MILITIA GROUPS PATROL INTERNET

Like activists of all stripes, extremist militia groups have their own
corner of cyberspace. Active for years on bulletin boards, they've
migrated to the Net.

A quick cruise finds Web sites celebrating guns in color photos, quoting
Revolutionary-era patriots such as Patrick Henry, offering digitized
scathing editorial cartoons and articles condemning the "massacre of the
Branch Davidians." The on-line Journal of Patriotic Justice in America
critiques media coverage of militia groups
(http://weber.u.washington.edu/mcdaniel/).

Despite reports linking the Oklahoma City suspects to a militia group
organizing on the Net, Mike Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
says that "if you actually look at the bombing, fertilizer played a
greater role than computers did.

"Before (PCs), they used telephones. No one thinks the phone is any more
threatening because the Michigan Militia uses it."