which broke out over the weekend being fanned by strong winds from storm ophelia the state of emergency has been declared and those are the latest headlines here on out is there i'm back with an update in twenty five minutes the stream is next by. i am. very ok and you are in the stream today what's it like to go undercover in the world of white supremacy we have extraordinary stories of people who post as racists in an attempt to expose them. hate is on the rise in twenty seventeen for the second year in a row the number of hate groups in the u.s. rose and since nine hundred ninety nine the total number of hate groups there has more than double that's according to the southern poverty law center but anti-racism activists say it's not just the u.s. where they're seeing evidence of a growing movement across the western world so how are they tackling it for somebody else that is in full trade ssion going undercover as white supremacists joining us now we have patrick have a certain he is a researcher for hope not hate that's an anti racism group joe my whole is a senior research of the hope not hate fear wilson is a community organizer and mike german is a fellow at the brennan center for justice and a former f.b.i. undercover an undercover agent to them it's good to see you here you all have various different stories of how you in for treated the far right let me start with a documentary called a my year in khaki a star on undercover in the far right have a look. for the past year i have infiltrated outright in the u.k. and america. this is my story. i. believe it was. joe how to not have done before fatima abdullah what made you go undercover what's the premise what are you trying to do. you know i mean what's really central to what we're trying to do undercover work is find out the bits that we can't find out from surface level research i mean you can find out so much from looking at what they publish what they are so quite often when we look at extreme foreign organizations the clear difference between what they say publicly in terms of what their front house images that they betrayed the world and what they say privately and how they organize so that's the first and then the second big movements like this ok all right we have to try and find out how they all could not be one step ahead to see how they operate and organize entirely and that allows us as ninety racist organization to come up with ways to tackle it and you can't talk what you don't understand is what central to understanding i'm just thinking about preparation because basically what we're talking about here is posing as a racist patrick how did you get your mindset in that space where you could spend a year being racist. well it's quite surprising how apollo little you have to say. in places things you used to have to agree not to long and i focused most of what i said then i built my account at the iran criticism to that heat of the left and then feed off speech and that sort of thing so one of the racist things i've said over the last year close to nothing. and just take my clothes noting as you said you just have to know the long miami show everybody what you look like when you're going to cover looking at missions on the pacific northwest is you back here that idea of preparing yourself to go on to cover what did you have to did. well i mean it took a lot of work because of course we weren't just trying to get into the ideological side of the movement the organization rather we were focusing on gathering evidence of criminal acts so there's sort of pretty jhelum it within these groups that are involved in manufacturing illegal weapons manufacturing explosives things like that so it was a very specific subset of the group that we were trying to get into so it required a lot of investigative preparation and finding out who was was actually involved in criminal activities so that we could focus the operation around what they needed help with basic saw new c s twenty five three as who is a tell us about have. he says twenty five is just a character i created online as i was getting trolled i wanted to see if i could create the echo chamber effect in my favor so a new online account was necessary with a brand new digital footprint so i could hopefully get to the root of the propaganda way and was spreading this movement so fast online and that's why i created the account so resetting the four hundred twenty fifteen earth a lot of. a lot of the black life movement was out there was a lot of courting and protesting for racial justice and they were doing what online it was making to be told so much i was just post my own videos i am a policeman telling the survivor i have also lost a friend at the hands of police and so in my own content i was attracting to say the dark side of the internet and i was i would trace some of these guys not figured out oh these are some shell accounts and so just this idea only said two can play that game and so i decided to just see what happened and yeah it was born from that when i was doing it i didn't think it was a big deal i don't even find it all that courageous turns out it was ideal logically courageous because i was jealous of myself but i didn't think it would turn into all this that it has become so yeah i'm going to be in the company that i'm in right now so over fat and happy comments he talking about your experience and i told you. how to look. at the think like years ago i would have needed like acting training and like make up in a fake id now i could just lurk. i thought it was a little info wars went on into some american renaissance national vanguard alliance and you know i thought of comments and all of videos talking bad about al