal jargon out of context and
link to reputable law sources, leading readers to misinterpret actual
law. For instance, Dr. Tavel's Self-Help Legal Clinic, called ``The
Disneyland of the web for patriots and freedom fighters!'' by the
extremist publication Spotlight, links to online records of state and
Federal rules, procedures, and laws. Visitors are encouraged to
interpret this information based on fallacious common law principles
and then use it in a court of law, even when under oath as part of a
jury. The Legal Clinic posts a document entitled ``The Citizens Rule
Book--Jury Handbook,'' which encourages jurors to judge cases based on
their own understanding of ``natural, God-given, Common or
Constitutional Law'':
You--as a juror--armed merely with the knowledge of what a
COMMON LAW JURY really is and what your common law rights,
powers and duties really are, can do more to re-establish
``liberty and justice for all'' in this State and ultimately
throughout all of the United States than all our Senators and
Representatives put together. WHY? Because even without the
concurrence of all of your fellow jurors, in a criminal trial,
you, with your single vote of ``NOT GUILTY'' can nullify every
rule of ``law'' that is not in accordance with the principles
of natural, God-given, Common or Constitutional Law.
Numerous common law sites also promote anti-government activists as
``sovereign citizens'' answerable only to God and thus immune from
state or Federal jurisdiction. Some offer a racist twist to this
formulation, arguing that there are two classes of citizens:
``Sovereign'' white citizens, whose rights are God-given, and
``Fourteenth Amendment'' citizens, non-whites whose citizenship is
granted only by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Militia Web sites express paranoid fantasies about a power-hungry
government trying to impose tyranny on its citizens, a government often
portrayed as a pawn of the United Nations or the vaguely defined ``New
World Order.'' False depictions of militia members as the true
defenders of liberty and democracy abound.
For instance, one Militia of Montana Web site declares that group
``an educational organization dedicated to the preservation of the
freedoms of ALL Citizens of the State of Montana and of the United
States of America.'' Yet the militia held ``the tyranny of a run-away,
out of control government'' responsible for usurping those freedoms.
The ``Articles of the Alliance Of the Southeastern States Militia''
claim that group's members ``stand against all enemies of the
Constitution and Bill of Rights, both foreign and domestic.'' The group
appears to consider the government one of these ``enemies'': it pledges
to actively resist whatever it feels constitutes ``unconstitutional use
of our armed forces * * * against the America people'' and promises to
``fight the New World Order, and any of its proponents, to the bitter
end.''
Many militia Web sites provide resources to help their readers
become more active. For example, the Citizen Soldier Web site contains
a ``Militia/Survivalist'' post exchange page, which links to the Web
sites of weapons suppliers, as well as military manuals that cover
topics including ``combat training.'' The Minnesota Minutemen Militia
site allows supporters to ``enlist'' online by filling out a simple
form. The American Patriot Network and California Militia Web sites,
among others, feature real-time chat rooms in which ``patriots'' can
communicate with each other, and the United States Theatre Command Web
site maintains the ``Eagleflight'' electronic mailing list, which often
contains messages urging violent action from various militia members
across the nation.
Militia and common law court propagandists on the Internet have
openly expressed sympathy for ``patriot'' activists on trial for
committing, or planning to commit, acts of violence. These sites lend
credence to the anti-government movement by focusing on those who have
actually come face to face with the government. Militia and common law
Web sites have provided biased accounts of trial proceedings involving
North American Militia of Southwest Michigan member Bradford Metcalf
and the Montana Freemen, among others.
On November 18, 1998, members of the Montana Freemen, a group of
common law court adherents notorious for their 81-day standoff with the
FBI in 1996, were convicted on criminal charges including bank and mail
fraud and armed robbery. During the trials that led to these
convictions, the Fully Informed Grand Jurors Alliance (FIGJA) Web site,
maintained by Georgia common law guru Elder Burk Hale and former
Militia of Montana member Kamala Susan, kept Web users abreast of the
latest happenings ``at the request of family and friends of the
`Freemen' prisoners.'' Erroneously citing laws in support of the
Freemen's cause, Hale posted photos of Freeman Ralph Clark, who he
alleges was ``tortured'' by his jailers, as well as ``Common Law
Affidavits'' written by other incarcerated Freemen.
On the same day as the Freemen decision, Bradford Metcalf was
convicted of conspiring to possess machine guns; threatening to assault
and murder Federal employees, and plotting to damage and destroy
Federal buildings using explosives. As with the Freemen case, anti-
government Web sites, such as Patriots Under Siege and Caged Patriots:
An American Disgrace, kept militia sympathizers updated on the trial's
progress and voiced support for its defendant.
In April 1996, Oklahoma Constitutional Militia leader Ray Lampley,
his wife, Cecilia, and their friend John Baird were convicted of
plotting to bomb ADL's Houston office, the Southern Poverty Law Center
in Alabama, welfare offices, abortion clinics, and gay bars. Also the
leader of the Universal Church of God in Hanna, Oklahoma, Ray Lampley
has expressed intensely anti-Semitic and anti-government views and
visited Elohim City, an encampment on the Oklahoma-Arkansas border
associated with the Identity movement.
Writing on the Web about the Lampley trial, Indiana-based militia
figure Linda Thompson declared that the trials of Lampley and other
militia figures were fixed by what she sees as a corrupt Federal
government that pays informants to help convict anti-government
activists:
At the defense table, the jury will see the ``nut'' or target
and his ``co-conspirators'' and the jury will hear the babbling
and crazy ``confidential'' tapes played, as they look at the
``nut'' and his ``friends'' while the ``good-guy informant''
tells them how all these folks were planning to do nasty
terrible things. The ``good-guy informant'' of course will be
backed up by ``good-guy law enforcement'' who will parade a lot
of evidence, whether it is relevant or not, to support this
public bastion of integrity, their informant, emphasizing how
good his work was. The Ray Lampley case is a good example of
this that most are familiar with.
Two weeks prior to his arrest, Ray Lampley told a group in Tulsa,
``If you want to have freedom in this country, you are going to have to
shed somebody's blood for it.'' He also suggested that he had been
attempting to acquire bomb-making materials. ``I only wanted one bag
[of ammonium nitrate fertilizer,]'' he said, ``because I realized that
one bag is enough to blow up several Federal buildings if you know the
right thing.''
Where did Lampley learn the ``right thing'' that told him ``one bag
is enough'' to blow up several buildings? According to law enforcement
authorities, he likely retrieved this information from bomb-making
manuals. Several of these are available on the Internet.
bomb-making formulas
In November 1995, Ray Lampley, Cecilia Lampley, and John Baird
began construction of a bomb with the help of the bomb-making manual
entitled ``Homemade C-4.'' When the FBI arrested the conspirators, law
enforcement agents recovered the bomb-making manuals Anarchist's
Cookbook and Homemade Weapons, in addition to the ``Homemade C-4''
text, from the Lampley residence.
Many of these bomb-making instructions are available online.
Numerous pages devoted to terror manuals are currently present on the
Web, and explosives enthusiasts regularly post information at USENET
newsgroups.
Additionally, some white supremacist sites, such as Death 2 ZOG
(Zionist Occupation Government), have posted bomb-making instructions.
Covered with Nazi and World Church of the Creator symbols, this site
urged its readers to ``Kill the jew [sic] pig before it's too late''
and proclaimed its support for ``black on black violence.'' Death 2 ZOG
contains downloadable copies of bomb-making manuals such as ``Jolly
Roger Cookbook,'' ``The Big Book of Mischief,'' and ``Anarchy
Cookbook.''
William Powell's legendary Anarchist's Cookbook, first published in
1971, has inspired many Web pages. Though Powell's book has not been
available on the Web in its entirety, a number of Web pages contain
works named after it, such as ``The Anarchist Cookbook IV,'' otherwise
known as the BHU Pyrotechnics Cookbook. Explosive-related sections of
this document, which is widely available on the Web, include ``Making
Plastic Explosives,'' ``Napalm,'' and ``Revised Pipe Bombs 4.14.''
``The Anarchy Cookbook IV'' also contains instructive information about
lock picking, computer ``hacking,'' and robbing Automated Teller
Machines.
