Saudi Webmaster Acquitted of Terrorism Charges 909
terrymr writes "Saudi Student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen was found not guilty on charges that he 'rendered techical assistance to terrorists' by acting as the webmaster for an Islamic charity. Said one juror: 'The part that surprised me was when I read the First Amendment instructions. I was surprised to learn that people could say whatever they want... providing it would not cause imminent action.'" You might remember our previous coverage of this story. In addition, the AP (via CNN) has more information as well.
Don't tell this to the PeePers (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Don't tell this to the PeePers (Score:3, Informative)
Best to just steer clear of the Internet bottom feeders.
Re:First Amendment Message? (Score:5, Informative)
And the jurors, while you can make fun of their lack of knowledge about the law, seemed to take the time to actually understand the law as it is written. Whew, that's a cool concept!
It's amazing how much jurors do not know (Score:3, Informative)
Check out this site about jury nullification [greenmac.com]. The real questions the jury should be answering are: "does the law make sense", not "is it legal or not". The job of deciding whether it is legal or not has already been decided by the prosecution and the judge before they picked a jury.
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Re:What's the deal with freerepublic.com? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What's the deal with freerepublic.com? (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
A couple of interesting things... (Score:4, Informative)
The website with the actual mailing list (which is named, along with about 10 others in the above PDF) is here [islamway.com].
The thing about websites, forums, and mailing lists, is that you can never get the true feel from a description designed to make it sound horrible. For all we know, the messages that they read could be considered the trolls of the mailing list. Even if they weren't, Internet forums is still a sticky subject. People say a lot of stupid things, discussions can get heated, people can troll, people can exaggerate their beliefs to get a better response, and sometimes there are just nuts who use the Internet to let our their ideas that no one will listen to in real life. The sites could have been designed to support and recruit terrorists, but you can never really know, and there certainly wasn't enough evidence to point fingers at a moderator of the mailing list.
Free Press's ignorance and MURDEROUS HATEMONGERING (Score:5, Informative)
I did not know Sami personally but I was aware of his living conditions. By all appearances he DID NOT import 100's of thousands. IIRC he lived in average to low quality student appartments (like most students) and didn't have any evidences of being outstandingly rich. Even if he imported any serious amount of money it would have to be declared with customs.
Of the Mulslim students I knew of he was not one of the scary ones. There were a few who I met and talked to.
At a time when we had dozens and dozens of Saudi and middle-eastern students fleeing the country Sami stayed. What thanks he got. Trumped up charges (helped setup a website and real audio stream) and got the book thrown at him (still 8 counts of visa fraud & related charges that could get him deported).
The DoJ's case was such a joke. Fabricated evidence like the mistranslations (was it Arab Lybian Project or Arab Library Project?? even the CIA couldn't keep the translation consistent!) clearly showed that the government's case was weak from the start.
Re:It's amazing how much jurors do not know (Score:5, Informative)
The juror quoted is being instructed to the effect that the free speech is far broader than the juror expected. That is, the judge is informing the jury that the defendant is much harder to convict on these charges than they might have thought. The judge is not telling the jury what the verdict should be, nor is he encouraging them to convict.
This is, in fact, the point of the instructions. The judge is supposedly an expert in fine points of law, while the jurors are not. Thus, you can remind or inform them of those details that matter to the case. If, as you propose, jury nullification were a great thing, in this case ignoring the law in favor of (potential) jury whim would have resulted in a conviction, not an acquittal.
Re:It's amazing how much jurors do not know (Score:5, Informative)
No.
And, no. The jury is there to decide if the person actually committed the crime in question, not whether the law makes sense. While jury nullification is useful for the worst abuses of the legislative process, I would prefer that they generally stick to deciding guilt or innocence.
Remember, the last high-profile use of jury nullification was OJ. It wasn't that they thought that he didn't do it, but that they didn't want riots (a case of the law not making sense, taking into account what could happen).
We also send them our citizens (Score:2, Informative)
sacrifice this.... (Score:1, Informative)
Vietnam? Grenada? Haiti? Somalia? Yugoslavia? Iraq?
Please tell me how you sacrificed di** for your country?
Dont kid yourself; You were a paid killer, pure and simple. You might not like the way it sounds but your job definition was pretty simple.
If your boss said 'blow up that school bus', you would have said 'how many times'.
Of course, no jarhead would admit to that. No, we live in the age of perfect wars..trains, schoolbuses or even schools are ne-e-e-e-e-v-e-r hit.
Hell, we have guys running for president (supported by fat egomaniacal windbags) who clearly stated to the world that their goal is to make life unbearable for civilians, who are treated as heroes (proving that the difference between a war criminal and a president is semantics), so nothing should be surprising.
Spare me the holier than thou BS. You might sleep good at night and you might even feel justified but Im sure the nazis (or any other soldier) was as justified as you.
The difference is you ended up playing with the big bullies so you'll never get your hands slapped. Which is why the US went around the world blackmailing countries to give US soldiers 'get out of jail' cards.
As much as the left annoys me, brain dead twits like you who feel they've saved their country by killing someone in their own homes and then try justify it, annoy me more.
