Closing Remarks from Foxman, Eissens, Wolf

To close the conference, we heard closing remarks from Abraham Foxman in which he emphasized the importance of 'words' in the Jewish tradition, in the creation and in the elimination of hate.

And, in the final remarks of the day, Ronald Eissens, General Director of INACH and Christopher Wolf, the Chair of INACH, summarized and closed the conference.

We ended at just after noon, and then they served lunch, and everyone chatted for a couple of hours and slowly dispersed over the course of the afternoon.

The meeting was a big success and generated a lot of interesting discussion!

Q&A with Erickson

A human rights lawyer attending asks about the availability of illegal material in Canada that's accessible through U.S.-based ISPs.

Erickson allows that this "is a problem," but reminds the audience that the Internet relies on "open architecture" from "end to end" and that the Internet willl eventually be "only pipes" that allow for largely "peer-to-peer" exchanges.

Q&A and Informal Chats

Interesting Q&A after the last panel, and informal chat among those in attendance. Met Catherine Smith, from SPLC and University of Denver who is doing important work in this area. Her work is a breath of fresh air in an area, we agreed, is lacking a critical perspective. The shift from focusing on white supremacy to focusing on animal rights and Muslim groups is noteworthy.

Internet Industry Perspective: NetCoalition

Markham Erickson, of NetCoalition, a trade group representing Internet companies such as Yahoo and Google. is now giving a presentation on the industry perpsecitve on what he refers to as "objectionable" content on the Internet. He contends that the Internet companies, such as Google and Yahoo, rely on monitoring by the public to report offensive material because there are

Erickson talks briefly about the controversy over the query term"jew" and the result "JewWatch" in Google. This changed (somewhat) with advocacy groups changing their metatags to include the term "jew," and Google put other sponsored sites in response to that query term. Basically, he points to this as an instance of success of the ISP's in responding to these issues.

Recommends: education, particuarly the youn; parental involvement and supervision, NGO activism, technical solutions, prosecution when sites cross into criminal behavior (violence & fraud).

Erickson mentions the OSCE Conference in Paris, and highlights this quote to encapsulate the industry's stance on hate online:

"Rather than fear the purveyors of hate, let us confront them in the marketplace of ideas, where the bright light of truth will expose their bigotry and their lies can be unmasked."
- Stephen Minikes, Ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the OSCE, as delivered to the June 17, 2004 OSCE Meeting on the Relationship between Racist, Xenophobia, and Anti-Semitic Propaganda on the Internet and Hate Crimes.

The way to combat hateful ideas is not to have someone in the government regulate it, but to have more robust speech in the marketplace of ideas, and the ideas which are not objectionable will win the day.

Connection between Online Hate & Offline Hate Crimes

Brian Marcus, of the ADL, moderating this panel raises the excellent (and as yet, unanswered) question.

How is online hate connected to offline hate crimes?

Pascal Hertzscholdt, answers that these are connected, but didn't mention specific examples (or, perhaps I missed it).

Sgt. Camp, does not see an increase in hate crime because of the Internet, but does see the Internet as emboldening some.

David Dietch, sees several specific examples. He mentions email groups related to Muslim jihad, where the Internet facilitated participation of individuals. He also mentions that videos you used to only be able to acquire at obscure bookstores are now widely available as free downloads on the Internet. On the domestic side, he again mentions the animal rights groups.

I'm troubled by the shift in focus away from white supremacist groups, and think that this is telling in some ways.

Obstacles to Effective Prosecution

Dietch continues....with obstalces to effective prosecution, including: evidence connecting defendant to web site; evidence connecting defendant to postings; international collection of evidence.

In addition, Dietch sites the "First Amendment/Free Speech" issue. Dietch claims that there is an "atmosphere" within the U.S. that "speech is free," though "of course, all speech is not protected." He argued in the Al Hussein case that the issue was not speech, it was conduct. Dietch contends that an important strategy to this obstacle to prosecution is to make this distinction between speech and conduct. He goes on to say that satisfying the standard of the Brandenburg case, which is that the language has to be imminent incitement to action. Dietch believes that it is sufficient to prove that someone visited a web site and then later joined the jihad, but a judge in one case did not agree.

Domestic Terrorism, U.S. DOJ

David B. Deitch, on "Enforcement and Prosecutions of Online Extermism and/or Terrorism in the European and U.S. Context." Deitch is the Domestic Terrorism Coordinator, in the U.S. Department of Justice, in the counter-terrorist section.

Deitch sketches out the changes in the DOJ after 9/11, including 1) renewed focus on counterterrorism, 2) institutional reform that sought to enhance sharing of information, 3) new strategic emphasis on prevention.