Many versions of another popular online manual, the Terrorist's
Handbook, include a disclaimer that warns, ``don't try anything you
find in this document!!! Many of the instructions doesn't [sic] even
work.'' Yet these directions are posted nonetheless, instructing
readers how to construct ``High Order Explosives'' such as ``Ammonium
Nitrate,'' ``Dynamite,'' and ``TNT'' as well as ``Molotov Cocktails,''
``Phone Bombs,'' and other destructive devices. Significantly, this
Handbook also includes a ``Checklist for Raids on Labs,'' concluding
that ``in the end, the serious terrorist would probably realize that if
he/she wishes to make a truly useful explosive, he or she will have to
steal the chemicals to make the explosive from a lab.''
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Federal
agents investigating at least 30 bombings and four attempted bombings
between 1985 and June 1996 recovered bomb-making literature that the
suspects had obtained from the Internet. In these investigations, the
possession of bomb-making literature has been taken by law enforcement
authorities as strong circumstantial evidence that this literature has
been used to plan crimes.
Like other extremist material on the Internet, bomb-making manuals
are readily accessible to children. In fact, these tracts have already
been accessed by eager, impressionable youngsters. The Washington Post
has described discussions among 14-year-olds about ``which propellants
are best to use, which Web sites have the best recipes and whether tin
or aluminum soda cans make better bomb casings.'' Furthermore, children
have used recipes found on the Web to create and detonate bombs. For
example, two 15-year-old boys from Orem, Utah, landed in a juvenile-
detention center after they constructed a pipe bomb using online
instructions. Similarly, three high school students in Ogden, Utah, who
ignited a bomb at a Jehovah's Witnesses church later told police they
learned how to make the device from a Web page devoted to the
Anarchists Cookbook.
RESPONDING TO HATE ON THE INTERNET
As an organization dedicated to the eradication of bigotry in all
its forms, the Anti-Defamation League has long been concerned about the
propagation of racism, anti-Semitism, and prejudice on the Internet.
After all, this medium allows extremists easy access to a potential
audience of millions. In numerous reports, the League has detailed the
ways bigots are using the Internet to promote and recruit for their
cause, communicate more easily and cheaply and reach new audiences--
particularly the young.
Practically and legally, combating online extremism is enormously
difficult. The First Amendment's protection of free speech shields most
extremist propaganda, and Internet Service Providers, the private
companies that host most extremist sites, may freely choose whether to
house these sites or not. When providers choose not to host hateful
sites, these sites migrate easily to the computers of services without
such restrictions. Furthermore, the size of the Web, which contains
hundreds of millions of distinct pages, complicates efforts to identify
extremist material. Hundreds if not thousands of Web pages, some of
which are not listed by search engines, contain bomb-making formulas.
What follows are answers to 10 frequently asked questions regarding
regulation of hate on the Internet.
Why can't the government ban use of the Internet to spread hateful
and racist ideology in the United States?
The Internet is probably the greatest forum for the exchange of
ideas that the world has ever seen. It operates across national
borders, and efforts by the international community or any one
government to regulate speech on the Internet would be virtually
impossible, both technologically and legally.
In the United States, the First Amendment to the Constitution
guarantees the right of freedom of speech to all Americans, even those
whose opinions are reprehensible. In a number of recent decisions, the
Supreme Court has reaffirmed that our government may not regulate the
content of Internet speech to an extent greater than it may regulate
speech in more traditional areas of expression such as the print media,
the broadcast media, or the public square. While courts may take into
account the Internet's vast reach and accessibility, they must still
approach attempts to censor or regulate speech online from a
traditional constitutional framework.
What kind of hate speech on the Internet is not protected by the
First Amendment?
Internet speech that is merely critical, annoying, offensive, or
demeaning enjoys constitutional protection. However, the First
Amendment does not provide a shield for libelous speech or copyright
infringement, nor does it protect certain speech that threatens or
harasses other people. For example, an E-mail or a posting on a Web
site that expresses a clear intention or threat by its writer to commit
an unlawful act against another specific person is likely to be
actionable under criminal law. Persistent or pernicious harassment
aimed at a specific individual is not protected if it inflicts or
intends to inflict emotional or physical harm. To rise to this level,
harassment on the Internet would have to consist of a ``course of
conduct'' rather than a single isolated instance. A difficulty in
enforcing laws against harassment is the ease of anonymous
communication on the Internet. Using a service that provides almost-
complete anonymity, a bigot may repeatedly E-mail his victim without
being readily identified.
Blanket statements expressing hatred of an ethnic, racial, or
religious nature are protected by the First Amendment, even if those
statements mention individual people and even if they cause distress in
those individuals. Similarly, denial of the Holocaust--though
abhorrent--is almost never actionable under American law. The
Constitution protects the vast majority of extremist Web sites that
disseminate racist or anti-Semitic propaganda.
Has anyone ever been successfully prosecuted in the United States
for sending racist threats via E-mail?
There is legal precedent for such a prosecution. In 1998, a former
student was sentenced to one year in prison for sending E-mail death
threats to 60 Asian-American students at the University of California,
Irvine. His E-mail was signed ``Asian hater'' and threatened that he
would ``make it my life career [sic] to find and kill everyone one
[sic] of you personally.'' That same year, another California man pled
guilty to Federal civil rights charges after he sent racist E-mail
threats to dozens of Latinos throughout the country.
Has anyone ever been held liable in the United States for
encouraging acts of violence on the World Wide Web?
Yes. In 1999, a coalition of groups opposed to abortion was ordered
to pay over $100 million in damages for providing information for a Web
site called ``Nuremberg Files'' which posed a threat to the safety of a
number of doctors and clinic workers who perform abortions. The site
posted photos of abortion providers, their home addresses, license
plate numbers, and the names of their spouses and children. In three
instances, after a doctor listed on the site was murdered, a line was
drawn through his name. Although the site fell short of explicitly
calling for assault on doctors, the jury found that the information it
contained amounted to a real threat of bodily harm.
Can hate crimes laws be used against hate on the Internet?
If a bigot's use of the Internet rises to the level of criminal
conduct, it may subject the perpetrator to an enhanced sentence under a
state's hate crimes law. Currently, 40 states and the District of
Columbia have such laws in place. The criminal's sentence may be more
severe if the prosecution can prove that he or she intentionally
selected the victim based on the victim's race, nationality, religion,
gender, or sexual orientation. However, these laws do not apply to
conduct or speech protected by the First Amendment.
May commercial Internet Service Providers (ISP's) prevent the use
of their services by extremists?
Yes. Commercial ISP's, such as America Online (AOL), may
voluntarily agree to prohibit users from sending racist or bigoted
messages over their services. Such prohibitions do not implicate First
Amendment rights because they are entered into through private
contracts and do not involve government action in any way.
Once an ISP promulgates such regulations, it must monitor the use
of its service to ensure that the regulations are followed. If a
violation does occur, the ISP should, as a contractual matter, take
action to prevent it from happening again. For example, if a
participant in a chat room engages in racist speech in violation of the
``terms of service'' of the ISP, his account could be cancelled, or he
could be forbidden from using the chat room in the future. ISP's should
encourage users to report suspected violations to company
representatives. The effectiveness of this remedy is limited, however.
Any subscriber to an ISP who loses his or her account for violating
that ISP's regulations may resume propagating hate by subsequently
signing up with any of the dozens of more permissive ISP's in the
marketplace.
May universities prevent the use of their computer services for the
promotion of extremist views?
Because private universities are not agents of the government, they
may forbid users from engaging in offensive speech using university
equipment or university services. Public universities, as agents of the
government, must follow the First Amendment's prohibition against
speech restrictions based on content or viewpoint.
Nonetheless, public universities may promulgate content-neutral
regulations that effectively prevent the use of school facilities or
services by extremists. For example, a university may limit use of its
computers and server to academic activities only. This would likely
prevent a student from creating a racist Web site for propaganda
purposes or from sending racist E-mail from his student E-mail account.
