Brian Levin

Cyberhate A Legal and Historical Analysis of Extremists' Use of Computer Networks in America

American extremists have traditionally cultivated technology to enhance efficiency and promote goals. This article concentrates on how domestic right-wing and other extremists have used computer networks to these ends. Although the concept of a guerrilla insurgency through “leaderless resistance” became a factor in right-wing extremist movements before the Internets advent, cyberspace hastened its popularity. The Internet has been useful to hatemongers and extremists because it is economical and far reaching, and online expression is significantly protected by the First Amendment. Various court decisions have established that not all communication is protected, in cyberspace or elsewhere. Although the government cannot regulate Internet expression because it offends sensibilities, it can regulate expression that constitutes crimes that fall under various unprotected areas of speech. Courts have convicted hatemongers who use the Internet to communicate threats rather than merely ideas. Private service providers and foreign governments have greater latitude to prohibit offensive and hateful expression that does not constitute a threat.

History as a Weapon: How Extremists Deny the Holocaust in North America

The North American Holocaust denial movement attracts a broad range of extremists who subscribe to right-wing and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Because mainstream society and academia have rejected the denial movements theories, key figures in it have created their own stealth pseudoacademic entities. Using many of their own words, this article examines the evolution of the relationship between anti-Semitic extremists and others who became central figures in the promotion of a historical lie that is spread to this day.

Extremism and the Constitution How America's Legal Evolution Affects the Response to Extremism

The current protections that American law provides for extremist speech and associations are relatively new developments. These legal protections, along with technological innovations, enable modern American hatemongers to promote their agenda efficiently and with minimal governmental interference—up to a point. The courts have balanced the right of free expression and association on one hand with the right of society to protect its citizens from violence and disruption on the other.

Making Hate History: Hate Crime and Policing in America's Most Diverse City

During the last 150 years, New Yorks remarkable diversity has been both a blessing and a challenge to its police force and its citizens. With the city more populated and diverse than ever, one might expect crime and intergroup conflict to be rampant, when in fact the opposite is true. Although New York is not quite Utopia, the New York Police Departments (NYPD) impressive multiyear effort at combating crime and hate crime in particular has created a noticeably safer and more civil city. Data show that after the state passed new legislation and the NYPD increased support for its Hate Crime Task Force, hate crime in the city dropped dramatically—an important lesson for other cities.

Trials for Terrorists The Shifting Legal Landscape of the Post-9/11 Era

In the post—9/11 period, the United States government employed alternate methods to deal with those accused of pursuing terrorism or aiding the nations enemies. In an effort to thwart terror attacks, officials employed both civilian and military authority to investigate, apprehend, detain, and prosecute terror suspects. At first the Bush administration was granted considerable deference by the public and other branches of government on a wide variety of measures, including detainments. Eventually, both the courts and Congress reasserted themselves to limit the broad authority that the administration initially wielded over suspected terrorists. In particular, the ability of the military to detain American citizens in most circumstances was all but eliminated, and its near complete authority over noncitizens was significantly restricted as well.

An Analysis of the Legal Issues Relating to the Prevention of Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism

The potential for nuclear and radiological terrorism is a concern for policy makers as the motives and methods of many modern terrorists have changed to embrace weapons of mass destruction. Because these threats likely involve malefactors who rely on a combination of preparation, cooperation, and technical data, it is important to examine how the law addresses preliminary criminal activity as well as access to potentially dangerous information. Although criminal and First Amendment legal sanctions are primarily oriented to address past activities, they do allow authorities to act prospectively in limited circumstances. These circumstances can include instances where nuclear or radiological terrorism is a possibility.

Reassessing Laws on Hate Violence Against the Homeless

The institutionalization of hate crime laws and data collection in recent decades has occurred during an era of increasing specialization of criminal law and policing generally. Hate crime statutes punish the discriminatory selection of crime victims because of an actual or perceived characteristic like race or sexual orientation. Forty-five states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have enacted these statutes, but enforcement of these laws and the groups covered by them varies significantly. As hate crime laws became ubiquitous, the debate surrounding them has shifted away from their constitutionality and legitimacy, to the groups the laws should protect. The most vigorous debate respecting hate crime coverage now focuses on America’s widely victimized, stereotyped and vulnerable homeless population. This article analyzes hate crime laws, as well as the relevant issues relating to including homelessness in them.

The Original Web of Hate Revolution Muslim and American Homegrown Extremists

Before the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leveraged the Internet into a truly modern quasi-state propaganda machine through horrendous online videos, travel handbooks, and sophisticated Twitter messengering, more humble yet highly effective precursors targeted youthful Western Muslims for radicalism, during a time when home grown plots peaked. These brash new entrants into the crowded freewheeling world of extremist cyber-haters joined racists, religious extremists of other faiths, Islamophobes, single issue proponents, as well as anti-government rhetoriticians and conspiracists. The danger from these evolving new provocateurs, then and now, is not that they represent a viewpoint that is widely shared by American Muslims. However, the earlier successful forays by extremist Salafists, firmly established the Internet as a tool to rapidly radicalize, train and connect a growing, but small number of disenfranchised or unstable young people to violence. The protections that the First Amendment provide to expression in the United States, contempt for Western policies and culture, contorted fundamentalism, and the initial successes of these early extremist Internet adopters, outlined here, paved the way for the ubiquitous and sophisticated online radicalization efforts we see today.