26 Years After its Publication, Siege Continues its Calls for Violence, Radicalization & Terrorism

Previously, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) highlighted the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division’s (AWD) presence on YouTube. Within 24 hours of CEP’s release, the content was taken down off the website after having previously operated for months. And now, CEP is spotlighting Siege, a book written by American neo-Nazi James Mason that is a manifesto for AWD members. Mason advocates for the creation of a violent, leaderless neo-Nazi guerilla movement and sustained lone actor terrorism to bring down the U.S. government. Siege, beloved by various white supremacist groups, is a collection of newsletters and articles that Mason originally wrote between 1980 and 1986 discussing topics such as fomenting revolution, the use of terrorism and the author’s own “Universal Order” philosophy, partially based on the views of Charles Manson.  

“Although physical copies of Siege are now difficult to find, it is still disturbingly too easy to find digital versions online,” said CEP Executive Director David Ibsen. “In nearly every case identified by CEP, Siege is an egregious and blatant violation of the terms of service specified by the websites where they are hosted. It’s stunning that YouTube’s content filters are able to identify Siege as ‘inappropriate or offensive’, yet YouTube is unwilling or unable to remove Siege despite it clearly violating the site’s policies on hate speech, resulting in thousands of views cumulated over the course of a year.”

Siege was first published in 1992, but physical copies are rare, and the book mainly exists in digital form.  Online versions can be found on several websites: the Internet Archive, WordPress, Scribd, Discord, FreePDF.info, PDFdrive.com, Kobo.com, Yumpu.com, and the website of the notorious neo-Nazi Tom Metzger (the registrar is domain.com with ipage.com as the name server). Audio versions of the book are available on YouTube and the Internet Archive. If a user on YouTube chooses to view Siege, the online video platform warns that the book is “inappropriate or offensive.”

An audio book of Siege available on YouTube; there are 24 parts, some with thousands of views. YouTube’s own filters have flagged the content as “inappropriate or offensive.”

Additionally, Siege Culture, a group affiliated with James Mason, maintains a website that uses Cloudflare as a name server and Fast Domain Inc. as the registrar. Siege Culture also has private Twitter and Gab accounts. In December 2018, Siegeculture.biz received approximately 63,740-page visits, down from approximately 85,000 in November.

Siege Culture’s private channels on Gab and Twitter, respectively. Located on January 24, 2019.

Siege is held in extremely high regard by at least two neo-Nazi groups, Atomwaffen Division and Sonnenkrieg Division.  Atomwaffen Division, which promotes anti-government violence and the instigation of a race war, requires all group members to read Siege. Five current or former members of the group have been arrested for charges including the possession of explosives, assault and the murder of five people in three separate incidents. The Sonnenkrieg Division, a British Siege influenced group, was founded in 2018 and has links to the Atomwaffen Division. They have called for violence against law enforcement and Prince Harry, and reference a Siege-related website in their propaganda.

Selected Excerpts Of Siege That Call For Violence, Terrorism & Revolution

• “The enemy today is the U.S. Government itself and it is, by every standard of measure, the most evil thing that has ever existed on earth.” 
• “A healthy state will expel – or kill – the Jew; a decadent one will take him to its bosom. The Jew corrupts the nation.”
• “Terrorism is a two-way street for, as Hitler stated, the only answer to terrorism is stronger terrorism. We do face a naked tyranny here in the United States and it is employing terrorism to, first, wipe out the Whites as a majority force and, ultimately, to wipe them out as a race altogether. The System knows and we know that we are left no choice whatsoever. It is fight or die. We then are out to LIBERATE a nation from alien tyranny. It won’t be easy.  When lightning is striking, blows are falling, history is turning and the stupid ones are groaning, ‘Oh, isn’t this violence awful?’ we say: ‘to hell with such lily-livers! They haven’t seen anything yet.’” 
• “War is war and it is something highly impersonal. But White renegades, be they government officials or plain bleeding hearts, are another matter. We must swear an oath to ourselves now – while we’re down, while things are tough, while the Enemy is in full power, while the vile race-mixers daily promenade openly in public protected by this evil System, now while it is easy to HATE – that for the United States there will be no need for concentration camps of any kind, for not a single transgressor will survive long enough to make it to that kind of haven.”

Siege Violates The Terms Of Service Of The Websites Where It Is Currently Located

YouTube: YouTube’s Community Guidelines prohibit hate speech which “refers to content that promotes violence against or has the primary purpose of inciting hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes, such as: race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation/gender identity.”

WordPress: Automattic (which owns WordPress) reserves the right to “refuse or remove any content that, in Automattic’s reasonable opinion, violates any Automattic policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable.”

Scribd: Scribd forbids “content that is unlawful or that a reasonable person could deem to be objectionable, offensive, indecent, pornographic, invasive of another’s privacy, harassing, threatening, embarrassing, distressing, vulgar, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive or otherwise inappropriate.”

Discord: Discord does not prohibit specific types of content but “reserves the right to remove and permanently delete Your Content from the Service with or without notice for any reason or no reason.”

PDFdrive.com: PDF Drive forbids users to “upload, download, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.”

Kobo.com: Kobo.com prohibits content that “is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, vulgar, obscene, profane or otherwise objectionable.”