One such policy--at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana--
stipulates that its computer services are ``provided in support of the
educational, research and public service missions of the University and
its use must be limited to those purposes.'' Universities depend on an
atmosphere of academic freedom and uninhibited expression. Any decision
to limit speech on a university campus--even speech in cyberspace--will
inevitably affect this ideal. College administrators should confer with
representatives from both the faculty and student body when
implementing such policies.
How does the law in foreign countries differ from American law
regarding hate on the Internet? Can an American citizen be subject to
criminal charges abroad for sending or posting material that is illegal
in other countries?
In most countries, hate speech does not receive the same
constitutional protection as it does in the United States. In Germany,
for example, it is illegal to promote Nazi ideology. In many European
countries, it is illegal to deny the reality of the Holocaust.
Authorities in Denmark, France, Britain, Germany, and Canada have
brought charges for crimes involving hate speech on the Internet.
While national borders have little meaning in cyberspace, Internet
users who export material that is illegal in some foreign countries may
be subject to prosecution under certain circumstances. An American
citizen who posts material on the Internet that is illegal in a foreign
country could be prosecuted if he subjected himself to the jurisdiction
of that country or of another country whose extradition laws would
allow for his arrest and deportation. However, under American law, the
United States will not extradite a person for engaging in a
constitutionally protected activity even if that activity violates a
criminal law elsewhere.
What are Internet ``filters'' and when is their use appropriate?
Filters are software that can be installed along with a Web browser
to block access to certain Web sites that contain inappropriate or
offensive material. Parents may choose to install filters on their
children's computers in order to prevent them from viewing sites that
contain pornography or other problematic material. ADL has developed a
filter (ADL HateFilterTM) that blocks access to Web sites
that advocate hatred, bigotry, or violence towards Jews or other groups
on the basis of their religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or
other immutable characteristics. HateFilterTM, which can be
downloaded from ADL's Web site, contains a ``redirect'' feature which
offers users who try to access a blocked site the chance to link
directly to related ADL educational material. The voluntary use of
filtering software in private institutions or by parents in the home
does not violate the First Amendment because such use involves no
government action. There are also some commercially marketed filters
that focus on offensive words and phrases. Such filters, which are not
site-based, are designed primarily to screen out obscene and
pornographic material.
May public schools and public libraries install filters on computer
equipment available for public use?
The use of filters by public institutions, such as schools and
libraries, has become a hotly contested issue that remains unresolved.
At least one Federal court has ruled that a local library board may not
require the use of filtering software on all library Internet computer
terminals. A possible compromise for public libraries with multiple
computers would be to allow unrestricted Internet use for adults, but
to provide only supervised access for children.
Courts have not ruled on the constitutionality of hate speech
filters on public school library computers. However, given the broad
free speech rights afforded to students by the First Amendment, it is
unlikely that courts would allow school libraries to require filters on
all computers available for student use.
The Chairman. We will finish with you, Mr. Roy, and then I
will have a few questions for you.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH T. ROY, SR.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the Southern
Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, I want to thank the
committee for inviting us here today. My name is Joseph Roy. I
am Director of the Intelligence Project at the Center.
Basically, we are a non-profit, private law firm out of
Montgomery that for the last 20 years has tracked these hate
organizations and reported on them. We have developed the
largest database file in the country which houses hundreds of
thousands of activities, identification of members,
photographs, news reports, court records, and other items of
interest to the law enforcement community.
With this information, we develop trends, write stories
about who is involved in the movement, where they are from,
what they believe, and what their motivations are. And we
publish this four times a year and send it out free to about
50,000 law enforcement agencies and other people.
Part of the trend that we have been noticing for the last
few years is a disturbing one. The number of hate groups for
the last 2 years has gone up about 26 percent. This comes at a
time when historically these numbers should be down, with a
good economy, low unemployment and things of this nature. In
the past, these groups have not thrived very prosperously.
We attribute most of this growth to the Internet, which has
stimulated new recruiting, new technology, and a tremendous
weapon in the arsenal of these hate groups reaching an audience
that would probably never in their lives have come across these
organizations or their ideology.
In 1995, there was only one Internet site, Stormfront, on
the Internet that we were aware of. And since that time, in
just a very short period of time, in the last 4 years or so,
that has grown 60 percent. There were 163 sites in 1997 that we
tracked. There were 254 sites in 1998, which is a 60-percent
increase. We expect that number to go up again for 1999 when we
report out on the sites.
Another thing that we have noticed about the Internet and
the use of it by these organizations is they are getting a lot
better. I can remember when we first started aggressively
tracking the Internet, the sites were slow. Their links didn't
work half the time. There was a lot of confusion as to how to
insert graphics into the pages and audios and other things.
That is not the case anymore.
The sites we see now--and my co-panelists here, we had
conversations about it--they are very slick. They use all the
bells and whistles that technology affords to them. They are
tracking their own sites. They are monitoring the number of
hits each site is receiving, and they are also finding out
where these hits are coming from to see who is interested in
their site, just like any other site in cyberspace would.
They have a much better networking capability where they
share information, where they are able to share e-trees,
publish notices, announce events. They use PGP encryption to
communicate with their membership and other people in the
movement, you know, so they are not the same old guys that we
saw 4 years ago struggling to get up on the Web site.
And one of the things we have also noticed is how cost-
effective the Internet is. Back several years ago in the early
1990's, we had a civil suit against the Invisible Empire
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which we bankrupted in North
Carolina. And I spent several months auditing their financial
records and it was obvious that they were spending probably
$2,000 or $3,000 a month to publish a newsletter that went out
every month to about 5,000 or 10,000--it varied--members and
supporters that got their newsletter.
With the Internet technology, this same group, were it in
existence today, could reach millions, potentially, for about
$50 a month, plus it offers people who would never join their
ranks, never get a tattoo--it offers them the anonymity to sit
in their den and to spew this hatred and download the
information they want and to share it with their friends and
like thinkers.
Another alarming trend that we have noticed is the
targeting of young children and young adults by these
organizations. The movement leadership, the old guys that have
been around for a long time, see the Internet as a new
recruiting field and where the leadership of the movement in
the future is going to come from. These are people that are
headed off to college with their laptops. They are not the
beer-bellied, red-neck, toothless stereotypical hater that we
have seen in the past. These are tekkies that they are looking
for. They don't want the old stereotypical hater.
Keep in mind also that of all the hate crimes that were
reported last year, only 15 percent of the hate crimes
committed in this country--and that is our best estimate--were
committed by people who actually belong to any organization.
The rest were Bob down the street, or Fred with a fax line, or
somebody who is out there looking to get into this movement.
These are very recruitable people. There were over 8,000 hate
crimes reported, which is not all of them, certainly, but the
people that committed these hate crimes come from a culture
where these groups will meet some kind of success in recruiting
them.
It is pretty easy to categorize who falls into the shadow
of these hate organizations. They are people not much different
from you and I, but they are people who are angry, they are
frustrated, they are afraid. They are looking to regain control
of their lives. If they are young kids, they are looking for
acceptance. That is why guns and scapegoating are such a
powerful part of the recruitment of these organizations because
it gives instant empowerment. It gives them control. It makes
them feel like they are doing something to regain direction in
their lives.
And there is something out there for everybody. We see
sites that are wrapped in religion, like Christian Identity
which teaches that Jews are the actual spawn of Satan and that
white people are the lost tribe of Israel, and that anything
that is not white are beasts of the field.
If Christianity is not your bent, there are groups like
World Church of the Creator that teaches that religion is a
joke that the Jews are playing on white people and has been
going on for 2,000 years. The list is endless.
There is hate music. There were over 50,000 CD's sold by
one organization that were CD's that you can't go down to the
local record store and pick up. And there is a political
correctness air that we see pop up occasionally during the
movement, where they have become a lot more media-savvy. They
say, we are not racist, we are racialists; we are not
segregationists, we are separatists; we don't hate anybody, we
just love white folks. And they try to use orderly, reasonable
arguments in their Web sites to bring these people in.
Finally, the solution to this type of problem is one that
has to be very guarded, we think. I think the aggressive
tracking and identification of these sites, reporting on them
to the law enforcement community and to the proper authorities,
is something that is critical. I think criminal and civil
litigation needs to continue and develop new ways to attack
these problems as they show up.
