ADL Urges Legislation to Outlaw Paramilitary Training Camps Run by Kkk and Other Extremist Groups

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith is urging state authorities to adopt legislation outlawing paramilitary training camps run by the Ku Klux Klan or other extremist groups–and made public a model statute.

The statute, drawn up by ADL’s national Law Department, calls for imprisonment and/or fines against those found guilty of operating paramilitary training camps or receiving training there, it was announced here at a session of ADL’s national executive committee meeting at The Breakers Hotel.

Seymour Reich, chairman of ADL’s National Civil Rights Committee, told some 200 participants attending the four-day meeting which ends Sunday that the model law would make training in the use of firearms, explosives, incendiary devices or techniques that kill or injure people a crime when it is for the intention of provoking civil disorder.

The ADL, which has monitored Klan activities since the 1920’s, disclosed in a nationwide survey last October that the Klan is engaged in paramilitary activities in six states and urged regular FBI surveillance to protect Americans from terrorism and violence perpetrated by “armed racists.”

ADL PROPOSES A MODEL STATUTE

Patterned after the 1968 federal Civil Obedience Act, the model law, according to Reich, is an “effective and legally sound local response to the proliferation of extremist-operated paramilitary camps.” It was drafted after a canvass by the ADL’s regional offices revealed that there is a pressing need for state laws that directly deal with paramilitary training.

Reich said that according to available information, the Civil Obedience Act has not resulted in any arrest of Klan paramilitary instructors. The federal law, unlike the ADL model statute which makes teaching or participating in paramilitary training a criminal offense, applies only to teaching.

Reich pointed out that state laws would for the first time enable local authorities to crack down on Klan paramilitary camps.

The ADL model law is based upon the federal statute which has been tested by the courts and upheld on constitutional grounds. Reich said the ADL had drawn the model as precisely as possible to prohibit only those activities “which one is constitutionally permitted to proscribe.”

The activities referred to, he emphasized, involved paramilitary training and exempt lawful activities such as rifle range training and karate club activities.

AREAS OF KKK ACTIVITIES

In its October report on the Klan, the ADL pointed out that FBI monitoring of the KKK was sharply curtailed in 1976 by guidelines–issued in response to charges of the abuse of FBI powers–which require evidence of actual or imminent violence before investigating Klan activities.

The report named Alabama, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Texas as sites of paramilitary training and cited California as a Klan distribution center for instructional manuals and handbooks on terrorism.

In Alabama, for example, Reich said, the Invisible Empire, Knights of the KKK, run by Bill Wilkinson, operates a campsite near Cullman, AL, which has been dubbed “My Lai.” Training there includes target practice with M-16 semi-automatic rifles, obstacle course proficiency, study of guerrilla tactics and practice search and destroy missions.