April 27, 1995...In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing and the tragedy and devastation it produced, we are all asking what can be done to help prevent such an atrocity from happening again. How can Americans feel safe from terrorism? What tools do law enforcement agencies need to properly monitor and counter extremist groups while ensuring that our civil liberties be protected? The Anti-Defamation League's 81 years of experience in monitoring and counteracting extremist and hate movements convinces us that there are useful and effective measures to be taken.

Today's so-called militias, which many believe to have spawned the Oklahoma City bombers, are a case in point. Tracking the militia movement since its emergence last spring, through published material, speeches, videotapes, radio programs and computer bulletin boards, the ADL determined by last fall that the militias' growth, activities and bellicose message needed to be exposed to the American people.

Armed and Dangerous: Militias Take Aim at the Federal Government, released in October 1994, detailed the paramilitary activities of these groups, their stockpiling of weapons and their fanatical hatred of the Federal government. We posed the problem of "what exactly, the militias intend to do with their guns."

Surely, our law enforcement agencies ought to have the legal authority and the necessary resources to answer such questions. Furthermore, there should be improved coordination among the various agencies involved. In this regard, President Clinton's call for the creation of an interagency domestic couterterrorism center headed by the FBI is welcome.

Another step can be taken. Our research on extremist groups over the years has convinced us that paramilitary training by organizations intent on fostering civil disorder should be outlawed altogether. We see no reason why a society such as ours, which affords every opportunity for freedom of expression and peaceful change, should permit any group to acquire and train its members to use lethal weapons for the purpose of getting its way by shooting or bombing.

When the last wave of paramilitary activity occurred, in the late seventies, ADL produced a report that documented the proliferation of training centers operated by the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Texas. Using such names as The White Patriot Party and the Christian Patriots Defense League, these organizations were found to be seedbeds of violence and lawlessness.

As a response, we drafted model state legislation that would make it illegal to conduct such training activities. The bill, carefully drafted to withstand constitutional challenge, imposed criminal penalties for weapons instructors and participants in paramilitary training camps. Its subsequent adoption by 24 states contributed to the decline over the next several years of such paramilitary activity. The law was successfully applied, for example, in Florida, where it resulted in the conviction in 1985 of members of the United Klans of America, who were training for terrorist actions against minorities.

We believe that today's discussion of how to reduce the possibility of more Oklahoma City-type atrocities is healthy and necessary and ought to include measures at both the federal and state levels. We urge the 26 states that have not already enacted laws patterned on ADL's model bill to do so with all deliberate speed.

This country had a tragic wake-up call in February 1993 when the World Trade Center was bombed. Many Americans, for the first time, realized our vulnerability to international terrorism. Two years later we see that home-grown terrorists can be even more deadly. While there are no guarantees that it won't happen again, Americans must be reassured that their law enforcement agencies, functioning within constitutional limits, are working to deter such events from happening again.

Thomas Halpern is Associate Director of Fact Finding for the Anti-Defamation League.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.