Software filters are an immediate relief, but the one
problem that we have discussed with other organizations is the
fact that there is high maintenance on it. These groups move
around very, very quickly. Of the 254 groups that we reported
on for 1998, more than half of them are gone or moved to
another site or another provider. To replace them, though, we
have already identified another 100 to 150 sites to take their
place for the next reporting. This is an ever-evolving, ever-
changing environment they are in.
The Internet has provider policing that goes on that kicks
a lot of these groups off their Web sites. That is another
relief that we can take advantage of, but basically this is not
a one-time, fix-all cure that can be taken to the Internet. It
is like a new infant, and the Internet is in its infancy and we
must protect it from the virus of hate and from attack from the
hate peddlers out there that want to recruit our children.
But we have to be careful not to stunt its growth. We have
to use education, supervision, and parental involvement. You
know, boiling water at one time was new technology. We didn't
quit using it. We took our kids aside and said, this will hurt
you, this will burn you, but it will also feed and clothe and
warm you. And that is the approach I think we should take to
the Internet.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Roy follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOSEPH T. ROY, SR.
Good morning. My name is Joseph T. Roy, Sr. and I am the Director
of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which
is located in Montgomery, Alabama. At the Center, we have been tracking
and studying hate groups for the last two decades. Over the years, we
have built the largest data base on these groups and their activities
in the world. In order to educate the public and law enforcement as to
the nature of white supremacist and other hate groups, we publish the
Intelligence Report, which is sent out free four times a year to almost
50,000 law enforcement officers, among others.
We are here today to discuss the role of the Internet in
disseminating racial and religious intolerance and promoting violence.
In the past few years, the Center has been intensively monitoring the
Internet and the increasingly important role it plays in recruitment
and propagandizing for hate groups. We have seen how this technology
has been adopted wholesale by such groups, and the remarkable and
unprecedented access this has afforded these groups to teenagers and
other potential recruits. This access is all the more frightening
because of changes in how America parents its children.
Today, when parents send an errant child to his bedroom, little
Johnny is not alone. With a few clicks of his computer mouse, he can
join a large crowd of people who want to be his friends. He meets them
in Internet chat rooms, on Web pages where their propaganda is posted,
on E-mail lists where messages are forwarded to large groups of people.
Too often, what these ``friends'' are offering up to Johnny--whose
parents today are often working, or too busy to monitor his activities
closely--is a smorgasbord of violent hate propaganda. The people who
want to talk to your children are Tom Metzger, the head of the racist
White Aryan Resistance in California, Matt Hale, leader of the neo-Nazi
World Church of the Creator, and a host of other professional white
supremacists and revolutionaries.
The outcome can be disastrous. In South Carolina, what was once a
tiny neo-Nazi band known as the Knights of Freedom put up a World Wide
Web page last fall, and as a result it has managed to grow into a real
group of more than 100 dues-paying members, a large number of them high
school and college students. In Littleton, Colorado, the two youths who
opened fire on their classmates at Columbine High School may well have
been inspired, in some part, by neo-Nazi propaganda they encountered on
the Net. It seems clear that they found plans for building pipe bombs
and other weapons there.
Although hate on the Internet has received a great deal of
attention lately, it's wise to remember that the very first hate site
on the net, known as Stormfront and run by a former Klansman who served
time in federal prison, went up just over four years ago. Since then,
there has been a veritable explosion in the number of such sites. Just
last year, the number of ``hate sites''--sites based on hatred of such
groups as blacks, Jews and homosexuals--jumped by almost 60 percent,
from 163 at the end of 1997 to 254 in late 1998. The leading reason for
this growth is obvious. A few years ago, a Klansman, for instance,
needed to put out substantial effort and money to produce and
distribute a shoddy pamphlet that might reach 100 people. Today, with a
$500 computer and negligible other costs, that same Klansman can put up
a slickly produced Web site with a potential audience in the millions.
The propaganda power of such sites is, in other ways too,
unprecedented. When a teenager visits one of the many Holocaust denial
sites, for instance, he or she is not typically confronted with crude
expressions of anti-Semitism. Instead, the visitor finds well-written
essays by allegedly renowned historians, analyses by a so-called gas
chamber expert concluding that there were no Nazi death camps, and so
on. There is nothing to suggest that all serious historians find such
theories to be pure malarkey. In the same way, organized white
supremacist groups often put up Web material that portrays the groups
not as haters, but as simple white pride civic groups concerned with
social ills. Add to that some of the high-tech bells and whistles these
sites often include--arcade-style games, chat rooms, bulletin boards,
music, real-time videos and so on--and it becomes understandable how
these sites can be genuinely attractive, especially for rebellious
teens.
Consider, for example, the ``Creativity for Children'' Web site put
up by Matt Hale's World Church of the Creator. The title page, which
says its purpose is to awaken white youth to ``our fight,'' is written
in childlike handwriting, a kind of Sesame Street for haters. On
another site, you've invited to play ``Sieg Heil,'' a computer game
where you become an Aryan hero battling to thwart scientists creating a
``cross-bred'' race. On a third, you can watch a real video of
Skinheads taunting an apparently retarded black man.
A growing number of hate sites are carrying clips or even entire
songs from white power bands. You can't find this kind of music, which
features extremely racist and violent lyrics, in your local record
store. But you can hear tracks from many of these CD's by visiting
certain Web sites, and you can order them over the Net. Along with the
propaganda found on hate sites, this racist music--some 50,000 CD's of
which are sold in the United States annually--can be very effective at
reaching young people. There are reports that the two students who
attacked Columbine High School were fans of ``extreme music'' genres
known as Gothic/Black Metal/Death Metal, music that was always violent
and rebellious, but which today is increasingly influenced by white
power themes.
The Net is proving useful to the organized white supremacist
movement in other important ways, as well. In the 1980's, groups like
the White Aryan Resistance made efforts to recruit racist Skinheads as
the ``shock troops'' of the movement. The result was a number of deaths
and a larger number of people hurt--but no real advancement of white
supremacy as a political movement. Today, the aging cadre of white
supremacist leaders recognize this lack of progress and are
concentrating instead on a different kind of youthful recruit: the
bright, college-bound teenager who is seen as a potential leader and
movement-builder of tomorrow. The Net gives white supremacists
unprecedented access to precisely these teens, who live in their
parents' homes and have computers in their bedrooms.
These children are largely middle- and upper-middle-class youths
who wouldn't be caught dead at a Klan rally--or whose parents would
make sure they weren't. The Net, with its promise of privacy, lowers
any social inhibitions they might have had about consorting openly with
racists and other haters. Where these teens would likely have met
social disapproval if they expressed anti-Semitic or racist ideas at
home or in school, they are able to propound such ideas over the
Internet in a welcoming environment. Unlike older forms of debating
ideas--in public forums or classrooms or even over the family dinner
table--talk on the Internet is often limited to those who already agree
with one another. There is no real exchange of ideas on
www.whitepower.com.
What can be done about hate on the Net, which the Supreme Court has
clearly ruled is protected speech under the First Amendment? One
approach is that taken by the Anti-Defamation League and others, who
have developed software packages capable of filtering out many hate
sites. This is a useful tool, but the fact is that many computer-savvy
teens are probably going to be capable of finding technical ways around
the filters. There also are other difficulties in trying to limit these
sites by technological means. Hate sites today are frequently booted
off private servers with ``no-hate'' policies like America On-Line, and
so their Web addresses tend to change very frequently as they move
around to new servers. Almost half of the 254 hate sites that were
monitored by the Intelligence Project in 1998 have gone off line or
changed their internet address. Over 100 new sites have been discovered
as well. This means that constant changes are required to update the
filtering software, which in turn requires a large force of programmers
and monitors. Finally, one can ask parents to monitor every moment
their kids are on the Net, but this is, I think, unrealistic. With
large numbers of single-parent families, with almost 50 percent of
American women in the work force, and with people in general working
longer hours to make ends meet, it is difficult to picture the parent
who has time to keep track of all his or her child's Net explorations.
