Spy vs Spite

Since the city settled its civil case against the ADL, 17 people who had been subjects of the ADL's investigation have attempted to recover their files; they are represented in court by former Congressman Pete McCloskey, whose wife is one of the plaintiffs. So far, the ADL has blocked those efforts, claiming to be a news-gathering organization and invoking the need for journalists to protect their confidential sources. The California Court of Appeals has ruled that plaintiffs who were the target of illegitimate information-gathering that resulted in the transfer of information to a foreign government have a right to see what was transferred.

The lawsuit has certainly shed light on how the organization has gathered information. For example, the former director of the ADL's San Francisco office, Richard Hirschhaut, testified that he was aware that Bullock had prepared reports on hundreds of individuals and organizations. He also said that up to half of the ADL's activities in the seven years between 1986 and 1993 had been centered on discrediting political views that disagreed with the organization's support of Israel, rather than on the ADL's traditional efforts to counter bigotry and anti-Semitism.

The Internet has undoubtedly made it easier for children to access inappropriate information. Few would argue that a child has something to gain by reading the diatribes of the Farm Belt Führer, and, although hate crimes are actually on the decline in terms of numbers, the hate incidents that have occurred recently are conscience-shocking. Last year the country was introduced to Benjamin Smith, who went on a rampage in Indiana, wounding six Jews coming home from Sabbath and killing an African-American and an Asian-American before committing suicide. Buford Furrow Jr. became famous for shooting up a Jewish community center in Los Angeles. And of course there were Columbine's Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two teenagers wreaking bloody havoc on their classmates. Teenagers are laughing while they send bullets into their peers, and the World Church of the Creator has a special section for kids.

Who wouldn't be looking for ways to stop the haters? Potential presidents certainly are.

John McCain is stumping through New Hampshire with his Children's Internet Protection Act, a bill that would require all public libraries and secondary schools receiving federal subsidies for their Internet hookups to install filtering software on computers accessible to minors. Many experts say the bill is very likely to win approval from Congress. Al Gore's campaign Web site has a link to Internet Safety for Parents and Kids, complete with follow-on links to the filter sites Cybersitter and Netnanny.

Judith Krug, a law expert with the American Library Association, says she expects to see an avalanche of Internet filtering laws passed at the state level. (Some states, including South Dakota and Virginia, have already mandated Internet filters for library computers accessible to children.) "Without a doubt, schools have to find ways to protect children from inappropriate material," says CyberPatrol Vice President of Marketing Susan Getgood. "I see schools implementing filters in record numbers."

It seems that the ADL's pet project, HateFilter, couldn't have materialized at a better time. Throughout its long life, the ADL has spent vast amounts of money collecting information on the groups it considers threatening, all for a small number of ADL publications that few people would ever read. Now the organization has the opportunity to have a major impact on how young people view the world.

It's quite possible that every library and school receiving federal funds across the nation will be forced to install filters on its computers, not just for pornography, but for extremist speech as well. These institutions will have a choice between a few commercial monoliths that provide filtering software -- and a civil rights organization that can accurately say it has 85 years of experience in fighting bigotry. Some public institutions will almost certainly choose the HateFilter.

And without a list of sites the ADL has decided to block, parents won't ever know what their children are missing. Perhaps a lecture by Noam Chomsky on the mainstream media monopoly. Or a RealAudio spoken-word monologue by Amiri Baraka, formerly known as Leroi Jones. Or a detailed analysis of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

So far, nobody is connecting the dots in a public way: An organization with a history of ruthlessly silencing its critics is trying to dictate the Internet content available to the country's young minds. And when asked about the HateFilter, the White House offers this vague comment of apparent support: "The president certainly supports any tool that blocks hate and other inappropriate material on the Internet."

The Labor Committee on the Middle East fizzled out a few years ago, but Steve Zeltzer is still active in radical politics. His Victorian home in Bernal Heights is cluttered with tall stacks of videocassettes, material for the documentary television show he produces, Labor on the Job.

Zeltzer says he's still haunted by the paranoid feelings that began when he realized he was being watched. For the first couple of weeks after his confrontation with ADL "fact-finder" Roy Bullock, Zeltzer says, his phone rang repeatedly; when the answering machine came on, the caller began dialing random numbers, an apparent attempt to retrieve messages left for Zeltzer. Now, if he answers the phone and nobody's there, he can't help but wonder if he's still being targeted.