[Editor's Note: Consider the blatant chicanery and lunacy revealed in this article: The FBI, the new gestapo in America, obtains a trumped up warrant to raid a man's home, loads his property into a U-Haul truck, and charges him with "possible charges of trademark violation" based on T-shirts found in his home! How outrageous can it get before the American public wakes up to what's occurring in this country? Ted Gunderson, a 28 year veteran with the 'old' FBI, just shakes his head in astonishment whenever he reads of these flagrant assaults by the 'new' FBI upon American citizens. "These people in no way resemble the FBI of my day" says Ted. "We were proud and loyal Americans who were dedicated to protecting and serving the citizens of the United States and above all, guaranteeing the rights of citizens under the US Constitution and The Bill of Rights". It's also interesting to note the convenient shift of culpability pretext by government spokesmen from Al Queda over to 'domestic terrorists/hate groups' which now apparently includes American patriots interested in self protection (militias), environmental organizations, and animal rights groups of all things. It's now standard practice for the burgeoning ranks of fascist-minded thugs parading as government agents to accuse their victims of being Nazi sympathizers, when they themselves behave like Nazis. If you want to learn more about just how nutty these people are getting (and how much more twisted they're going to get), read Animal Farm by George Orwell...Ken Adachi]

By Maria Glod and Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writers
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/FBInowgestapo02jun03.shtml
May 30, 2003

Tracking Hate Groups Aids Terrorism Fight Federal Agents Turn to Domestic Front

Washington Post, May 19, 2003; Page B01

Armed federal agents slipped silently into place around Byron Calvert Cecchini's Leesburg home. They pounded on the door, rousing the self-described white supremacist from bed. For several hours, the agents scoured the house, loading his computer, Rolodex and files into a Ryder truck. The FBI began investigating Cecchini because of his ties to one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the United States. In an affidavit seeking a warrant for the pre-dawn raid this year, an agent wrote that Cecchini had a "violent criminal history" and probably owned weapons. Agents found no weapons, but they found something they were looking for -- T-shirts with a Nike swoosh logo that substitutes the word "Nazi" for Nike.

Cecchini is facing possible charges of trademark violations, said law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named. "You prosecute what you can prosecute," one law enforcement source said. It is a tactic being used with increasing success nationwide as authorities step up efforts to curb domestic hate and terror groups: prosecute any illegal activity by known extremists and, at the same time, work to infiltrate potentially dangerous groups to guard against future attacks. Even as dismantling al Qaeda remains the clear priority of terrorism task forces, agents have been ordered to be vigilant about domestic groups. "The focus on international terrorism is obvious, but September 11th has made us examine all security issues," a law enforcement official said. "You can't make the number one goal preventing attacks against the U.S. and not look at a danger that could be posed here at home." The terrorism task forces are homing in on all groups, including militia movements and even environmental and animal rights organizations.

But the efforts have had the greatest impact on neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. In recent months, prominent white supremacists have been indicted in several states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Washington, and news of their arrests has resulted in a frenzy of anti-government exchanges on neo-Nazi and other racist Web sites. In Pennsylvania, an Aryan Nation member who expressed anti-Semitic beliefs on the Internet in an open letter of support to Saddam Hussein was indicted on weapons charges in March. And a leader of the White Knights of Pennsylvania is accused of plotting to bomb abortion clinics. "The government's efforts in investigating domestic terrorism have stepped up since September 11th," said Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh who chairs Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's advisory committee of U.S. attorneys. "We are taking every incident much more seriously, and we are analyzing it more closely." Weapons charges also were filed against a Washington state man with ties to the white supremacist group Christian Identity and a Wisconsin man who came to the attention of authorities when he e-mailed photos of himself holding an AK-47 while standing in front of a flag with a swastika.

