Category: Justice

Posted on

Another Hapless Victim of the “War” on Terror

Another “suspected terrorist” gets his. Or doesn’t.

American juries seem a little less mad than American prosecutors. If you read the story above, a reasonable person might conclude that the FBI had lost its mind… or that it was under enormous pressure to produce a conviction, any conviction, of anybody– as long as their name sounds something like Osama Awadallah— Arabic!

The FBI successfully demonstrated that Osama Awadallah had written the name Khalid in a school notebook even though he denied– after 20 days of solitary confinement– that he knew anybody named Khalid. Khalid is Khalid al-Midhar, one of the 9/11 hijackers. Well, well, case closed then, don’t you think?

It appears that the FBI was convinced that something sinister was afoot: here was a man who had actually talked to two of the hijackers. Osama admitted that. He had known two of the hijackers 18 months before 9/11. But he only recalled the name of one of them. But Osama wrote in his notebook this: “One of the quietest people I have met is Nawaf. Another one, his name is Khalid.” Khalid was the name of the other hijacker. Seize him.

In the grand jury room, Osama was handcuffed to his chair, though there was not a shred of evidence to indicate that he was anything other than exactly what he claimed he was: a Jordanian college student who had remarked on quiet Khalid.

In the four years since his case began, Osama has been taking courses at San Diego State University.

No matter how many cases like this I read about, I never fail to be stunned at the absolutely shocking indifference of the American public and its political leaders to these cases of arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, harassment, and intimidation, by government officials— and then the inevitable bizarre admission that even the prosecution doesn’t believe the suspect is a terrorist, or has committed any serious crimes. Yet the prosecution in this case had a fanatical determination to prosecute Osama and apply a sentence of ridiculous severity. They would like to lock the man up for five years because he denied– then later remembered– that he did know a quiet man know Khalid.

Osama was locked up in solitary confinement for 20 days, before his appearance before the Grand Jury. Yes, this is how we treat a man who is suspected merely of lying about whether he had met one of the hijackers. The prosecution was determined to convict him of perjury– why? To prove that they were men?

You have to understand that by the time the case has progressed this far, the prosecution MUST obtain a conviction to prove that Osama really deserved to have been treated so badly by the prosecution. And to show that we, and not they, the prosecutors, have lost all sense of perspective.

If a jury finds him not guilty, it might as well fire the prosecutors as well, because it is also saying that they have made a monumentally idiotic assessment of how the taxpayer’s money should be spent.

There are some sane people in America. A Judge Shira Scheindlin dismissed the charges. An appeals court reinstated the charges, so sanity did not prevail. Fox News and the Wall Street Journal then accused Judge Scheindlin of unspeakable crimes against the security and safety and oil supplies of the United States of America, may God Bless Her!

I did not see a dollar figure to tell you how much the United States Government was spending to prosecute a man for not fully disclosing all of his social contacts.

There are people serving less time than that for arson or assault or rape or bribing the same idiotic congressmen who passed the very laws under which Osama is being prosecuted.

Is it possible to reach any conclusion but that the man is being persecuted for being Arabic?

Will a point in time come when Americans ever become ashamed these farces?

The government must be shocked at having a judge not roll over in the face of their authoritarian strategies– they demanded that the case be heard by another judge. The Appeals Court said: the government doesn’t always get to win.

One of the gripes the prosecutors held against Scheindlin was an article she wrote which apparently supported the idea that judges should defend individual liberties.

Posted on

Big Brother is Here, Now

This may well be one of the most chilling stories that I have read in a long time. Your leaders– they of the mighty speeches lauding our history of freedom and liberty and democracy– are enthusiastically spying on you, without warrants, without judges, without congress.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is doing what every citizen of the United States should be doing. It is asserting the right of any individual to not have his private conversations intercepted by his government without just cause.

The Bush administration, as is well known, has asserted that it has the right to spy on anyone whenever they damn well feel like it without the slightest degree of oversight. All they have to do is say aloud to themselves, three times, “we are at war, we are at war, we are war”. Astonishingly, we are then at war. If we are at war, then national security trumps all.