Then again, where else can psychopaths go and feel good about killing and themselves?
As for the sheetheads, if you were in Bosnia supporting the fundamentalists there, you must have rubbed elbows with Beaner and his boys, so Ill take your word on it.
Seriously, how brainwashed do you have to be to believe that 'dying for our freedom' crap?
SS brainwashed? or Islamic nut job brainwashed?
Seems like the only way you can get a sane, clear thinking human into being a killing automaton is the same kind of indoctrination.
Some die for allahbaba, others die for Unocal and other dieties.
terry
Christian Extremists (Score:5, Informative)
> you can guarantee you'd have Christians across the country
> outraged by this and telling everyone.
What makes you think that the lynchings have stopped?
Examples that spring to my mind include Matthew Shepard and the lynchings in the U.S. Navy a few years back.
What about the bombing of abortion clinics?
Re:Why was he deported? (Score:4, Informative)
The "making false statements" are based on affadavits provided with visa applications that he did not work while he was in the US.
There was a hung jury on 8 counts related to his visa fraud charge... so he may still escape deportation. However, since his wife and child already went back to Saudi Arabia it doesn't look like he'll stay.
Re:First Amendment Message? (Score:3, Informative)
FACT: Christians torture and kill their prisoners - this torture is extreme and cruel. [guardian.co.uk]
Islam has at least as diverse and wide ranging views as any other religion. Islam had their Renaissance centuries before the "West" got in on the act.
Why not try researching your topic - better still - moderators, why not try thinking before your moderate?
Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
O'Connor's speech was affirmed by the Vatican and published widely in Catholic newspapers. It even made CNN. So if you think Christian churches are turning a blind eye to Matthew Shepard, abortion violence and other things done ostensibly in God's name, then all that shows is you're not paying attention.
Re:Islamic websites. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:First Amendment Message? (Score:2, Informative)
There was rampant media speculation about Muslim involvement, the FBI never made such a claim.
Luckily, the White Christian ex-Marine who did it was already in custody for speeding.
1 for 3. McVeigh was white. He was not a Christian. Remember that "captain of my own soul" business? And he was ex-Army.
LK
Re:Islamic websites. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Insightful? You've got to be kidding! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Jury Nullification... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't tell this to the PeePers (Score:1, Informative)
Re:oppressed by whom? (Score:5, Informative)
Ethnic, religious or nationalist conflicts are abundant even in todays oh so civilized western democraties. Think of the Basques in North Spain, the anglo-irish conflict in North Ireland, or the bashing of all things french in the U.S. (and vice versa the official loathing of everything considered american in France.)
The arab world is not much different in this regard. There are ethnic minorities in the mainly arab states (berbers, kurds, turks...), there are different interpretations of Islam (Sunni and Shiia as the most prominent, Ismaelites and other smaller sects). There are non arab islamic states, which get always mixed into the arab soup in western news (Iran for instance is partly persian in the south and turk [asari] in the north, with kurds spread everywhere. So it is not even an arab country at all.) The largest islamic country in the world is not even in the Middle East. Indonesia is located in the Southeast asian archipel.
But to call this a "tribal system" is just an offspring of a theory of an own superiority theory we should abandon as soon as possible, because it doesn't help us in any way. The state of the arabian world is quite similar today to the state of the western world at the begin of the 20th century: Old, dying monarchies, some quite questionable democracies, civil wars either boiling or going on under the surface. The western world managed to kill more than 100 Mio people in the conflicts between 1850 and 1950. Compared with this achievement the arabian world is a place of piece and security.
Re:First Amendment Message? (Score:2, Informative)
I think you may want to read up on how the various Christian denominations in the US reacted to slavery. The Catholic Church has never advanced the theory that blacks were cursed or that any other race was inferior. Rather the reverse, the Catholic Church grew so large in part because it was willing to send missionaries anywhere.
Far from being supporters of slavery, Catholics were almost as likely to be its victims. Read up on the history of the KKK. While they were predominantly anti-black, they also targeted Jews and Catholics. (There are old racist jokes about the initials KKK standing for derogatory phrases for blacks, Jews, and Catholics.)
As an aside, did you know that Catholicism is growing fastest in Africa, and that a Catholic convert is widely considered to be one of the leading contenders to be the next Pope?
Re:First Amendment Message? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the Taliban were negotiating with the US prior to 9/11 about handing Bin Laden over to a third country:
"ZDF television quoted Kabir Mohabbat, an Afghan-American businessman, as saying he tried to broker a deal between the Americans and the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, who were sheltering Bin Laden. He quoted the Taliban foreign minister, Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, as saying: "You can have him whenever the Americans are ready. Name us a country and we will extradite him." A German member of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, confirmed to Reuters that he had helped Mohabbat in 1999 to establish initial contact with the Americans. "I was told (by Mohabbat) that the Taliban had certain ideas about handing over Bin Laden, not to the United States but to a third country or to the Court of Justice in The Hague," Brok said."
'Taliban told US they would give up Osama' [dailytimes.com.pk]
Unfortunately, the US decided before 9/11 that they wanted to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban.