"The radical right from coast to coast is in near-hysteria over the arrests," said Mark Potok, who tracks extremist groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. The White Revolution group postponed a February meeting, explaining on its Web site that leaders believed the government was "eager to use any pretext against white nationalists to arrest or raid or detain us." On another Internet site, Edgar J. Steele, a lawyer who has represented the Aryan Nation, wrote: "There is a roundup taking place . . . how long before they get to you?" On his Web site, www.tightrope.cc, Cecchini talks about the "persecution" of those who share his views. "If any government thinks it can stop an idea whose time has come with pre-dawn raids and lengthy prison sentences, they have miscalculated," he wrote. Cecchini, a former National Alliance member who broke with the group and created Tightrope, acknowledged that his views are offensive to many.

He said, however, that he is not a danger to anyone and is "absolutely not involved in anything illegal." "I don't mind being called a racist or a Nazi," Cecchini said in an interview. "I'm not offended if people don't like what I think." Tightrope's Web site, which is rife with anti-Semitic and racist language, includes a "lynching section" with graphic photos. In "healthier times," Cecchini wrote on the site, rapists and killers were "almost sure to face the ruthless wrath of a mob of enraged Aryan men both willing and able to inflict a horrible death." On the Tightrope site, Cecchini compares nonwhites to the snakehead, a predatory fish found in a Crofton pond last summer that threatened to wipe out native species. "It's still legal to be a member of a group and associate with whoever you want to associate with and have views that may be unpopular," Cecchini said in the interview. "This is still America." David Trainor, an attorney for Chester Doles, a Georgia National Alliance member facing trial on weapons charges, said he's concerned that his client was investigated because of his affiliation with white supremacist groups. According to court records, Doles, who has a prior conviction that bars him from owning firearms, was arrested after an informant reported seeing him with weapons. "Is he partly being prosecuted because of his membership in the National Alliance? The answer is yes," Trainor said. "I think that the basis for going after him is his words."

Law enforcement officials say that they are not trampling on free speech rights but that they must keep close watch over groups or individuals who advocate violence. "We make sure that we don't unnecessarily curb an individual's right to exercise their free speech, but you have to listen to what they say and watch what they do to see if they stepped over the line into criminal activity," Buchanan said. Federal law enforcement officials say fighting domestic terrorism has always been a priority, if somewhat less visible in recent years amid the highly publicized war against al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups.

In response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the number of FBI-led joint terrorism task forces rose from 44 to 66. The Justice Department's 93 anti-terrorism task forces, run out of every U.S. attorney's office, coordinate the effort and keep in touch with officials at Justice headquarters in Washington. The result is a much larger number of people investigating terrorism. More agents on the street means more domestic terrorism suspects are scooped up, along with those suspected of aiding al Qaeda or other international groups. "Even as we fight the war on international terrorism and work to prevent another attack like September 11th," said Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman, "the Department of Justice is also making every effort to shut down hate groups and homegrown terrorists before they, too, can act violently on their hatred." In a February 2002 statement to a U.S. Senate committee, Dale L. Watson, then the FBI's chief of counterterrorism and counterintelligence, named the National Alliance, World Church of the Creator and Aryan Nation, among others, as groups that present a "continuing terrorist threat."

Although federal agents use such tactics as electronic surveillance and wiretapping to fight all forms of terrorism, there are differences in how they confront the homegrown variety. Finding informants is easier, they say, because there are no language and cultural barriers, such as those that have hurt the government's efforts to infiltrate al Qaeda. According to court records, FBI agents from Philadelphia recruited a confidential informant who provided the details that led to the March indictment of David Wayne Hull. Pennsylvania authorities said Hull is a member of White Knights of Pennsylvania and has ties to the Ku Klux Klan. According to court documents, an informant said Hull, who is charged with firearms violations, wanted to buy grenades and spoke of a plan to bomb abortion clinics. Daniel Levitas, who wrote "The Terrorist Next Door," a book about Timothy McVeigh, said right-wing extremist groups have a record of carrying out violent acts. But in most cases, he said, their "rhetoric is wildly disproportional" to any real violence. Cecchini said he has committed no crimes and thinks the authorities were "intelligence gathering." "I guess I'm out of step with the current age, but all through history, a lot of the views I hold were mainstream. . . . Now we're the wackos and the criminals," Cecchini said.

Metro researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.