There are different levels of Material Support Using the Internet (public opinion, sympathizers, supporters, soldiers, and leaders). Dietch uses a pyramid schematic to sketcht this out, and this puts me in mind of the schematic I developed about "lurkers" and "true believers" online. Nice convergence, there.

Reiterates the global audience aspect of the Internet to disseminate propaganda of an extremist group, and also the logistic goals of the organization.

Advantages of the Internet for extremist groups, anonymity, global audience, very little regulation, inexpensive, easy to re-open (not just web sites, but also listservs, discussion boards, etc.)

Dietch discusses the case of Azzam Publications (formerly on the web as www.azzam.com), which provided support for various Muslim terrorist groups. The other case Dietch mentions Alasr Magazine, of the Islamic Assembly of North America, and their online presence (formerly on the web as www.alasr.ws). He sites the Alasr example as a case where there was a need for international cooperation: server was in Houston, then moved to Canada, author was Egyptian, web masters were in Idaho and in Michigan. In May, 2001, this web site was saying that a modern way to "kill a great number of the enemy" is to "fly a plane into a building."

The next example Dietch is addressing is "Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC)," a Philadelphia, PA-based animal rights groups (www.shacamerica.com). This is seen as objectionable because the organization posts "targets of the week," but as I understand it these targets are vendors who do business with Huntingdon. I see this as an important distinction, and a problematic equivalence that Dietch is drawing.

His final example is the anti-abortion doctor's web site.

Dietch details the U.S. prosecution tools: 1) "Material support to terrorists" [18 USC, 2339A], 2) "material support to designated foreign terrorist organization," [18 USC, 2339B], 3) "money laundering" [18 USC, 1960], 4) IEEPA violation, [50 USC, 1705(b)] for groups that have special designation as a terrorist organization, 5) "solicitation," [18 USC, 373], and finally, 6) "teaching construction of improvised explosive incendiary device" [18 USC, 842p]. Dietch mentions the last as particularly useful in prosecuting web site cases where extremists publish information about bomb-making.

Edmonton Hate Crimes Unit

Sgt. Stephen Camp, of the Edmonton, Canada, Hate Crimes Unit, presenting on, "Combatting Hate at the Municipal Level," and his unit's work against hate online.

They consider hate crimes as counter to fundamental principles of the Canadian charter, which recognizes multicultural values and human dignity.

Only two people to staff the Hate Crimes Unit, vastly understaffed to address many goals.

Law enforcement in Canada is able to address online activity based on their law against, "Wilful Promotion of Hatred," (319.2) which enables them to practively go after hate sites. One such example was the site, "Western Canada for Us." Many members of the group had previous criminal records for violent crimes. The site was based in Edmonton, the ISP was in New Jersey, and the links to other well-known white supremacist groups internationally.

Interesting discussion of the chronology of the investigation, which only began with online monitoring and then shifted to traditional, on-the-ground investigative tools.

Wrap Up: "Human rights, human dignity and mutual respect are the building blocks of the Unit." Refreshing law enforcement perspective.

Online investigations recommended as effective and economical tools.

National High Tech Crime Center, Amsterdam

Running late this morning from my apartment to the ADL conference, due to the lack of 6 train service and the complete absence of any available cabs. That said, got here in time to catch the end of the first presentation on the panel this morning.

Pascal Hetzscholdt, of the Naitonal High Tech Crime Center, Amsterdamis making an impressive presentation with lots of flash animation examples of high tech, racist online games.

He made a good point about the lack of IT-saavy people to investigate high tech crimes.

INACH Conference @ ADL

Conference at the ADL Thursday, 9/29 and Friday, 9/30 sponsored by the International Network against Cyber Hate .

The focus on Thursday was primarily on law enforcement aspects of how to address various aspects of hate via internet.


Brian Marcus, of ADL, has been key putting this whole thing together and he did a nice job of introducing the problem online to an audience that may not have been familiar with some of it. Consistent with ADL's mission, the presentation focuses on both far-right and other kinds of terrorism (such as Al Qaeda and Hezbollah). I understand this approach, but have some concerns about it.


Interesting presentations by Christopher Wolf, Michael Gennaco (who prosecuted the Machado case), Peter Rodrigues (from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam), and Brian Levin (Cal State, San Bernardino).


Peter Rodrigues, as the lone non-American voice on the panel made a crucial point, I think, about the fact that most of these hate sites though illegal in the Netherlands are legal in the U.S. It seems to me this point is the heart of the issue and was little discussed.

Back after Haitus

After a haitus in August and most of September, I'm back to blogging here.