US 'planned attack on Taleban' [bbc.co.uk]
Re:America (Score:5, Informative)
Murder [go.com]
Rape [villagevoice.com]
Sodomy [newyorker.com]
Re:Attention Foreigners.. (Score:2, Informative)
Attention US-Citizens! No one abroad has been looking to the US as a benchmark for political and social progress since about 1973. Sorry to disappoint you.
Re:Don't tell this to the PeePers (Score:4, Informative)
The UN was found guilty of supporting the illeagl war and the war crimes that were carried out by the Contras. "The moral equivalents of our founding fathers" according to Reagan.
Re:Don't tell this to the PeePers (Score:3, Informative)
I had two userIDs booted from the site due to posting evidence contrary to previous post's allegations (from government documents [nsarchive.org] no less) before I realized that their definition of "free" is the freedom to lie, spin, eliminate opposing viewpoints, and hide evidence to the contrary of a revisionist conservative political platform.
At least on the so-called "liberal" sites [plastic.com], a little debate is always welcome, and unpopular viewpoints are moderarated fairly if they are argued appropriately and grounded in fact.
well (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the deal with freerepublic.com? (Score:3, Informative)
Or even better(?), check out Political Survey [beasts.org], the open source equivalent, where the methodology is open to all to inspect and criticise.
Re:"...most heinous ongoing crime since the 1940s? (Score:1, Informative)
So saying that Reagan single handedly defeated USSR is wrong. The United States just was lucky to find the only war that they could actually win. The economic war that is. It was clear since early 70s that arms race is not a solution even to people in Reagan administration.
P.S. Do some research on Reagan and you might find a lot of nasty thing he did. Grenada (we invaded this country), CIA sponsored wars Latin America (Nicaragua for example), the rise of islamic fundamentalism (Bin Laden was on US payroll).
The Bush is representing pretty much all the things that were wrong during Reagan presidency.
Re:It seems to be part of a general social breakdo (Score:3, Informative)
The reality was that communism served as a bullfighter's cape to the dictators that espoused it--it distracted their opponents, and wowed the crowd. By obsessing on communism, McCarthy, Reagan, and all the rest did exactly what Stalin (clever, evil bastard that he was) wanted them to do. They wasted their energies fighting ghosts and ignored the real enemy: Stalinism. The ethics of communism were stolen directly from Christianity via the writings of Feuerbach: to the Russians, who were indoctrinated in communist ideology, the talk of the evils of communism had all the appeal of someone saying that all kittens are ugly and must be strangled. The right wing allowed the Stalinists to define the terms of the debate. But the 'communist' states were simply totalitarian regimes whose character was determined by the reigning despot. Had the Americans attacked the Stalinists on these terms, they would have kicked out their ideological underpinnings, made them a lot less attractive to western intellectuals, and attacked the root of their support amongst the Russian people, who might have gotten fed up with them 20 years before they did.
There is something similar going on here. The pieces are still up in the air, but Bin Laden and his imitators are hacking Islam, turning it into yet another red cape to distract the Bull and thrill the crowd.
And it's working. The Bull is goring everyone but the bullfighter.
Re:First Amendment Message? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:America (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, I noticed that replicant108 didn't actually give links to BBC, CNN, AFP, Reuters. I don't really read CNN while AFP and Reuters are syndicated so that I don't notice them, but here's some BBC and Guardian:
Murder 1 [bbc.co.uk]
Murder 2 [bbc.co.uk]
Sodomy 1 [bbc.co.uk]
Sodomy 2 [guardian.co.uk]
Sodomy 3 [guardian.co.uk]
Sodomy 4 [guardian.co.uk]
Sodomy 5 [guardian.co.uk]
Rape 1 [bbc.co.uk]
Rape 2 [bbc.co.uk]
Rape 3 [guardian.co.uk]
Rape 4 [guardian.co.uk]
It is also interesting that the military has successfully censored/surpressed the significantly worse [guardian.co.uk] images that Senator Ron Wyden described.
I personally have lost confidence in the military as a whole, hopefully the few decent souls who are brave enough to speak out will prevail, but if I was a soldier, I'd have to think seriously before leaking any material. I couldn't get a Reuters link, but here is a BBC report by Reuters staff stating that they were tortured, even though it is denied by the military [bbc.co.uk]. In my not so humble opinion, the institution of the military needs a overhaul. It is fundamentally undemocratic. It restricts the free flow of information (need to know basis), personal liberty (chain of command) and is unjust (military justice - ha). Is the best way to tackle terrorism with the military or would we be better to take a policing approach?
Finally, from the horse's mouth, reports of Sodomy and Rape, the Taguba report itself [thememoryhole.org].
All this reminds me of the quote attributed to Gandhi. When asked what he thought of Western Civilisation, he reply that he thought it was a good idea. Sigh, happy reading.
Re:FP? (Score:1, Informative)
Support ethnic cleansing in Palestine [honestreporting.com]
3,000,000,000 American Dollars cant be wrong.
Sponsor an Israeli occupier today!