I The only real inoculation is communication. Parents need to talk
to their children about these sites and what they represent. Hate sites
that claim there was no Holocaust can serve as a catalyst for a
discussion of what Nazi Germany was all about. The racism found on
white supremacist sites can spark a family exchange about the nature of
racism and the need to celebrate, not fear, racial and other
differences in America. Extreme homophobia like that displayed on
www.godhatesfags.com can be used to talk about sexual differences
between people. The alternative is to try to ignore these sites and to
hope your child does not come across them--a hope that is increasingly
unrealistic. History shows us that ignoring ugly social problems like
racism does not make them go away. On the contrary, burying one's head
in the sand is a sure way to guarantee the spread of hate.
(1) Editorial, Intelligence Report, No. 94, Spring 1999.
(2) Internet Hate Site List, Intelligence Report, No. 93, Winter
1999.
(3) Story on Hate Sites and Related Litigation, Intelligence Report,
No. 93, Winter 1999.
(4) Story on Hate Sites, Intelligence Report, No. 89, Winter 1998.
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The Chairman. Let me just ask a few questions. Mr. Gennaco,
I am most impressed by your efforts in securing the first
conviction of a hate crime assailant for acts undertaken on the
Internet, and I am also encouraged to hear that the conviction
you secured in that matter has recently been affirmed on
appeal.
Is the statute you utilized to prosecute the defendant--
that is, 18 U.S.C. section 245, which is a 30-year-old civil
rights statute that pre-dates the creation of the Internet--is
that an adequate tool to pursue those who engage in illegal
threats and harassment on the Internet, and what did you view
as the strengths and weaknesses of that statute insofar as you
utilized it to prosecute illegal activity on the Internet?
Mr. Gennaco. Mr. Chairman, 18 U.S.C. 245 did prove to be an
adequate statute in order to enforce the law in the two cases
that I have prosecuted, and that was in large part because the
victim class in both the UC-Irvine case and the Cal State-Los
Angeles case were involved in federally-protected activities;
that is, they came within one of the categories demarcated
under 18 U.S.C. 245.
In the first instance, the students were attending a public
institution, which is one of the federally-protected
activities. And in the second case, the professors were engaged
in employment at a public institution, which was also covered
by 18 U.S.C. 245.
The Chairman. Well, now, it was reported this August that
the Department of Justice was supportive of a proposal that
would allow Federal agents to obtain search warrants on a
lesser showing than probable cause to search through computers
for passwords and to override encryption programs. Now, would
this proposal, if ultimately enacted, be of assistance in
Federal prosecutors' efforts to respond to hate crimes on the
Internet?
Mr. Gennaco. Mr. Chairman, I think that it could be of
assistance. As the perpetrators of hate crimes over the Net
become more sophisticated, it becomes more difficult to track
down and trace the perpetrators, including identification
numbers and locator information. In fact, there are new
technologies that allow senders of e-mail to send e-mail from
anonymous sites which mask effectively the perpetrator and make
it very difficult for technicians to track down individuals who
are responsible for those threats.
The Chairman. Now, all of you have heard my opening remarks
on some of the suggestions that I have made, or at least
thoughts on possible approaches that Congress might pursue
without treading at all on the First Amendment, we hope, to
better enable Federal prosecutors to respond to hate on the
Internet.
I would like each of you to tell me your thoughts
specifically on a proposal that would criminalize the knowing
or intentional advocacy on the Internet of the commission of a
crime of physical violence against the person or the property
of any individual or group or class of individuals. Can we
start with you, Mr. Roy?
Mr. Roy. Well, the Law Center supports the efforts that
everybody is making in this arena. We feel like that civil
litigation and criminal prosecution, whenever possible, are
good things to do. We have been doing it for a long, long time.
But these groups are still with us and the reason they are
still with us is because this is handed down from generation to
generation, and that is why we say education is so important.
You can't legislate morality. You can only encourage people
to do the right things and offer the children that come out of
this movement a viable alternative. What we have put a lot of
effort into is providing schools with curricula to teach
diversity. We have just put out ``Responding to Hate in the
Schools,'' and we encourage law enforcement everywhere.
I have been doing this for--this is my 14 year. One thing
that I have learned about the law enforcement community is that
they are very able, willing and ready to prosecute these crimes
if they are given the proper constitutional vehicle to do it.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Berkowitz.
Mr. Berkowitz. I believe, as I understand it, that if an
individual over the Internet is specifically advocating action
of physical violence to an individual, then we would be in
favor of that type of legislation.
The Chairman. OK. Mr. Henderson.
Mr. Henderson. Mr. Chairman, you raise an interesting and
difficult question. Let me just say in response to Mr.
Gennaco's comments to you, 18 U.S.C. section 245 does have two
limitations. One, as he noted, it requires individuals to be
engaged in a federally-protected activity, and unless that is,
in fact, taking place, it does not permit a prosecution by
Federal officials. Second, the statute does not cover crimes
directed to persons because of their disability status or their
sexual orientation or their gender. And those are two issues
that we think are adequately addressed in proposed amendments
to the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Now, with respect to your question, Mr. Chairman, I think
there are a couple of issues. One, when you focus on the
knowing and intentional conduct of individuals, that is
helpful. Specificity is, in fact, needed, but I think the
second element is one in which you suggest the individual must
be taking activity specifically for purpose of generating
violence or harm. If that can be established, I would think
that those are two useful elements that would perhaps encourage
some of our member organizations to look more closely and more
favorably at the statute. There are others who would still
express some concern.
So I think from the standpoint of the Leadership
Conference, we would like to take a closer look at the
proposal. We do think that the more specificity and the
narrower the scope of application, the better, and we are
committed to examining it in greater detail.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Rabbi Cooper.
Rabbi Cooper. Chairman Hatch, I think I can echo almost all
the other comments that were made before. You know, this has
not been a quiet summer for us. The Wiesenthal Center was
Furrow's first and main target.
Michael Gennaco is a very important partner for our efforts
at the Museum of Tolerance, and I think in this area, through
our training of law enforcement, our Tools for Tolerance
program, and trying to spread the message of tolerance, that is
basically our pedagogical and educational mandate.
When it comes to the area of stiffening the laws and
narrowing the distance between the new technologies and our
commitments here, we are going to be looking to the people in
the field, like this brilliant U.S. attorney, for the signal.
If they feel that they need, in the day-to-day fight, in the
expanding online fight, more expansion along with the general
hate crimes expansion, then certainly our Center would back it.
We are trying to continue our approach in a consortium of
getting as much input as we can from the people at the U.S.
attorney's office in Southern California and around the
country, at the same time trying to do the same balancing act
that you and your committee try to do everyday, balancing First
Amendment rights with the need to protect our kids and our
community.
And I just might add one additional image for us to
consider, which is I know every parent in America was wondering
where was Eric Harris' father when this kid was downloading all
of this information teaching him how to make bombs, et cetera,
et cetera. And we leave this hearing this morning, I am still
not sure that if the next potential Eric Harris' mother is
looking over his shoulder, that we have the necessary
partnering from everyone involved with this issue.
In other words, I think the U.S. Senate is taking
leadership here. We have the brilliant civil servants, but if
we don't have partners from the online community to help
parents, even with the phenomenal software available from the
ADL and the rest, we are going to see these kinds of events
repeating themselves over and over and over again.
So I commend everything that you are trying to achieve
here. I hope at the next set of hearings, we will have the
important leaders of the Internet community sitting with us in
order to try to work out a community-based approach to a
problem that is not going to go away.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gennaco.
Mr. Gennaco. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would echo my
fellow panel members with regard to the proposal that you have
set forth. As I am sure you are aware, Mr. Chairman, there is a
body of law that puts outside of First Amendment protection
direct and immediate incitement to violence by anybody, whether
it is over the Internet or any other medium. And I believe a
carefully crafted legislation that would prevent such behavior
and would not impinge upon the First Amendment would be a
helpful weapon in our arsenal against hate.
