Petro demands senators’ domains linked to white supremacist group be returned
AP, Jan. 22, 2003
http://www.newarkadvocate.com/
COLUMBUS (AP) — Ohio’s attorney general is coming to the aid of nine Republican state senators — including Newark’s Jay Hottinger — who have been linked on the Internet to a white supremacist group, without their knowledge or permission.
Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro on Tuesday sent an e-mail to Jeremy Stamper — listed as the administrative contact for the Seattle-based Council on Political Accountability — demanding that he immediately transfer the domain names to the senators and stop attempting to sell them.
Petro told Stamper that the federal Anti-Cyber Squatting Protection Act requires permission before registering or selling a person’s name as a Web site domain.
Petro gave Stamper one day to agree to the demand.
Internet records show that the Council on Political Accountability bought the rights to domains for the senators’ names and then redirected them to the Web page of the National Association for the Advancement of White People.
The site recruits members and sells flags, jewelry, bumper stickers and clothing such as “Caucasian jeans.”
The domain jayhottinger.com for Hottinger was listed on eBay Tuesday at a bid of $149 with 25 percent of proceeds to be donated to the American Cancer Society.
“I wouldn’t pay $1 to get that domain name back,” said Hottinger, R-Newark.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups, lists the National Association for the Advancement of White People as a white supremacist group. The group was founded by David Duke, a former KKK grand wizard who ran for U.S. Senate and governor from Louisiana in the 1990s.
“Aren’t you sick of reverse discrimination, busing, minority welfare rip-offs, massive immigration, gun control, anti-white movies and TV shows?” says the group’s statement of beliefs. “Do you want to see America become like Mexico or South Africa or Uganda?”
Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday at the telephone numbers listed on the group’s news releases on its Web site.
Hottinger does not think the problem will hurt him politically. He said he doubts anyone would believe that any elected Republican would be part of a racist, white supremacist group.