As usual while the KKK website is used as the example for hate (which it categorically is) I have to wonder how it is that "correct thinking" groups evade being given the same label even though they do the same things. How many would allow our kids to visit and learn at the websites of this group? I call this the "double standard test". Maybe those still in mourning over Florida could comment off list to me about this website. The Boy Who Cried 'ELF' Is the Earth Liberation Front guilty of hate crimes? Wall Street Journal Sunday, February 18, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST They style themselves latter-day Robin Hoods, taking from the rich and saving the earth. In fact, if the Earth Liberation Front has a spiritual ancestor, it is with the night riders of the Ku Klux Klan, a point inadvertently underscored by the haunting image of a burning house that ELF uses to open its own Web page. Up to now they've had a charmed existence, because no one has been killed by the fires and mayhem of "economic sabotage" the group estimates at $37 million. Nor, until recently, has anyone yet been convicted. ELF's preferred weapon is the firebomb, which it used to spectacular effect in its largest action, the 1998 burning of the ski resort being built in Vail, Colorado, which caused $12 million in damage. But it's not just skiers. ELF kicked off the new millennium with its January 1 burning down of the headquarters of the Superior Lumber Company in Glendale, Ore.; the communique read, "This year, 2001, we hope to see an escalation in tactics against capitalism and industry." In September it was the Republican headquarters of Monroe County in Indiana. And before that it was another lab, a U.S. Forest Service research facility in Wisconsin. But as ELF escalates, it's more likely that some of its torchers will finally be caught. On Friday a Long Island high school senior, Jared McIntyre, pleaded guilty to arson. Mr. McIntyre was thought to be involved in attacks these past few months that included the torching of nine houses under construction, the trampling of a cornfield used by researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as well as attacks on a number of other targets, including a construction company's equipment. Spray-painted on the wall of one of the houses was this vow: "If you build it, we will burn it." Thus far, despite ELF's extraordinary run of arson, public outrage hasn't caught up with the crimes, which the group boasts about on various Internet sites. Because its targets have been corporations, construction sites and research labs, there has been an inclination to dismiss the group as misguided idealists. But that's not the view they have at the FBI, whose Director Louis Freeh told Congress that ELF and its offshoots rank at the top of America's domestic terrorist threats. Far from going away, ELF seems to be inspiring new legends and finding new friends. Most recently it has found common cause with the self-styled Animal Liberation Front, whose cutesy-pie name belies its dangerous stunts. Though attacking fur outlets remains a favorite--earlier this week several sympathizers were arrested at Macy's on Long Island. ELF also has become infamous among medical researchers for arson and attacks on laboratories, such as the University of Pennsylvania's Head Injury Laboratory. As ELF's spokesman, Craig Rosebraugh, has conceded, "The main difference between ELF and ALF is their names." Because ELF is less a formal organization than a confederacy of disaffected activists, it has been hard for authorities to penetrate. But it doesn't make the activists any less deadly. McIntyre, for example, was described by Newsday as a bright student, who himself had been working at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who went from meeting some like-minded souls at an animal rights rally to downloading methods and information from the ELF Web site. ELF has been fortunate so far in that none of its fires or actions have taken a life. But that's only happenstance: Ask a fireman what he thinks of targeted arson. Or a logger about the deadly spikes placed in trees. Or maybe ask Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who wrote to a TV reporter in Denver wishing to "congratulate" those responsible for the huge Vail fire and who has admitted to picking two of his victims from a hit list from Earth First!, father to ELF. Then think of the reaction had that been, say, an abortion clinic or an African-American church. Indeed, maybe if we made arson a hate crime, we might begin to see ELF and ALF for what they are
