Last week, a series of late-night web searches led me to a directory of militia groups. As is my habit, I scrolled through to see if any might be located near Middletown. Clicking, following a promising-looking link, I found myself at the homepage of the Connecticut Survivalist Alliance.
The group’s low-tech, mid-nineties-style website features a row of animated gifs of running army men set against a blue and white sky-themed background, flanked by fluttering Connecticut flags. At the top of the page is a grainy image of the group’s standard – a Confederate flag superimposed with the seal of the state of Connecticut.
The site is packed with what it calls “Survival Information” – graphics showing the radius of destruction in the event that any of fourteen Connecticut sites are hit by nuclear blasts, storm information, a list of ham radio standards, and a page declaring the current CSA DEFCON to be set at 2, requiring members to be in “daily contact with cell leaders.”
An explanatory note declares that, “No one word can describe the CSA or what we are. We are a little bit Militia because we are loosely organized and heavily armed. We are a little bit Survivalist because we are ready to defend our beliefs and help others in time [sic] of need. We are a little bit Libertarian because of our strongly held beliefs that every American should accept personal responsibility for what they do.”
Another page on the website seems to claim that the group has a presence in Middlefield, Connecticut, at #222 on Route 66. Feeling a bit gutsy, I decided to pay them a visit.
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The Anti-Defamation League makes a passing reference to the CSA in a 2001 report entitled “Extremism in Connecticut.” The report classifies the group under the general rubric of “Militia Groups and Paramilitary Organizations,” which it characterizes as “an anti-government movement heavily imbued with conspiracy theories, many of which center around firearms.” These groups, according to the report, frequently “believe that the U.S. government collaborates with various inimical forces to create a ‘New World Order’— a socialist, authoritarian, one-world government.”
The CSA seems to barely rate a mention in the report. It says that “there is little evidence that the CSA has a real world presence that extends beyond its Internet activities.”
Instead, the ADL believes that the website is simply a clearinghouse for survivalist tactics and militia information.
Of its leadership, the report says that the group’s leader is Thomas Icom, “previously most noteworthy for having edited for many years the newsletter Cybertek, aimed at survivalists and computer hackers.”
The CSA’s website has a page dedicated to refuting the ADL’s claims. It insists that the group has a real world presence, saying, “You just keep on thinking that we don’t exist in the ‘real world’ and when the proverbial shit hits the fan you can all just crawl under your beds and die and leave the ‘real world’ to us.”
As for Thomas Icom, the page denies that he is the group’s founder, saying, “Thomas Icom is not the leader of the CSA. He’s flattered by your misguided supposition, but he is just a member.” Instead, the page reports that the group’s founder is ctsurvivalist, “a strange and mysterious individual.”
Indeed, most of the CSA website’s pages are signed by ctsurvivalist, and he has posted most of the messages on the website’s recently-opened message board.
Still, there is undoubtedly a connection between the CSA and the hacker community. The CSA’s website is located within the webpage of the International Information Retrieval Guild, a Connecticut-based hacker group.
This overlap between hacking and survivalism is counterintuitive. The popular imagination associates hackers with teenage nerds like Matthew Broderick’s character from 1983’s “WarGames.” Meanwhile, survivalists are associated with the Unabomber and other violent paranoid loners living off the grid in remote areas of the Pacific Northwest.
An article entitled “What is CYBERTEK?,” credited to Thomas Icom and posted at various locations online, gives some insight into where the two interests intersect. Icom writes, “CYBERTEK is a bimonthly newsletter for those whose desire is to maximize their freedom and be able to function as free citizens in a society which discourages and works against those desiring liberty.”
Both hackers and survivalists see themselves in opposition to authority in general, and the government in particular. In order to protect various freedoms, both believe they have the authority to arm themselves – hackers with computer programs, survivalists with guns. For hackers like Icom, survivalism becomes an analog extension of the paranoid hacker mentality.
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In preparation for my visit to what I imagined would be the CSA’s bunker, I made a phone call to the office of Middlefield’s Resident State Trooper. After a few tries, I finally got through to a patrol officer, who said that he had never heard of the group. When I asked if he knew what was located at #222 Rt. 66, he thought for a moment. “That must be the Red Dog,” he said.
The Red Dog? Middlefield’s infamous biker bar?
I looked back at the CSA’s website to where I had first seen the address. It was on the page responding to the ADL’s report.
“We do…have a presence in Middlefield,” it read. “All ADL members, please feel free to drop by any time you like. We are located at #222 on Route 66 in Middlefield, CT. We would especially like it if all you scantily clad female ADL members dropped in. We think you’ll find everyone warm and hospitable.”
Ha. Ha. Ha.
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