sharpton in black lives matter started be moaning race baiters like eric holder and barack obama. and just mirroring the anti-black sentiments that were thrown at me and to be honest it was kind of exhilarating. as in c s twenty five you owe a mechanic what does that person look like you know maybe i can what are you saying what are you doing but i'm trying to do was through some of the more intellectual arguments doubt and type blackness at these folks to see what else i could glean it was easy to be a hyperbolic troll and say outlandish things but i wanted to see if there was a strong ideological basis like and what i found was that well it seems to me that the right used the white victim narrative to date a brand new generation of guys who didn't really get the full historical knowledge of what race actually meant in this culture using the blowback from centuries of racism and freddy that blowback as oppression they were able to say well you guys are also victims here is a way out of that victimhood and so are a lot of guys without the knowledge of well for a lot of rebranded mind come five days it was interesting to see it spin out. let me put this that thought that you know i mean actually it's really really interesting what you're saying because it's absolutely true i mean one of the key elements of the all right is this is they they cost themselves the white identity movement and it's central to them is the notion of victimhood i mean it's and this is across in lots of what she promises from foreign movements in western europe and north america this notion that seems paradoxical to most people but they genuinely believe that the most persecuted people are whites straight christian men and the way they see it is that was what i would argue kind of left wing cultural had tremendous notion you know equality civil rights gay rights women's rights and political correctness is oppressing them and they see this kind of leveling out of societies as them being persecuted so it's up to absolutely right what he's saying those fundamental element of these foreign movements is this notion feeling oppressed. and i think that goes way back right i mean that the interesting thing i think that the most surprising thing to me when i first went into the neo nazi movement was how old these ideas are and you have to remember you know it's only one hundred fifty years ago that we were fighting to outlaw slavery in this country it's only sixty seventy years ago that. they're far right had control in europe so you know these ideas were around for a long time and the way it was framed that just in a way that justified slavery and colonialism was the concept of the white man's burden right it was this infringement on. white people that there were these other people out there that we had to go and police and take care of and administrate over them and that kind of thing so so these ideas have a long heritage going back hundreds of years terry mckinney solstice on twitter what's hard to understand about master race philosophy we saw it in nazi germany israel south africa america it's hardly miss it basically what's the point of going on the cover. well i think what was interesting was it sprang up after it looked like we may a lot of progress i was doing this during the obama era and the idea of integration was if we get close to these folks we meaning black people and you see that we're just as human issue then a lot of the lynch mob culture is going to be stopping us and you know washington post you never joins the data lynch mob never smote the body of somebody burning like you did in the forty's and fifty's and sixty's so how could this spring up again it wasn't about the idea in and of itself is how did it we just heard and i think that if we understand it from that perspective it is clear what we did what we did how dangerous was it for a whole war protests something that tended to be a racist. it's in many of these groups i've been in are not directly dangerous to me there i don't need to be and i.d.'s are the interest of people of our us if i'm a white guy i'm not their primary target some of them and or a premier in the us and they are armed and they talk about what they want to do with the fascists with gay people as well in indoor situations i was i felt threatened of course but joe to your point has a level of revelation that comes from your work definitely going undercover and then patrick shooting it there's a little clip where a democrat greg johnson tell us who we ease you talk about what to do about the jewish problem which sends tindall's down my spine when i even hear that language but tell us about greg first of all. you know a good johnson is a kind of prominent now do classes all right figure it's a long standing member of the american far right a prominent member of the american far right. he's been around for a very very long time one of the things actually in terms of how markets infiltration of patrick captured was the first ever for two and first ever pictures of girl johnson and that's another example of why this will work can be will be used but we live in an age where because of the internet our activism has a lower social cost in some senses and did previously activists can sit in their bedroom in one place in the world and i can gauge in hate crimes online to people in other parts of the world they can gauge and follow activism so by infiltrating such a we find out who these people are we found or find out what they're planning but things like greg johnson when patrick managed to get his picture it increases the social construct as well means that people start to realize that they might not be able to do this anonymously if they decide to