Fringe elements

Gletty said most of the fringe elements characterized in the report hate the government more than they do specific races. They hate everyone, Gletty said.

Now a private investigator, Gletty spent years undercover as an FBI informant watching the internal workings of white supremacist groups.

The groups named in the SPLC study came from information compiled from "field reports, Patriot publications, the Internet, law enforcement sources and news reports."

Other highlights of the report include:

-- The state with the most neo-Nazi groups: California, with 9.

-- The state with the most Ku Klux Klan groups: Texas, with 26.

-- The report breaks out a group it calls "Christian Identity," which the SLPC defines as "a religion that is fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic." Texas has the most, with five.

-- Another category in the report, called "General Hate," is defined as groups that are anti-gay, Holocaust deniers, racist musicians or radical traditionalist Catholics. California has the most such groups, with 37.

"The country needs to do better," Potok wrote in an editorial. The Department of Homeland Security, he said, needs to act to avoid a repeat of the kind of hate-based violence the nation saw in the 1990s.