Domestic Terrorism - Watchdog Groups: Who Monitors Domestic Terrorists?

Besides the U.S. government, a number of watchdog groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), maintain a database of current domestic terrorist and militia groups. In addition to keeping abreast of the activities of these groups, the ADL and SPLC also provide education and training to reduce hate crimes, or attacks perpetrated against an individual or a group based on ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference. Groups specifically preaching hateful ideologies against homosexuals and different races include various Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, black separatist, and racist skinhead organizations.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

The ADL was founded in Chicago in 1913 by Sigmund Livingston with the mission "to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience, and if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people" (http://www.adl.org/). Today, the ADL is one of the nation's premier civil rights/human-relations agencies, dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defending democratic ideals, and protecting civil rights for all. The ADL develops materials, programs, and services to build communication, understanding, and respect among diverse groups. It has conducted and published four national surveys and analyses of far-right extremism in the United States. The ADL Web site provides articles on a wide range of issues, including extremist groups, hate crimes, security awareness, and terrorism.

Since it was founded, the ADL has acted against groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (by circulating pamphlets and calling on Presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt to denounce automaker Henry Ford's anti-Semitic books) and U.S. fascist groups (by accumulating a storehouse of information on extremist groups and individuals in the United States).

In 2002 the ADL took several measures to aid the fight against terrorism. It established a partnership with the Israel-based International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT) to facilitate meetings between ICT terrorism experts and American law enforcement, government officials, media, and community groups, and to distribute ICT publications in the United States. The ADL monitored the response of extremist groups to the attacks of September 11, 2001, by posting their statements on the ADL's Web site. The ADL also issues a periodic report on international and domestic terrorism called Terrorism Update, which is distributed to the media, members of Congress, the presidential administration, state and local legislators, academics, and Jewish organizations.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

The SPLC was founded as a small civil rights law firm in 1971 by Morris Dees and Joe Levin, two local lawyers who shared a commitment to racial equality. Today, the SPLC is a nonprofit organization that combats hate, intolerance, and discrimination through education and litigation. The center is internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacist groups, its tracking of hate groups, and its sponsorship of the Civil Rights Memorial.

In 1981, in response to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, the SPLC began to monitor hate activity. In 2004 the SPLC's Intelligence Project tracked the activities of more than six hundred racist and neo-Nazi groups. In 1994, after uncovering links between white supremacist organizations and elements of the emerging antigovernment Patriot movement, the SPLC expanded its monitoring operation to include the activities of militias and other extremist antigovernment groups. Six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, the SPLC warned the U.S. attorney general that the new mixture of armed militia groups and those who hate was a recipe for disaster.

At the peak of the Patriot movement in the mid 1990s, the SPLC tracked more than eight hundred militia like Patriot groups. As of 2004 that number had dwindled to fewer than two hundred. Using information collected by the Intelligence Project during its monitoring and investigative activities, the SPLC provides comprehensive updates to law enforcement agencies, the media, and the general public through its quarterly publication, Intelligence Report.

Several of the SPLC's lawsuits have reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and many have resulted in landmark rulings. The SPLC has developed novel legal strategies to shut down extremist activity and to help victims of hate crimes extract monetary damages from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.