make that move in tune you know engaging in acts of hatred online we will show it have a little look at what patrick shot on the cover is quite johnson. this is the. truth because if one defines it as. the yanks. are very few corporations in some sort of interest over in georgia the president putin will be there with you as we. call the solution to the way a six. year. cynthia when joe was mentioned about people sitting in their bedroom. you talking about all right philosophy so you do you there are some some agreement that you know says that you recognize that . well yeah i suppose what they call something like that that the cage effect when you're driving for example certain negative aspects of your personality get amplified because you're divorced from the consequences and of in a very real way you're surrounded by cage while believe that's even taken to a higher level on the internet and so the anonymity makes it so that you don't have to say you don't have to face the consequences if you say this to a guy you know say it's pretty specific like a guy of my size in my face there's going to be a level of danger that's associated with it and a lot of times face to face they change their tune so yeah it is that cowardice and i'm going to call it what it is of not being able to back up these convictions face to face and now you can hide behind the internet people let me put fifteen this is from brandon com i got on twitter you know absolutely nothing from going on to come up at social media but i thank him on technology went through actual corporal oh all right some oxygen some are out to prove i'm to flourish i would say this what happened in charlottesville when they came out into the open was that they committed an act of murder right and i knew that this was coming i saw it as inevitable i posted a video called a warning to the all right message you let in too many crazes into your going to satan pretty soon something is going to happen when this manifests that they actually did do to this insane but i said that they had that they could just act this way did something to remove their moral high ground and create a backlash against them socially that they're not going to recover from and so i believe that even if it is given them any bit of light it's the kind of light that shines on something that's negative that we need to actually remove and i think a lot of the country c.n.n. right now. can i just quickly now to that point that i completely agree i mean i just agree with the question fundamentally i mean what we see depends on so far what movements don't exist alone whatsoever and we have to find a place where we come from big on the ground but certain for what movements online space is hugely important but we don't often have activists all the while it was in so-called law is punishment in almost movement is primarily an online movement and we have to be in those online spaces and so the work that people feel done getting into those spaces listen to music very important because otherwise they can go into these places for a long period of time on what i'm listening and engage in all sorts of horrible things and then we'll have a soon so i disagree actually i think it goes both require an online and offline world this is doing i call in and then i call mike says i think involved with the old right for a long time i can tell you that you know how i think it is i'm not well understood at something he's very comfortable saying this is who i am this is what i think mike i had. i was just going to go back to the last question where i think there is some therapy here criticism i don't think it's necessary in the likable in patrick or the yes case but you know one thing that i would recommend to any media organization if you're doing overt interviews you know nobody makes these people the leader of a group it's not like there's a democratic process and they vote and they just declare that they are but it's too soon as a mainstream media outlet puts a microphone in front of them that makes them actually legitimate and and draws followers to them so you do have to be careful in our how you cover these groups and particularly when they're covered in a way that brings their ideas into the means of mainstream political discourse you know i would defend their right to have their free speech but that doesn't mean we need to give them a platform. we have a bail hearing and i would add. patrick i think that elevates that and actually use our challenging their ideas and where they work nice rather than just sensationalizing. because this is some goodness so klux klan spirit i'm sure where we live on you tube right now actually bailey says do you think there's a way to improve our education system to tackle far right ideologies should they be discussed rather than make not just. yeah i mean there's a number of things we have to do i mean we have to be better teaching history i mean i'm not responsible historian but we have to teach the history of these movements we have to teach that logical conclusions all these prejudices when does politics there's a long track record there's a long history of what happens when we allow hateful ideas to go unchecked and it results in but it results in gas chambers. and we have to teach children we have to educate children about the history of what these things do. there is also i mean yes it's not about necessarily just shutting everything down i mean we have to challenge kids will come into schools and classrooms and prejudices and everyone has a limits of prejudice within them and we have to challenge those men to discuss those so you know i mean i don't think just shouting racist awaiting flags is going to be a knock on in