According to the New York Times, Mr. Gonzales responded: “Obviously, our prosecutors are going to look to see all the laws that have been violated. And if the evidence is there, they’re going to prosecute those violations.”

That’s hilarious– Mr. Gonzales doesn’t mean he’s going to check into the “laws that have been violated” of course– because the Bush administration has clearly violated laws in the holding of prisoners and domestic spying and the use of rendition.

There is not even a the need, apparently, to persuade congress that something like a “war” exists and that the U.S. is in it.

The Bush administration even now is considering whether to prosecute the press for publishing secrets about the government’s illegal domestic spying activities. Yes, up is down and down is up. The Supreme Court, stacked with Republican appointees, has never been more receptive.

The True Post Modernist: George Bush

As many people have remarked, Bush’s actions here are at odds with true conservatism, which views government with suspicion, and seeks restrictions on it’s ability to interfere with peoples’ lives.

Posted on

Entrapment

And another…

Would Hamid Hayat have been convicted of providing material support to terrorists if his name had been Albert Smith and his race been Caucasian?

No. Not a chance.

An FBI fink claimed that Osama Bin Laden’s top lieutenant had been in Lodi, California. The FBI found that that was not true, but there were other Arabic-looking people in Lodi. Hamid Hayat and his father barely spoke English and were not provided with lawyers when they were interviewed after the FBI fink, Naseem Khan, pointed them out. Look– those guys look Arabic. The FBI provided the leading questions; nature provided the appropriate racial characteristics. An American jury decided that the FBI would not be prosecuting these men for no reason and convicted the son, largely on the basis of an alleged confession that he had traveled to Pakistan to attend a terrorist training camp.

Amazingly, the government seems to have no obligation to prove anything anymore. It did not offer any proof that Hamid Hayat had ever been to a training camp in Pakistan.

The government did not provide any proof that Hayat had actually taken a single action that would indicate preparation or planning of a terrorist act. It doesn’t matter. He’s Arabic.

Case closed.

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Where is the so-called liberal media on this? You would think this story would be on the covers of all the so-called liberal magazines and newspapers.

Are you people nuts?  Read this, from the New York Times, April 26, 2006:

Mr. Siraj talked about the economic damage that would be caused by stranding Staten Island without the bridges, and seemed pleased that he had recruited Mr. Elshafay, who he indicated was the actual author of the alleged plan.

Sound sinister?  You bet.  Consider this though– Mr. Elshafay is an informant for the New York City Police “intelligence” department, who received over $100,000 for hanging around some bookstores looking for “extremists”.  He befriended the pathetic Mr. Siraj and secretly recorded conversations with him.

Mr. Siraj hates America– no doubt about it– but it was Mr. Eshafay who brought up all kinds of exciting ides about building nuclear bombs or blowing up various bridges in New York.

Now, you’re a young, gullible, foreign-born Moslem.  Some lunatic befriends you and you end up driving around town in his car.  He starts talking about how evil America is and how great it would be to blow up some bridges.  I don’t know what you say exactly, but I know that if I was on a jury, I would think long and hard before coming to the conclusion that you were, by yourself, a threat to America.

Mr. Siraj did not actually take any steps– none at all– towards realizing his brilliant plan.  Not a single step.  Not one.

Mr. Elshafay is the actual author of the plan.  So the U.S. government has “informants” going around, hanging around with impressionable and misguided young Arabs, and saying, “hey, wanna blow up the Brooklyn Bridge?  Whaddya think– I could get a bomb.  Do you hate America or what,
huh?”  And when these pathetic and gullible young hostile Arabs say, “yeah, wouldn’t that be something.  I hate America” we arrest them and lock them up for terrorism.  What kind of whacked out country is this?  This is George Bush’s  America.

The bottom line is that there is not the slightest shred of evidence that Mr. Siraj, on his own, was up to anything other than minding his mosque and tending a bookstore.

Did he hate America?  Yes.  So let’s drop the pretense of looking for actual terrorists and just arrest everybody who hates America.  We are building a very large pool of candidates…

NY Times on Hamid Hayat Case

More Comments on Civil Liberties

More on Hamid Hayat

Posted on

Tyranny

The Bush administration has been diligently addressing some very important issues. Recently, articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times showed that the government was holding detainees illegally in foreign countries where they are tortured for information, and that the government was eavesdropping on telephone conversations without a warrant.