To echo what Mr. Henderson said again, with 245, just to
elaborate on my comments, while I was able to use 245 in the
two scenarios that we successfully prosecuted, I can envision
hypotheticals in which I would not have had 245 available to me
in a prosecution. For example, in the UC-Irvine case, if the
victims had been attending a private school and, in fact, the
threat had been because of the sexual orientation of students
at that facility, 245 would not have been available.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Now, let me just ask one
other question because it is an important question. I would
like you to address generally where you think the best
solutions lie in our efforts to combat hate on the Internet.
Is each of you of the conviction that heightened
responsibility by Internet companies and parents through self-
policing as well as anti-hate filters provides the key, or is
the ultimate answer to be found in a legislative response that,
while vigilantly respecting the boundaries of the First
Amendment, may assist prosecutors in combatting illegal threats
and harassment and that assist Internet companies in
terminating those sites that illegally incite violence through
hate speech?
Can we start again with you, Mr. Roy?
Mr. Roy. I think certainly that the Internet providers are
the obvious place to start. One of the things that we have seen
out in the Internet community is an effort by a number of these
groups to develop their own domain, their own ISP's, to where
they can't be kicked off. And for providers to have a ``no
hate'' policy and push them in that direction is certainly
fine. If we had them all in one spot, it would make our lives a
lot easier.
But I think that it is going to take a combination of
things. I think that we need some regulations that may or may
not exist to be retooled or developed, you know, to combat
this. But I think initially and ultimately, it is going to be
the providers that police cyberspace, and some of them do a
really good job and some of them are making no effort at all.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Berkowitz.
Mr. Berkowitz. Yes, Senator. I don't think there is a
silver bullet and I don't think there is an either/or. I really
believe that this is a new challenge, one of the most difficult
challenges that we face in continuing to make sure that the
pluralistic democracy that we all cherish continues.
For all the reasons that were mentioned here, I think that
we have to find the answers, and it is not going to come with
just one answer. Yes, we have developed a hate filter and we
think it is a good one and we think it does a very good job.
Should it be mandatory? It is a very difficult thing to say. I
don't think that it should be unless you have the ability of
either librarians or teachers to override the filter.
Should it be on all library computers? No. If there are
some libraries, as I understand it, that have computers for
children under the age of 15 and other computers for those over
the age of 15, you maybe can find some kind of age level to
deal with that. Do you need to train teachers and librarians to
a greater extent in how to deal with the Internet and problems
of the Internet? Absolutely.
I think that legislation is important. I think that Senator
Feinstein's legislation as it relates to bomb-making
instructions on the Internet will be a valuable tool. A number
of the ones that you have mentioned, I think, will also be
valuable. So I don't think it is going to be one solution.
Certainly, the ISP's are going to have to be brought into the
situation, and as Mr. Roy stated, I think that if we can
isolate the hate groups on their own ISP's, we will be able to
control them to a greater extent. All of this has to be done
within the framework of protecting the First Amendment in every
single instance.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Henderson.
Mr. Henderson. Mr. Chairman, this is an important hearing,
and I really do commend you on behalf of the Leadership
Conference for having initiated this discussion. I note that it
takes place on the second day of the trial of a white
supremacist charged with the murder of James Byrd in Texas from
the dragging death last year. So what we are attempting to do
today by focusing attention on this problem, I think, is really
commendable and important.
Having said that, I think there is no simple solution and
answer to your question specifically about what must be done. I
think all of us have emphasized a combination of a number of
approaches that we think when taken together will make a
significant start in trying to address the problem. We in the
Leadership Conference have emphasized the importance of
education and more speech, and we still believe that that is
the first among many options that we would encourage pursuing.
I do think that you have suggested a range of additional
steps that might be taken, including collaboration with the
online supporters of Internet sponsors and others to talk about
ways, consistent with the First Amendment, of trying to address
the problem. But the emphasis on family responsibility, on
training, on civic participation, on the role of religious
groups and the religious community, all have to be added
together in developing a comprehensive approach to the problem.
And we stand ready to work with you as you continue to pursue
solutions to this difficult issue.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Rabbi Cooper.
Rabbi Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I note here that on
the top 10 active bomb-making sites right now that only one of
them would be on a racist server. So, clearly, if the Internet
community would act to get rid of the other nine, we won't
remove or eliminate the problem, but we would, I think, put a
significant crimp on terms of the links between hate music and
other youth-oriented sites. And that is an action which I think
all Americans are behind.
The only question is will the Internet community do this on
their own or do they have to be pushed by the U.S. Congress.
And I think after the events starting with Columbine, most
Americans want action. We prefer if we don't have to come to
the Government. But if not, possibly in this area alone, some
basic common sense and regulation may be necessary.
Obviously, everyone here agrees with the basic idea that
the answer to hate speech is more speech. But I would suggest
to everyone when you go home tonight and you go online, take a
look at a site called mlking.org, as in martinlutherking.org.
It is the perfect address for your average teenager who is
going to go home and do a research project on one of the
greatest Americans in the history of our country. It took us
about 4 or 5 minutes at the Wiesenthal Center to figure out
that this is a site that was developed, put up and maintained
by Stormfront, one of the leading white supremacist groups.
And so what we are talking about in terms of the challenge
is the basic approach of answering hate speech with more speech
is an unprecedented challenge when we look at the Internet. The
manipulation of information, sometimes the stealing of domains,
the fact that there is no online librarian, that all
information is flat--you put in the word ``Holocaust'' or
``Martin Luther King, Jr.,'' and if there isn't a librarian or
parent around, we don't quite know what they are going to end
up getting.
So we have all seen this tremendous growth of the Internet.
We all welcome it. Everyone in this room utilizes the Internet,
and I still feel that in a sense there is an empty chair here
today, and that is the Internet community themselves. We need
their collective genius, we need them at the table as partners.
And again I want to commend, Senator Hatch, you and your
entire committee for revisiting this issue again, and we are
going to have to come back again and again until we come up
with, at the end of the day, an unscientific approach of where
we draw the line between hate and speech.
One last comment, if I may. When we use the term ``hate
speech''--and Mr. Henderson made a very important distinction
between speech and action--let's also understand that when we
are talking about the Internet, it is not only hate speech, but
the posting of information that has to do with terrorism,
mayhem, violence and other illegal activity and, as such,
interwoven with the issues of the First Amendment.
We will need the continued leadership of your committee,
and I commend you for bringing us together this morning.
The Chairman. Well, thank you. I might mention that we did
invite representatives of the Internet service community to
testify today and they respectfully declined. We are hopeful
that we can get them in sometime in the future because we do
need their viewpoint on what should be done here, and perhaps
we can do that just with a panel for them. We are not trying to
railroad anything here. We want to solve these problems to the
extent that they can be solved. As you know, they don't go away
easily. We will give them another opportunity to testify, but
it needs to be noted that we did invite them.
Mr. Gennaco, we will end with you.
Mr. Gennaco. Mr. Chairman, as a prosecutor on the front
line I also commend you for directing focus to this issue.
There is one other thing that I think is an important component
of ways to address the situation and that is to continue to
support partnerships. In Southern California, we have a good
working partnership with both local prosecutors, with the
Museum of Tolerance.
As a result of the partnership that we have formed, I think
we are able to share intelligence, techniques, and expertise in
various areas to combat the problem. And I think it is this
synergy that is as a result of this partnership that causes me
optimism that we can beat this problem.
The Chairman. Well, we are appreciative. I think this
hearing has been very valid and very important today. As you
can see, we are thrashing around trying to find some way of
solving these problems because they are going to get worse. We
know that there are a lot of offensive things on the Internet.
There are a lot of wonderful things, too. What we want to do is
find some way, within the constraints of the First Amendment,
to resolve some of these problems so that our kids are not
beset with this type of garbage day in and day out. And as you
know, it is a very difficult thing to do.
I presume that many ISP's don't want to get involved
because they know that it would be a never-ending journey for
them, and they also worry about legal liability for taking
people off the Net, perhaps, or worry about whether or not they
are making the right decisions, or worry about whether they
will be criticized for taking some off the Net who, in the eyes
of many, should not be taken off the Net.
It is a very, very difficult set of problems as far as I
can see, and especially when you consider the importance of the
First Amendment. Every one of you have expressed a certain
degree of solicitude for the First Amendment, as we all should,
and every one of you have been champions of the First
Amendment.