some sense we will have to engage people articulate theisms urns in ways that we disagree with and in most people we need to engage with i guess the key is engaging with normal people that might have views we disagree with and doing more robust research and get something to come but when i say sions and activist individuals that are propagating these ideas. there was a lot that we learned from your text talk i'm going to get people just go look at it go watch it but rock's other rahman here says did you find any of the people that you engage with to be able to be fine people will fine people nice people different beliefs you know. fine people are nice people are two different things i said i think you should people who are very kind doesn't mean their ideologies are destructive here's what i think is most salient about this huge robbery has taken place of the white children of not only america but of the world and that is that you've been handed this shining empire and nobody really told you the details of how this impiety was built nobody told you the true number of bodies that are lying beneath this empire and it's like giving somebody a company and only telling them about the assets and not the liabilities when the history is taught correctly you want to stand that racism has a certain context and that it was fundamental to creating the social caste systems that make the current world as it is right now and it was economic motives as political groups and there was certainly are cultural motives behind that and then with that context you you have a barrier for when that the wild landscape of the internet starts spewing these old and new ideas about white supremacy because you've already been inoculated against that by knowing the truth about how this thing was actually created and if you don't do that i'm sorry but it's just going to perpetuate to the next generation i actually didn't like any of the people that i spent a year off. i agree with what you said i mean there are of course like i met many of these people face to face many many times we had coffee and beer and so on and there are these moments thing that that you feel sympathy for them they have problems that i have their problems with paying rent and and their families and so on but you're always there aware of what you're doing are always fair where a fair point think psychological believes in what they want to achieve that they are nice to you because of my view i. so that always put a distance between me and them and in the end of course i don't. really feel that much sympathy for for them. to our i'm just wondering about the seriousness of what you discovered sometimes as i was watching and reading your report i would see things like this the notorious hitler ceramicist charles craft this just is bizarre and ridiculous and then there was another gentleman another leader thought leader who would where not exactly later hoes and but he'd be way little shorts and it looked like he was in the hitler youth group but he was incredibly serious and very high up in the. all right movement so how seriously should we be taking this. well i mean look there's no doubt that you'll be the individual you're going to there's a british. lebanon who walks around in shorts all year round on you know there's no doubt there's a level of need to take in some more or strangeness to some of these individuals and some of these movements but that doesn't belong there dangerousness or doesn't talk about it we're looking at this movement in the human side yes it's extremely dangerous first of all as i say it's attracting young people in a way that some call it movement especially in western europe and struggle to do some time in one of most of its large numbers some of these websites have tens of thousands a hundred thousands and tens of thousands raising money you know some people in europe you have to raise two hundred grand per project now running in europe so there's financing behind it and as we saw in charlottesville ideas have consequences and whether or not those monies wearing shorts or not. some of these individuals that get in this form of our business resulting in someone dying on the streets of shots will tell us we're taking quite seriously mike i'm just and i think i have mike i think law enforcement doing a better job of understanding how these groups operate typically the criminal element within these groups operate and you know as theo said i could watch this coming too i mean the amount of violence that was happening in these protests that waits for the most part on leastways increasing at every protest over worse every year how many ating in charlottesville so if if theo was sitting on line could see this coming and i doing the research i'm going by law enforcement wise and better here i think it's art well ok let me can i interject something in there right there let's talk about law enforcement for me because you brought up a good point brother so basically i was going to say in a sense it's a militia thirty seconds before the end of the show but make impact when you can do a hack. if the f.b.i. guys kind of terrorism went into gaza eight release that memo it is said that at the looking elsewhere in situations like this innocence of the least forces and it was ignored i think you're looking at a systemic threat and solmes. can joe and theo a mike thank you so much for your insight into the value of going undercover in the all right movement estimate that goes around the well we really appreciate your insights from different parts you input from different parts of the well but before we got a reminder that we are now streaming every day 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