In a right-side up world, the government would now be arresting and charging those responsible for these criminal acts. If they were authorized by officials in the White House, they would have resigned and would be facing indictments. If the President himself authorized them, he would be facing impeachment.

Not this government. This government is arresting and charging those who told you that your government is breaking the law and that it is spying on you and torturing people.

It is totally weird that the mainstream press, and the Democrats, are not screaming bloody murder. The Bush administration has undertaken activities that are literally stunning in the depth and breadth of their violations of human rights and democratic principles. But, in a world that could only have been envisioned by Josef Goebbels

In my darker moments, the only conclusion I can draw is that all those flag-waving, patriotic, gun-toting Americans who sit there idly watching TV and not caring about these actions do not deserve democracy. In fact, they are no longer entitled to democracy. You have approved and accepted and embraced tyranny. Your government showed you a bogey man and said “boo” and you cried and wet your pants and said, please, oh please, stop them, I’ll let you do anything, I surrender all of my rights. It was that easy.

I never would have believed it. I grew up watching the Watergate scandal unfold, convinced that when Americans become aware of malfeasance by their own government, they react with disgust, they tell the pollsters that the government has no support, which empowers the loyal opposition — who are presently themselves timorously cowering in the corner–to take decisive action. Sadly, I believe that most Americans don’t care about Bush’s dictatorial powers because the word “terrorist” has become, in his mind, synonymous with “Arabic”.

On Mary O. McCarthy.

If Mary O. McCarthy really is guilty of leaking information about the CIA’s illegal activities to the press, I hope some organization with guts announces that she will given a real “Medal of Freedom”.  She is someone who has made a genuine sacrifice on behalf of democracy and civil liberties.

Did you know:

CIA employees are all required to take a “lie detector test” every five years.

The world is indeed very topsy turvey.  Lie detectors don’t work.  They never have and they probably never will.  Doesn’t matter.  Porter Gross over at the CIA looks like a fine hunter of leakers.  That’s all that matters.  His bosses think he’s a bloodhound.   I cannot believe though that not a single CIA employee has yet taken his or her employer to court over the issue.  I repeat– check this with objective analysts if you doubt me– the polygraph does not work.  It never has.  It probably never will.  There is a good reason why results from a polygraph are not admissible in court.  And anybody under suspicion of anything who would agree to take a polygraph is a fool.

Posted on

Revenge is an Empty Motive

I had a choice of staying with these feelings or sort of nurturing them,” Bane said. “I tried to think of ways I could learn more. I felt the need for bridges of understanding with people who could do this kind of thing.” Bane eventually organized a Muslim-Christian dialogue in Delaware, where he now lives. Washington Post, April 20, 2006

Donald Bane is the father of Michael Andrew Bane, who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. He spoke at the sentencing phase of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. He spoke as a witness for the defense.

In America, such testimony is not permitted if it overtly asserts that the defendant should not be killed. I don’t fully grasp this concept. Now that I think about it, I suppose that the relatives of victims of 9/11 who testified for the prosecution couldn’t actually say, “we’d like to see Moussaoui die”. They could only say, look at how my life has been destroyed by this man. Draw your own conclusion. Why should this man be alive? So I suppose the witnesses called for the defense could say… well, what they did say?

The defense called Bane and a handful of other relatives of 9/11 victims to give quiet, dignified testimony to the effect that there are alternatives to vengeance, and alternatives to declaring that your life has been destroyed by a tragedy and is no longer worth living because the only thing that can give you satisfaction is to see someone– maybe anyone– die in retribution.

Bane said his life was worth living. He has even initiated some projects that he hopes will promote understanding and peace between Moslems and Christians.

A large number of family members of 9/11 are still angry, and they want to see someone die for the sins of Mohammed Atta and his co-conspirators. Since Atta and his friends are all already dead, Zacarias Moussaoui is the only prospective candidate.