On the other hand, there are limitations that society does
provide as to what can or cannot be done under the First
Amendment. And something has to be done, it seems to me, to at
least help our children in this society to have a better chance
to be hate-free, to be pornography- and obscenity-free and, of
course, to be free of some of the evil influences that I think
almost any reasonable person in our society would call evil.
We are seeing more and more acts of violence in our society
committed by juveniles. That is why this juvenile justice bill
is so important. You know, many in the media and many who have
political points to make are trying to make that bill into a
gun bill. That is a very small part of it. That bill does an
awful lot of things that could help to resolve the problems of
juvenile justice. And we are probably going to go into a
conference this week, and I am hopeful that I can get something
out that will be supported by the vast majority of people in
the Congress.
If one side wants to play the gun issue all the way
through, we will never get it done. If either side wants to, we
are never going to get it done. So it is very important that we
have the wisdom of people like yourselves in these processes
and with regard to these problems so that we can get to the
bottom of what should be done, what can be done, and how we
should do it.
So we would like to keep the record open so that you folks,
having heard my opening remarks and the opening remarks of
Senator Leahy, and having heard each other, might be willing to
give us more of your advice and counsel so that we can do what
is best here, because if I don't miss my bet, you folks are as
concerned about all these principles as anybody I know. And you
are experts in this area and I think all of you are noted for
having done very, very important and worthwhile things in this
particular area. So that is why we called on you. It has been a
very helpful committee meeting and I am very grateful to all of
you for putting in the time and effort to give these excellent
statements to us today and answer the questions.
So with that, we will adjourn until further notice. Thanks
so much.
[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Questions and Answers
----------
Responses of Michael Gennaco to Questions from Senator Leahy
Question 1. The Department of Justice seems to have made effective
use of the Internet in the context of various online investigations,
such as the ``Innocent Images'' efforts to combat distribution of child
pornography through the Internet. Has the Department used the Internet
to gather evidence of criminal activity on the part of hate groups in
the United States?
Answer. The Department has used the Internet to gather evidence of
criminal activity on the part of hate groups or perpetrators of hate or
terrorism in the United States. For example, a review of messages sent
over the Internet helped locate additional threats and victims in a
recent hate crimes threats prosecution. In another case, review of a
militia group's Internet communications resulted in additional federal
charges being lodged against members of that group.
Question 2. Does the Internet provide the Department of Justice
with access to information published online that makes it easier for
you to monitor potential domestic terrorist activities organized by
hate groups in the United States?
Answer. The Department of Justice does not engage in the regular
federal monitoring of hate groups in the United States unless it is
pertinent to investigative actions undertaken by the FBI pursuant to
the Attorney General's guidelines for investigations. In situations
where there have been allegations of criminal activity by certain hate
groups or there has already been evidence developed of criminal
activity by members of hate groups, the open source material on the
Internet may be searched in order to locate additional information
about the criminal activity alleged.
__________
Responses of Howard Berkowitz to Questions from Senator Leahy
Question 1. How has your organization been able to use the Internet
to gather information about organized hate groups in the United States?
Answer. The Anti-Defamation League monitors the Web sites, USENET
newsgroups, E-mail mailing lists, and chat rooms used by extremists to
spread their message and communicate with each other. Most online
information created by hate groups is openly available. There are
neither practical nor legal barriers to the collection of most of this
material.
Question 2. Has the Internet helped your organization find out
information such as events or gatherings organized by hate groups in
the United States?
Answer. The Internet consistently, provides the Anti-Defamation
League with relevant, timely information about hate group rallies and
gatherings nationwide.
Question 3. Has your organization used the Internet as an
organizing tool opposing hate groups or events organized by hate
groups? Can people use the Internet to join or support your
organization?
Answer. At the Anti-Defamation League Web site, a Web user can find
contact information for any of our 30 regional offices, report an anti-
Semitic incident to us, or make a donation. Additionally, our site
contains publications such as ``Prejudice: 101 Ways You Can Beat It!,''
which proposes specific, concrete actions people can take in the fight
against hate. Also present on the ADL homepage is our Legislative
Action Center, which allows Web users to E-mail Members of Congress
about priority issues of concern, such as the Hate Crime Prevention Act
or anti-Semitism in Russia.
Question 4. Does your organization use the Internet, including web
pages or e-mail lists, as an education tool to teach people about the
damage hate and hate groups can do?
Answer. The full text of all ADL reports exposing hate and hate
groups is posted on our Web site, where it is available free of charge.
It is our hope that these reports will lead the public to reject hate
groups and their propaganda.
Question 5. I understand that your organization has developed a
product called ``HateFilter,'' which parents can install on their home
computers if they want to prevent their children from being exposed to
web sites that advocate hatred or intolerance.
I understand that there is a fairly robust market for these kinds
of tools, including close to a dozen like HateFilter and perhaps two
dozen or more Internet Service Providers that filter hate speech as
part of the Internet service they sell to dial-up customers. Are these
options useful tools for families who are concerned about hate speech
on the Internet? Do they work on web sites outside of the United States
as well as on hate sites in the U.S.?
Answer. Though there is no single solution to the problems posed by
online hate, filtering software is a useful tool. The ADL's HateFilter
is a frequently-updated, site-specific filtering device, effectively
blocking hate sites selected by ADL researchers both in the United
States and outside the country. Unlike other filtering software
products, HateFilter empowers parents who want to restrict their
child's access to hate--and encourages parents to teach their children
about the nature of bigotry and the hatemongers who promote it. It
offers users who try to access a blocked site the chance to visit a
special portion of the ADL Web site, where they can find basic
information about hate and hate groups.
Additional Submission for the Record
----------
Prepared Statement of Karen Narasaki, on Behalf of the National Asian
Pacific American Legal Consortium
I. INTRODUCTION
The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (Consortium)
respectfully submits this statement to urge the Senate Committee on the
Judiciary to respond to the growing problem of hate crimes and hate
groups on the internet by ensuring that S. 622, the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act of 1999 (HCPA), is enacted this session without
amendment.
The Consortium and its Affiliates--the Asian American Legal Defense
and Education Fund (AALDEF), the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), and the Asian
Pacific American Legal Center (APALC)--have been the leading
authorities on hate crimes against Asian Pacific Americans (APA's).
Every year, the Consortium and its Affiliates produce the nation's only
nongovernmental, comprehensive report and analysis on anti-Asian
violence. Additionally, we monitor bias-motivated incidents against
APA's, collect data, provide technical assistance to victims of hate
crimes, conduct educational outreach efforts on the general problem of
hate crimes and collaborate with government agencies, civil rights
groups and community organizations to improve data collection, police
training on the identification of hate crimes, and community response
to hate acts.
This statement first discusses hate on the internet directed at
APA's, in particular a precedent-setting case which successfully
invoked federal hate crime laws to prosecute an individual for sending
hate e-mail messages to 60 students at a public university. Second, the
statement provides examples of hate messages aimed at APA's on
websites. Third, the statement recounts the deaths of three APA hate
crime victims as demonstrative evidence that hate violence is growing
increasingly brutal and deadly; is not disappearing despite a booming
economy; and, is perpetrated increasingly by individuals with
connections to hate extremist groups. These groups have been turning to
the internet to incite violence, recruit youth, and target minorities
via anonymous e-mail and broadcast hate messages over websites. The
Consortium strongly supports HCPA as a powerful statement that America
will not tolerate hate.
II. USE OF E-MAIL MESSAGES TO PURVEY HATE AGAINST APA'S
The incident that led to the nation's first successful federal
prosecution of a hate crime over the internet occurred in September
1997, when Richard Machado sent a threatening e-mail to members of an
APA student group at the University of California at Irvine. Machado
warned the students that if they did not leave campus, ``I personally
will make it my life career to find and kill every one of you
personally.'' The Consortium's Affiliate, the APALC, monitored the
trial that followed.
