The number of hate groups active in the United States dropped 15 per cent to 457 in 1999, but the drop came as smaller groups consolidated into larger, more hardline organisations, a new report said yesterday.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre said big hate groups like the National Alliance and Hammerskin Nation were rapidly expanding as a result of the consolidation.

Smaller hate groups and individual white supremacists, meanwhile, were turning to the Internet, where the number of hate sites rose to 305 in early 2000 from 254 in early 1999, the centre reported in its latest Intelligence Report.

The situation's very volatile, said Joe Roy, director of the center's Intelligence Project, which publishes the quarterly report.

"Many of the isolated, smaller groups have joined forces with much more serious players. There is strong evidence that far more people are now in really hardline groups like the National Alliance and Hammerskin Nation," he said.

William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, had detailed a 1999 growth rate that was 20 times the average for the preceding four years, the centre said.

To be included in the Intelligence Project group count, hate groups had to engage in racist behaviour such as crimes, speeches, calls, leafleting or publishing literature - more than merely posting a Web site.

"Many individual white supremacists have retreated to cyberspace, increasing their reach but diminishing the number of people actively engaged in the movement in other ways," the report found.

(Reuters)

-- Risteard Mac Thomais (uachtaran@ireland.com), March 15, 2000

Answers

All cowards unite!!

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), March 15, 2000.

Don't knock hate groups. I'm thinking about forming one called: DOWN WITH LITTER BUGS!! Our motto will be, "Have you thrown a litterer in the dumpster today?"

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 15, 2000.