But an execution doesn’t give any real satisfaction, and it doesn’t bring closure, and it doesn’t bring your loved one back. It just creates more people who wish their loved one could come back from the dead. Yes, even Zacarias Moussaoui has a mother. And even she knows he is a lunatic and that no civilized society would execute a lunatic, especially when he hasn’t actually committed any crimes.

Does that sound strange to you? It’s true: Zacarias Moussaoui has not committed any crimes– other than not registering his visa properly. Moussaoui has proclaimed that he wanted to be a 9/11 conspirator and even insists that he would like to be one in the future. We should wish that all our enemies could be so forthright. But if we hanged everyone who claimed to be responsible for sensational crimes, we’d have a busy hangman indeed.

So, when you consider George W. Bush and the military and the tendencies of conservatives to accuse liberals of being soft and weak and indecisive, and you consider that the school of vengeance sits weeping in the courtroom, confessing to everyone (in the mistaken belief that there is a point to it) that he or she is incapable of finding something in this world worth living for, other than revenge…. when you consider that Donald Bane seems like a perfectly decent human being…

Posted on

Yoo hoo– America? Your constitution is being abrogated. Do you care?

Probably not. No, don’t get up from Survivor or American Idol. Take your popcorn and your super-sized cola back to your couch. Relax. You are white and middle class and… well, . You have nothing to fear. The man on trial is dark-skinned. Like that man they shot after he fled that plane in Miami.

Mr. Salim Ahmed Hamid–he’s Yemeni– used to drive Mr. Bin Laden’s car. That’s right. And America caught him somewhere– in Afghanistan, I believe. Certainly not in Iraq– you know– that country that didn’t have any connection to Mr. Bin Laden? Salim Ahmed Hamad is on trial. Well, no he isn’t. Well, yes he is.

Okay, so Mr. Hamad used to drive Mr. Bin Laden’s car and he was his body guard. So that’s a crime, right? Right– this was after Mr. Bin Laden was no longer a friend of ours. That’s right.

So it appears that Mr. Hamad might not have actually broken any laws in America, or overseas, actually, but damnit– that’s no excuse for letting a known chauffeur to a terrorist former tool of U.S. foreign policy go free. We’ll try him anyway. Mr. Bush can just appoint a bunch of men– make them military men– and we’ll just hold a “trial”. After all, Mr. Bush was elected, so it’s not as if he were unaccountable.

Mr. Hamad’s lawyer thinks he should be entitled to a fair trial, due process, and all that crap. You’d almost think he was white or spoke without an accent. Is the ad almost over? So the Supreme Court is trying to decide whether or not the President could just appoint anybody he feels like appointing to hold a trial or something like it and pass a sentence or just shoot the bastard, without damned interference from those pointy-headed justices or congressmen or anybody else.

Lucky for Mr. Bush, the Republican appointees, including Mr. Thomas– who was so impressed with the arguments of Mr. Bush’s lawyer representative, Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, that he didn’t feel the need to ask a single question– are all on his side. Well, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Alito certainly are, but Mr. Roberts can’t vote on this one because, as a Federal Appeals Court justice, he already voted in favor of Mr. Bush’s position. He might at least have asked a question or two. I think Mr. Thomas did at least ask for a new crayon after a rapid-fire exchange of barbs between Mr. Clement and Justice Souter.

My fellow Americans, consider for a moment that in a case before the Supreme Court which many people consider to be one of the most pivotal in decades in terms of its impact on executive power and judicial process, Justice Clarence Thomas asked not a single question. He wasn’t even curious. He didn’t know what the hell Souter was all holy and loud about. Shut up Ginzburg! Kennedy, what the hell are you whining about? Is it dinner time yet?

Some brilliant artist out there should create a giant painting, a Guernica of American civil justice, called “Thoughts Entering the Head of Clarence Thomas as the Solicitor General Offered to Relieve the Court of Habeas Corpus”. I’m not an artist but there is such a desperate need for this art work that I might just make an attempt at it myself.

Justice Scalia shouted, why are we even hearing this dispute? If the President wants to arrest people and jail them, hell, he doesn’t need our permission. But before Clement could leave, Mr. Kennedy grabbed him by the collar.