Sixty APA students sued Machado over violation of their civil
rights pursuant to federal hate crimes laws. At trial, several of the
students who received the e-mail testified that they believed the
threat was real. They said they feared walking alone around campus and
were scared that they may be physically harmed. They felt isolated and
vulnerable even though APA's comprised roughly 50 percent of the campus
population; several testified that they had not reported the crime
because they believed that no action would arise from their disclosure.
On February 1998, Machado was found guilty and convicted on a
misdemeanor count and sentenced to one year in prison.
One of the laws which the students were able to rely upon was 18
U.S.C. Sec. 245, a 30-year-old federal statute, to bring their case
because Machado singled them out because of their race and intended to
interfere with their federally protected right to a public education.
In the same year, hate e-mail incidents were reported by students
across the nation including Indiana University, Stanford University and
the University of Southern California.
The Consortium believes that the Kennedy-sponsored bill, the Hate
Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 (S. 622), would address this gaping hole
in federal protection and urges the Senate conferees to pass it without
any weakening amendments before the session adjourns.
III. USE OF WEBSITES TO BROADCAST HATE AGAINST APA'S
The Consortium is monitoring a rise in websites sponsored by hate
groups, especially white supremacist organizations, which are beginning
to include APA's in their vitriol against minority groups.
The majority of hate messages remain directed against Jews and
blacks. However, groups who target hate against one group are likely to
strike at all minorities. A case in point follows in the website titled
``Better Than Auschwitz,'' where the author spews the following hate
diatribe:
``I don't have a flying f----k about what anyone thinks. I have
been f----ked over an uncountable number of times by the mud
people, and the jews which overlook them. * * * There are no
blacks, mexicans, there are no asians, there are no ``kosher
people''. There are only niggers, spics, gooks and kikes. I
have never met a descent person from the above, and so choose
not to refer them as people anymore, but things; monsters.
Everyone that is not white deserves to be melted down in a f--
--king oven.'' \1\
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\1\ See http://www.yoderanium.com/webhome/deathdlr/.
The websites reflect xenophobia and show the perverse extremes of
the affirmative action debate. Despite the number of generations who
have lived in the United States, cultural assimilation and innumerable
contributions made to society from high technology to science,
moviemaking and architecture and more, APA's still are considered the
perpetual foreigners posing an outside threat to their own homeland.
The perceptions are not mere misunderstandings. As was the case in
1982, when bat wielding, unemployed Detroit workers thought a Chinese
American was Japanese, these perceptions can be lethal. The following
website fosters the same type of hate that likely would engender
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animosity toward any person of Asian descent:
A cartoon sketches an Asian man with slanted eyes, buck teeth
and a menacing grin rubs his hands in delight as he stands next
to a poster advertising the sale of property with the words
``Sold'' written over it. Overhead, the message reads, ``Do you
think that those rice-nibblin' little Nips have ceased being
sneaky and dreaming of world domination just because WWII is
over? * * * Don't be a fool * * * today, just like yesterday *
* * BEWARE THE YELLOW PERIL!'' \2\
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\2\ See http://www.resist.com.
In the following two cases, the hate mongers push the envelope on
free speech protections by promulgating hate, yet stopping short of
encouraging immediate and specific violent acts at an identifiable
group. In the ``Voice of White America,'' one site posts in capital
letters, ``Hordes of Incoming Asians are Taking Over our West!!'' next
to a headshot of an unidentified Asian man. When the photo is clicked,
a kung-fu-type cry sounds over the speaker. Under the title, the
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message reads:
``We are being flooded with Chinese and Filipinos! These people
stick to their own, and stick up for their own, AT THE EXPENSE
OF EVERYONE ELSE! The San Francisco city & county government
now has equal numbers of Asian and White employees. When Asians
come into power, they do not hire fairly, they hire MORE
ASIANS! And affirmative action give them the blessing to do it!
* * * The number of exclusively Chinese language businesses,
city areas, and theme parks is expanding at an ALARMING rate!
WAKE UP, AMERICA! * * * \3\
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\3\ See http://members.aol.com/tsaukki/taketake.htm.
Similarly, in ``Our Racial Hatred,'' an author by the name of Shaun
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W. states,
``Why is it that for five years, while I went to college here
in California, I felt like an exchange student living in China?
* * * Since being around them in school, I've learned to really
hate the little yellow bastards.'' \4\
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\4\ See http://www.resist.com/Aourracialhatred.html.
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IV. THREE APA DEATHS IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS
In its annual 1997 audit, the Consortium and its Affiliates
reported 481 anti-Asian incidents, including two murders. In the past
five years during which the Consortium and its Affiliates have
monitored bias-motivated violence, there have been approximately two
hate crime murders per year.
The Consortium is alarmed that in the past 6 months, the Asian
Pacific American community has seen THREE particularly vicious attacks
on members of its community. Of the three deaths, two were caused by
individuals with clear ties to white supremacist groups. Both groups
spread hate propaganda online.
One of the men murdered was a 26-year-old Korean student, Won Joon
Yoon. Yoon was killed during the racially motivated shootings that took
place in Illinois and Indiana this past July. The gunman, Benjamin
National Smith, was an active member of the World Church of the Creator
(WCOTC). The WCOTC has used the internet as means of organizing,
publishing its hate materials and recruiting. The group's current
campaign is called ``Operation Internet Blietzkrieg,'' which exhorts
its members to use the internet extensively to spread their hate
messages. One of the fastest growing white supremacist organizations in
the country, WCOTC now has over 40 chapters across the country and
abroad.
Another man shot to death was 39-year-old Joseph Ileto, a Filipino
American letter carrier. Ileto was gunned down by Buford Furrow, who
had hours earlier walked into a Jewish Community Center and shot five
victims, including three young children. Furrow confessed to shooting
Ileto because he looked Hispanic or Asian. Furrow had ties to the Aryan
Nation and The Order. According to the Anti-Defamation League, ``the
Aryan Nation perceives itself as literally surrounded by enemies:
vigorously fighting back is not only a solution to its problems, but a
duty.'' The Aryan Nation has a prolific website including a youth corp
section, news updates, state offices contact information, audio and
video tape catalog, language translations of their website and links to
other hate sites, among other things.
The Consortium believes that while hate on the internet was not
directly responsible for these men's deaths, it contributed to the
climate of hate that influenced and goaded the perpetrators toward
their ultimate acts of murder.
IV. CONCLUSION
One of the nation's leading experts on anti-Asian violence, the
Consortium believes that hate crimes is a serious national problem that
requires federal government involvement to supplement the traditional
state role of policing crimes. Hate crimes are unique in that they
strike not only at the victim, but at all members of the community to
which the victim belongs. Consequently, the impact of hate crimes has
more far-reaching effects than the ordinary crime. With the advent of
the internet, the ability of hate extremist groups to spread hate,
communicate with each other and organize will only continue to be
enhanced.
Whereas in the past, hate mongers primarily relied on public
rallies, marches, and leafleting to spread their messages, the favored
communication tool is now the internet. For a few hundred dollars, any
individual may purchase a computer, acquire an e-mail account and sign
up with an Internet Service Provider to host their World Wide Web page,
sometimes for free. The expenses are little; one Southern Poverty Law
Center investigator reported that the rise in chapters are often due to
one individual setting up shop.
The federal government has an important role to play in the
prevention of hate crimes. By passing the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of
1999, Congress can and should send a strong symbolic statement that the
nation does not tolerate hate; furthermore, the law puts potential
criminals on notice that they will be sentenced with stiffer penalties
if they target any innocent person for violence on the basis of their
race, religion, national origin, as well as sex, disability and sexual
orientation.
Hate Crimes Prevention Act will also allow for enhanced cooperation
between the federal and state law enforcement agencies similar to the
joint federal-state partnerships forged after the enactment of the
Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996. That initiative led to successful
investigative and prosecution efforts in church arsons nationwide after
the lifting of restrictions placed on federal prosecutors. Hate Crimes
Prevention Act needs to be passed to lift the undue restrictions which
bar federal prosecutors from adequately addressing hate crimes.
Based on the foregoing, the Consortium urges the Members of this
Committee to continue its support of S. 622, the Hate Crimes Prevention
Act of 1999, in its current form as it heads for a joint conference and
ensure that it is enacted into law before the end of this legislative
session.