Fears for Obama

Two weeks ago, in Roanoke, Va., Bill White, a notorious neo-Nazi leader, was arrested on charges of threatening the "use of force" against the foreman of a Chicago jury which had convicted another white supremacist leader in 2004. In an affidavit submitted to a court to request a warrant for White's arrest, an FBI agent included graphics from a purported "National Socialist" magazine White was about to publish, which prominently featured a death threat against Obama. According to the affidavit, White in the past often issued death threats through a Web site he edited; one posting said that "all Jews and Marxists (including their fellow traveling neo-cons, neo-liberals, Zionists and Judaized-Christians in both the Republican and Democratic Parties) should be shot rather than debated …"

Then, earlier this week, agents of the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrested two alleged white supremacists, Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, on firearms and possible presidential-threat charges. According to an ATF court filing, the two, who shared "White Power" and "Skinhead" enthusiasms, met via the Internet about a month ago and began discussing how they would embark on a "killing spree" that would include killing 88 people and beheading 14 African-Americans. (Experts who monitor right-wing groups say the number 88 is a code for "Heil Hitler," H being the eighth letter in the alphabet.). According to the ATF complaint, the two suspects' discussions eventually led them to a Tarantino-like fantasy plot in which they would shoot Obama from a car with a rifle while dressed in white tuxedos and top hats.

Despite these well-publicized cases, Mark Potok, a researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center—an Alabama group that monitors racist and neo-Nazi activities—says that most ultra-right-wing extremists have been very careful recently about circulating death threats, which can be attributed to them publicly. "We've seen very little of that on white supremacist Web sites," Potok said. The reason: they fear it will give the Secret Service, FBI and other government agencies an excuse for cracking down on them aggressively, Potok says.

Meanwhile, U.S. counterterrorism officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that while they remain wary of possible Islamic terrorist-attack plots, they have no specific and credible information to indicate that a pre-election plot directed at targets inside the United States is in the works. (That, of course, does not rule out the possibility that such a plot is indeed afoot and the U.S. authorities just don't know about it yet.) The officials also said they had no specific indication that Osama bin Laden or one of his principal associates, such as Al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, were planning in the next few days to circulate a message related to the U.S. presidential election similar to the message from bin Laden that surfaced just prior to the 2004 election.

Recently, persistent attacks by computer hackers have disabled some key Web sites used by Al Qaeda supporters to circulate propaganda and exchange messages. One of the main sites used by Al Qaeda leaders in the past to circulate video and audio messages remains operative, however. There is no indication that the site expects such a message before next Tuesday, said several government and private experts, although this does not rule out the possibility. Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who monitors Al Qaeda Web sites, he says that the terrorist group still could attempt to use the pre-election period as an opportunity to "grab media headlines."

Terror Watch appears weekly on Newsweek.com.

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