Commercial over? Go back to your tv. Hey, it’s Natalie Holloway that they’re putting on trial…. Ha ha! Just kidding. What do you think this guy’s chances are?

On Osama Bin Laden’s Former Chauffeur

Imagine, if you will, an entire Supreme Court made up of Justice Clarence Thomas’s. This court would plow through a hundred cases in a month– not a single question would be asked of the lawyers arguing the cases! Whatever the government asks for, it receives. Whatever a defense lawyer asks for is denied. Criminals would not have been arrested if they had not been doing something wrong. If your creek is poisoned, move to another creek. If you think the government has secret information about you, tell us what it is and we’ll find out if it was wrong for them to obtain it. It is possible that your gender had nothing to do with your chances of being sexually harassed by your white male middle-class boss.

Life is simple and sweet.

Clarence Thomas’ thoughts on due process must be somewhere down here.

Posted on

Michael Powell and Janet Jackson’s Breast

The FCC does not fine television networks very often or for very large amounts.

So think about all the indecent things you have seen on TV in the past two years.

You have seen incredibly powerful corporations advertise sugar-coated cereals to children seven years old or younger.

You have seen decapitations, stabbings, gunshot wounds, amputations, rapes, burns, slashes, and strangling.

Nope. Nothing offensive there. Nothing there that could be construed as a threat to the moral fabric of the nation.

You’ve seen cheer-leading network eunuchs swallow whole the bilious lies and distortions of a government justifying a war it had no business starting and now has no clue about ending and which has resulted in the kidnappings, tortures, and murders of thousands of innocent civilians. Nothing “indecent” there.

You’ve seen programs in which the police are shown, approvingly, beating up, abusing, and terrorizing suspects in order to extract confessions from them. Of course, these suspects are then always shown to be guilty– not like that soldier shot by the cop in Los Angeles, or Amadou Diallo, or any of these others. Is society threatened by entertainment that teaches us that police brutality is usually justified and almost always rewarding? No.

But in February 2004, the moral health of America was threatened with such pernicious and devious audacity that Colin Powell’s son– head of the FCC– leapt to his feet and immediately took drastic and decisive action. America must not be permitted to see a woman’s breast, not even for a second!

You know what a breast is, don’t you? You may have seen one yourself, if you were ever a nursing baby, a married man, or even a lucky teenager. In fact, a quick study of television and magazines would lead a reasonable person to conclude that America doesn’t think that there is anything they want to see more than a woman’s breast. Americans spend billions of dollars every year improving and enlarging their breasts. Breast cancer survivors raise money for research by posing– topless– for calendars. You pretty well can’t be a singer or actress or entertainer of any kind unless you have large ones.

So Michael Powell, speaking most deeply from beneath his cloak, has fined CBS — get this!– $550,000!

The naked breast appeared during a performance in which Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson gyrated and danced around on stage simulating incredibly passionate levels of sexual arousal and desire for each other. Timberlake sang, “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song.”

This is what America paid to watch. It’s what the promoters of the Superbowel paid to show. It’s what every radio station in America promotes every day: songs about sexual desire. It’s what makes “Friends” funny, and Paris Hilton rich. It’s why competitors in “Fear Factor” wear bikinis. It’s the engine of the entertainment economy. It’s why National Geographic is read by adolescent boys.

The breast was indecent? The most indecent thing about this entire sorry episode is the overwhelming obscenity of people like Michael Powell having the power to determine what is “obscene”. What on earth does he think will happen in a person’s mind when he sees a woman’s breast?

What happened in his mind?

June 22, 2011:

Be it noted– the most “Tivo-ed” moment in television history is… the Janet Jackson Superbowl breast exposure. Okay, so while the FCC decided that Janet Jackson’s breast was the most offensive and shocking thing on TV this year, the public has decided that it was the thing they most wanted to see. CBS should have appealed this to the Supreme Court.

Well… maybe not. Clarence Thomas? Antonin Scalia? Samuel Alito?

Forget it.

