U.S. Considering Foreign Terrorist Organization
Designation Of White Supremacist
Group
(New York, N.Y.) – On Monday,
POLITICO reported that the U.S. State Department
is considering a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designation of
at least one white supremacist group. Former government officials and
counterterrorism analysts have suggested designating the Atomwaffen Division (AWD) or another neo-Nazi
group like The Base. If imposed, the FTO designation would
allow law enforcement to monitor Americans who go overseas to train
with white supremacist groups like AWD. The group has reportedly
expanded its influence in Europe and has an established presence in
the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and Estonia. These discussions
come after U.S. federal officials made a series of arrests in February, charging
five AWD members with cyberstalking and targeting journalists with
whom they disagreed by delivering posters exhibiting Nazi symbols and
threatening language.
One of the individuals arrested, John Cameron Denton, resides in Texas and is AWD’s
former leader. According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal
complaint against Denton, the notorious neo-Nazi author and activist
James Mason has participated in online chats with
members of AWD on the Discord platform. According to court documents,
Mason “joined the (Discord) channel on multiple occasions to offer the
group encouragement in pursuing neo-Nazi activities and views. Denton
expected channel participants to join the channel when James Mason
spoke to the group.” Mason praised AWD in a September 2019 video made
by the group and wore the group’s insignia, though he claims not to
have any role with AWD. AWD’s website has featured videos and blogs by
Mason promoting racist and Nazi ideologies.
Two AWD videos were also located on YouTube in
February that reveres white supremacist and mass murderer Dylann Roof
and advocates the murder of Jews, people of color, Latinos, and
immigrants. The AWD footage, which is taken directly from the group’s
propaganda videos, includes individuals firing various firearms while
wearing AWD patches. The unlisted video was uploaded in October 2019,
and had almost 200 views when it was located on February 20 by CEP
researchers.
German for “atomic weapons,” AWD is a neo-Nazi organization
that seeks the creation of a National Socialist government through a
violent “white revolution,” and believes that a race war is
inevitable. The group promotes Nazi and satanic propaganda in pursuit
of “total Aryan victory.” AWD follows a neo-Nazi ideology promoted by
Mason, a former American Nazi Party member and a follower of cult
leader Charles Manson. During the 1980s, Mason wrote a series of
pro-Manson and pro-Nazi newsletters that he called Siege and later
compiled into a book of the same name. Users on the now-defunct
fascist web forum IronMarch formed AWD after discovering Siege, which
is required reading for group members They based AWD’s ideology on
Mason’s ideas of autonomous terror cells fighting a guerilla war
against “the system” in order to incite a race war.
To read CEP’s resources on Atomwaffen Division and The Base,
please click here.
To read CEP’s resource James Mason’s Siege: Ties to
Extremists, please click here.
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