Terrorists Get Web Sites Courtesy Of U.S. Universities
                                       
By Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle
   
     (May 9, 1997) -- As the U.S. government fights against
international terrorism, some rebel groups have found a safe niche
at   American taxpayer expense -- in state university Web sites.
     In California and New York, South American guerrilla groups
have used sympathetic students to get free space on university Web
servers -- prompting complaints from critics that public funds are
being misused.
     Two universities' sharply different views over whether to ban
the sites have recently opened a new front in the fast-growing
debate over censorship on the Internet.
     On Wednesday, officials at the State University of New York
at Binghamton shut down a Web site run by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), the hemisphere's largest guerrilla
group.
     But at the University of California at San Diego, where a
Tupac Amaru Web site has been operating since shortly after the
Peruvian rebel hostage crisis began in December, administration
officials have declined to take action.
     The FARC and the Tupac Amaru rebels are on the State
Department's list of international terrorist groups. In its annual
report on terrorism issued last week, the department said both
groups had engaged in attacks on civilians and other violence --
such as the takeover of the Japanese ambassador's residence in
Peru.
     But U.S. laws on terrorism are vague, and spokesmen at the
State and Justice departments said this week that there is little
they can do about foreign terrorists on the Internet -- as long as
the material posted does not directly incite violence.
     The two sites contain photos, documents and interviews with
rebel leaders but steer clear of asking for military or financial
help.
     "This is just another example of dangerous material being
tolerated on the Internet," said Monique Nelson, West Coast
spokeswoman for Enough Is Enough, a national group that strongly
backed the Communications Decency Act, a bill banning sex sites
online that was passed by Congress last year and is now being
reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
     "Our tax dollars shouldn't be spent in this manner. There's
no reason for university officials to allow outside terrorist
groups to use state resources," said Nelson.
     Most U.S. university Web servers allow free postings of
material from any external source (except business activities and
pornography) if the Web pages are authored and managed by students
or faculty -- but not if they are run by outside groups.
     Faced with similar cases, however, officials in Binghamton
and San Diego have interpreted the policy differently.
     When first asked about the FARC site by The Chronicle,
Binghamton spokeswoman Anita Doll said the university was unaware
of it. Then this week, she said that the school administration had
decided that the site was "totally unacceptable" and should be
shut down.
     In San Diego, where the Tupac Amaru site
(burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm) was put up and is operated by a
leftist group in Toronto with no connection to UCSD, officials
said they are willing to continue giving the guerrillas free Web
space on a site that would cost several hundred dollars per year
at a commercial server.
     "We try very, very hard to err on the side of freedom of
speech," said UCSD Web master Michael Breen. "We don't ban
anything except commercial activity or full-blown nudity. ... But
considering everything else that's out on the Web, this stuff is
pretty tame."
     Internet free-speech activists sharply criticized the
Binghamton decision. "This is a return to McCarthy-era
censorship," said Carl Kadie, president of Computers in Academic
Freedom, a Seattle group, adding that the ban "is almost certainly
illegal, and I'm sure it wouldn't survive a court challenge."
     The rebels, however, took this week's setback in stride, and
moved their site to a commercial server
(members.tripod.com/~farc/). Marco Leon Calarca, the FARC's Mexico
City-based international representative, said in an interview with
The Chronicle that it was the third time in recent months that a
FARC site had been shut down.
     In December, the rebels' site on a Mexican server was closed
after the Colombian army orchestrated a campaign of death threats
against the server company, and another site on a U.S. commercial
server was blocked earlier this year for unknown reasons.
     "We already have other alternative servers lined up," said
Calarca.
     "And when we get those closed down, we will open others. We
are used to having no home. We can always adapt."

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