Posted on

Remember Reno’s Unfortunate Career as Attorney-General of the United States

I just want to do my part to make sure that nobody forgets that Janet Reno was the worst attorney-general in the history of the United States, though John Ashcroft did everything he could to give her a run for the money.

To refresh your memory, check the link above. She was responsible for the Country Walk child ritual abuse case– otherwise known as the “witch hunt”. She was responsible for Waco. Otherwise known as the “those people with guns in that house are very nervous– is there something we can do to set them off” case. She was responsible for Kenneth Starr. She was responsible for the outrageous treatment of Henry Cisneros. Janet Reno is something of a psychopath.

Even though she’s been out of office for six years now (it was rumored that Clinton wanted to fire her, but couldn’t, of course, while he was being investigated for wearing a blue dress in the Oval Office). Maybe she is relaxing in her Florida home thinking that in a few more years, everyone will forget about the Cisneros and Starr and Waco and start to hold banquets in her honor.

This is a humble start, but someone has to make the effort to keep the memory of her incompetence alive.

Not fair?  Yes it is:  especially since some of the victims of her incompetence continue to suffer in prison.

Posted on

Free Speech in Austria: David Irving

I was perplexed to read that historian David Irving was just sentenced to three years in prison in Austria for denying the holocaust. Even as I read the headline of the article at the CBC online, I expected to read in absentia. But there he is, wearing handcuffs, being hauled away to prison. In fact, he even sounded contrite, apparently. Because if he hadn’t he might have gotten 10 years instead of 3.

The law under which Irving was convicted is not about preventing another holocaust. It’s about preventing anyone from thinking that the Austrians would approve of another holocaust. The Austrians are so against holocausts, you see, that they have made it illegal to even discuss whether there has ever already been one. There has. We insist.

I wonder if there is a similar law against denying incest. After all, surely there is incest, so it should be illegal to deny it. Otherwise, people might begin to think that the Austrians secretly approve of incest. What about the shape of the globe? Should it be legal for people to think the Austrians think there is any controversy about the earth not being flat, or about the fact that it revolves around the sun instead of vice versa?

Is this idea of outlawing stupidity going to catch on any time soon? I’m not sure if the U.S. is ready to make it illegal to believe in evolution or to believe in intelligent design. It would put a lot of peoples’ minds to rest if they would just make it illegal to think wrongly about it, either way.

Posted on

Tony Blair Bans Military Parades, Medals, and War Movies

According to the CBC, Tony Blair is finally going to do something I can agree with. He is going to ban the glorification of terrorism. From now on, it will be illegal to “glorify”– that’s the word they use: “glorification”– acts of terrorism.

First of all, let’s describe terrorism. Acts of violence with the aim of achieving a political or social objective? Violence directed at civilians? Violence used to further a religious cause? Let’s get the definition straight, because we don’t want the British occupation of the Middle East at the close of World War II to be classified as terrorism, because then, I suppose, we would have to ban “Lawrence of Arabia”, or “Cast a Giant Shadow”. And we don’t want the first American gulf war to be classified as terrorism, just because

What about violence for the purpose of obtaining material benefits or economic power? Like the U.S. inspired coup in Guatemala in 1956? And does this mean that General Pinochet of Chile will really be arrested and held the next time he visits Britain? Is it unsafe for Mr. Henry Kissinger to spend a weekend frolicking in London? “In Flanders Fields” glorifies acts of violence by British and Canadian conscripts in World War I. What was so different about those acts of violence, to further the aims of the British government of the day? That they were deceived by an elected government into believing that killing Germans had some kind of divine purpose?

Military parades essentially glorify the capacity of the government to inflict violence upon various enemies of the realm. Good. Let’s ban them, along with “Top Gun”, “Ballad of the Green Berets”, and “The Dirty Dozen”. Can we arrest Oliver North now, since he supported and “glorified” the activities of the Contras in Nicaragua when they were trying to overthrow the Sandinista government?

How about anyone involved in the Reagan administration’s support of — holy cow!– Osama Bin Laden, and the insurgency against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan in the 1980’s?

Bust Margaret Thatcher for her passionate romance with British military might in the Falklands?

It’s a magic bus. Let’s all get on board.