from the SPLC

Neo-Nazi Threatmaker Accused of Working for FBI

Posted By Mark Potok On January 11, 2008 @ 5:15 pm In Anti-Immigrant,
Anti-Latino, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Gay, White Supremacist, Anti-Semitic,
Neo-Nazi | No Comments

New Jersey radio host [1] Hal Turner is well known as one of the most
vicious neo-Nazis in America, a man who routinely suggests killing his
enemies.

Railing against President Bush, he told his audience last June that ³a
well-placed bullet can solve a lot ofHal Turner problems.² He has written
that ³we need to start SHOOTING AND KILLING Mexicans as they cross the
border² and argued that killing certain federal judges ³may be illegal, but
it wouldn¹t be wrong.² In 2006, after he published an attack on New Jersey
Supreme Court justices that also included several of their home addresses,
state police massively beefed up security for the members of the court,
checking on one justice¹s house more than 200 times.

Hal Turner is one serious extremist. He may also be on the FBI payroll.

On Jan. 1, unidentified hackers electronically confronted Turner in the
forum of his website for ³The Hal Turner Show.² After a heated exchange,
they told Turner that they had successfully hacked into his server and found
correspondence with an FBI agent who is apparently Turner¹s handler. Then
they [2] posted an alleged July 7 E-mail to the agent in which Turner hands
over a message from someone who sent in a death threat against Sen. Russ
Feingold (D-Wisc.). ³Once again,² Turner writes to his handler, ³my fierce
rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy.² In what is allegedly a
portion of another E-mail, Turner discusses the money he is paid.

On Thursday, as the E-mail exchange was heatedly discussed on a major
neo-Nazi website, Turner suddenly announced he was quitting political work.
³I hereby separate from the Opro-White¹ movement,² he said, adding that he
was ending his radio show immediately. ³I will no longer involve myself in
any aspect of it.²

The FBI declined comment. ³Longstanding FBI policy prohibits disclosing who
may or may not provide information,² Agent Richard Kolko of the agency¹s
press unit said. Reached in New Jersey, Turner also declined all comment.

The apparent revelation set off a torrent of criticism from experts in
criminology and the use of informants. ³This is clearly over the line,² said
James Nolan, an associate sociology professor at West Virginia University
who is an expert in police procedure and a former unit chief in the FBI¹s
Crime Analysis, Research and Development Unit. ³Informants may be involved
in drugs, and you overlook that because of the greater good. However, these
are viable threats < they could be carried out < that the FBI clearly knows
about. I want to see the FBI stop it.²

Informants, of course, are commonly used by law enforcement agencies that
have no other way of proving suspected criminal activity. ³These are
frightening groups whose members deserve to be investigated and
infiltrated,² said Jack Levin, a criminology professor and expert on the
radical right at Northeastern University. ³My concern is that Turner¹s
methods actually are more dangerous and destructive than the evil they are
seeking to cure. His threatening messages may actually inspire neo-Nazis to
up the ante, to engage in even more destructive behavior.²

Turner, 45, has developed a reputation as one of the hardest-line racists on
the radical right since starting up his radio show seven years ago. He has
routinely ranted about such things as a ³Portable Nigger Lyncher² machine
and slimed those he hates as ³savage Negro beasts,² ³bull-dyke lesbians,²
³faggots² and worse.

But it is his threats that are legendary.

In 2006, Turner told his audience to ³clean your guns, have plenty of
ammunition S [and] then do what has to be done² to undocumented workers.
Around the same time, he suggested that half the U.S. Congress ³may have to
be assassinated.² A year earlier, he suggested ³drawing up lists of
yeshivas,² or Jewish religious schools. He once started a website called
www.killtheenemy.com for the purpose of posting photos and names of those
who marched in favor of immigrant rights.
Hearing that anti-racist activist
Floyd Cochran was visiting Newark, N.J., last June, Turner said he had
³arranged for a group of guys to physically intercept² Cochran and added
that Cochran would likely ³get such a beating that his next stop is going to
be University Hospital.²(Floyd: So, I wonder, if I can include the FBI in the lawsuit, we are preparing against Hal Turner - for threats issued against, this could get interesting).

In a July letter, Turner wrote to the Southern
Poverty Law Center, which publishes the Intelligence Report: ³If you do not
change your stance soon, you will face a wrath of fury that you will never
be able to defend yourself against. We have the ability to reach out and
touch someone.²

Last July, Turner posted photographs of a pro-immigrant activist being taken
away by an ambulance outside Turner¹s North Bergen home. ³Click the images
below to see how I kicked the shit out of one such douchebag,² he wrote.

Reaction on the radical right to the apparent revelation was mixed, as
activists tried to figure out if Turner really was an informant. But to
many, there was little question it was Turner, based on the style of writing
in the E-mails. ³It does sound like Hal,² wrote ³Varg² on the Vanguard News
Network, a neo-Nazi website. ³I agree,² responded ³Yankee Jim.² ³The Email
definitely sounds like Hal.²

Turner¹s alleged E-mail to his FBI handler is also addressed to a detective
sergeant with the New Jersey State Police who trained with the FBI Police
Executive Fellowship Program in 2004. Interestingly, as long ago as May
2006, Turner wrote of a visit paid to him by the two men, saying they had
come to his house to warn him that ³Washington has instructed us to close
you down.² In that same posting on his website, Turner described himself as
the type to inspire ³a whole slew of potential Timothy McVeighs. I don¹t
make bombs,² he added, ³I make bombers.²

³It¹s become so routine,² Turner said of FBI visits in a 2005 interview with
The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record, ³they are like my private FBI agents.²