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Who were those masked anarchists in Seattle?
The media has blown the story, but there's a growing fringe of activists who believe property destruction isn't "violent," and are bent on convincing the rest of us.
By L.A. Kauffman
[12/10/99]

How victors split their spoils
Trent Lott was all set to funnel yet another military project to his home state of Mississippi until Arkansas Sen. Tim Hutchinson took him on.
By Suzi Parker
[12/09/99]

McCain vs. New York
The GOP presidential candidate says he'll sue if the state's byzantine laws keep him off the ballot.
By Andrea Bernstein
[12/09/99]

Lost in New Jersey
Garden State Republicans are in disarray following Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's decision three months ago to abandon the race for an open Senate seat.
By Victorino Matus
[12/08/99]

The seeds of Seattle
As anti-globalization protesters ask themselves, "Where do we go from here?" Seattle enters the lexicon of civil disobedience.
By Bruce Shapiro
[12/08/99]

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Some Jewish, gay and other minority leaders have been warned to keep low profiles. Security at possible targets like Jewish schools and even such public utilities as dams and power plants has been increased. Police departments from coast to coast have canceled vacations and ordered their troops to work 12-hour shifts through the New Years' holiday.

Those who've been preparing for calamity got some vindication last week, when federal agents based in Sacramento, Calif., arrested two anti-government militia activists in connection with an alleged plot to blow up one of the nation's largest propane storage facilities just after the New Year.

Documents prepared by federal prosecutors allege that militia members were waiting to carry out their plot in order to see what happened with Y2K. With doomsdayers and end-of-the-world prophets predicting chaos, they allegedly thought it might be easier to carry out the attack after Jan. 1. Then, they figured, there would be so much carnage if the tanks blew, the government would be compelled to declare martial law. Public support for militia groups would then mushroom, the conspirators reasoned, and the federal government would eventually be overthrown.

The arrests in El Dorado County came after a more than year-long undercover investigation into reports there was a plan to attack a massive propane plant south of Sacramento. The plan supposedly involved exploding 24 million gallons of propane stored at the plant, news of which sent area law-enforcement officials into a frenzy.

The Sacramento County sheriff posted a SWAT team outside the plant for a month, the company increased its own security and officials began digging a huge trench around the sprawling plant to help prevent a car-bomb attack.

The two men arrested in the plot -- Kevin Ray Patterson, 42, and Charles D. Kiles, 49 -- have long-standing ties to area militia groups. Patterson denied in an interview with the Sacramento Bee on Saturday that he was planning such an attack, and Kiles' son dismissed the notion that his father was involved in such a plan.

But law enforcement sources say both have virulent anti-government views, and regularly consorted with others who share their beliefs, especially in a San Joaquin County militia group that operates south of Sacramento.

Patterson and Kile are just the sort of people the FBI and other security agencies most fear as the calendar counts down toward New Year's Eve: those who hope to capitalize on any chaos that might erupt. But officials say there may also be danger in a Y2K that isn't marked by catastrophe or violence. Some worry that militia groups or millennial nuts preparing for catastrophe will be driven to destruction if nothing happens.

"There are all these doomsday prophets, and what happens if nothing happens?" said Eden Mandel, a San Francisco official with the Anti-Defamation League who says the potential for a Y2K-related backlash is a real threat. "Are they going to try to bring about their own Armageddon? The truth is we don't know what to expect, but there are a lot of different groups out there predicting a lot of different things."

Next page | Are the feds just scaring the public into accepting strong-arm tactics?