Computer student on trial over Muslim web site work

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

What... the... HELL.
http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?UR...al/27BOIS.html

You can only read the article if you're a member of the New York Times website, or if you can get a paper. Even if you do, it's hard to find the article, because it's buried in the website and on page A16 when it should be on the cover of everything.
But apparently a grad student is being held under the PATRIOT ACT.

"Graduate student Sami Omar al-Hussayen is on trial in a heavily guarded courtroom... accused of plotting to aid and to maintain Islamic websites that promote jihad.
As a webmaster to several Islamic organizations, Mr. Hussayen helped to maintain Internet sites with links to groups that praised suicide bombings in Cechnya and in Israel. But he himself does not hold those views, his lawyers said. His role was like that of a technical editor, they said, arguing that his role was like that of a technical editor, they said, arguing that he cannot be held criminally liable for what others wrote."

But what made me really laugh was this:

"President Bush made several recent campaign-style stops on behalf of the antiterrorism law, saying it is an essential tool for law enforcement.
'The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States,' Mr. Bush said in Buffalo on Tuesday."

Even if the syntax was correct it would still be nonsense.

Questions? Comments?
And if anyone can provide the full text of this article, it would be very appreciated.

[Felix The Assassin]

Oh, Great. Know 'Ackmed' is running websites from the US and the judge says he can? What's next?

From the Statesman (Idaho that is).
http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/p...TPAGE/40427002


FBI computer, document experts testify in Al-Hussayen trial

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edition Date: 04-27-2004
Prosecutors returned to presenting "foundation evidence" today in their terrorism case against Sami Al-Hussayen, a day after a judge told the government that it couldn't offer evidence about terrorist Web sites until it linked Al-Hussayen to controlling the content of those sites.

Today, government prosecutors called FBI witnesses who reviewed how they seized computers in searches in February 2003 of Al-Hussayen's home, office and a separate student apartment. The experts also explained to the jury how they retrieved evidence from those computers.

An FBI document witness went over documents seized in the searches. Among the evidence that prosecutor say will link Al-Hussayen to supporting terrorist groups: documents that list Al-Hussayen as the head of a supervisory committee for IANAradio.net; and documents that show Al-Hussayen registered the Islamic Web site Almanar.net.

Prosecutors say Islamic Assembly of North America Web sites guided people to Web sites and groups that advocated suicide bombings. Al-Hussayen's lawyers say IANA is a legal charity in the U.S., and the University of Idaho grad student volunteered his time, money and computer expertise to help IANA peacefully promote Islam.

[ 04-28-2004, 02:21 AM: Message edited by: Felix The Assassin ]

[Skunk]

Well, as a webmaster he would have been fully aware of the contents of the site(s) that he was maintaining - and if the content breached US law, then he has to accept responsibility for his actions. I don't know what was on those sites and how 'bad' they were, so I can't comment on whether it was justified to arrest the man in the first place.

That said, the Patriot Act is a very alien piece of legislation to US citizens - having been used to (almost) unbridled free speech, having that free speech limited to such a degree has become something of a shock and I get the feeling that he was unaware of the consequences of his actions (although that it no legal defence under US law).

Personally, I would have favoured a visit by a couple of FBI agents pointing out the sites breached the law and asking him to take them down immediately - if he then failed to carry out the instructions within 24 hours, then throw the book at him.

These 'Patriot Act' cases are unusual animals in US legal history - they are very much comparible to Cuba's gaoling of 27 journalists last march on charges that they were working with the US "against the independence and territorial integrity of the state". The latter action was rightly criticised by the US & international press and governments alike - Patriot Act cases on almost identical charges and evidence garner little attention. An odd state of affairs.

[Skunk]

As quoted by Felix The Assassin: Prosecutors say Islamic Assembly of North America Web sites guided people to Web sites and groups that advocated suicide bombings.

So does Google, Yahoo and Altavista!

Linking to other sites is a normal part of the internet, and the owner/webmaster of one site should not be held responsible for the contents of another site.

Supposing I link to a website today after reviewing the content and judging it to break no laws (which it doesn't at the time of review). Two weeks later the webmaster of that site puts up a page with warez download links. Am I now to be held responsible for the actions of the other webmaster?

[ 04-28-2004, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[Black Baron]

Yet another unique post when i agree with skunk.

[promethius9594]

what im getting from the original posts is that he was webmaster for several sites which advocated and instructed how to carry out jhihad, and that the site he SPECIFICALLY created linked to those sites. can't be sure though, the first post was rather obscure.

if that is the case (ie-- he is creating material which links people to terrorist websites that he maintains) i say let him hang -- which i mean SOLELY as an expression, not in all seriousness.

[Rokenn]

NY Time article-
Computer Student on Trial for Aid to Muslim Web Sites
By TIMOTHY EGAN

Published: April 27, 2004


OISE, Idaho, April 23 — Not long after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a group of Muslim students led by a Saudi Arabian doctoral candidate held a candlelight vigil in the small college town of Moscow, Idaho, and condemned the attacks as an affront to Islam.

Today, that graduate student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, is on trial in a heavily guarded courtroom here, accused of plotting to aid and to maintain Islamic Web sites that promote jihad.

As a Web master to several Islamic organizations, Mr. Hussayen helped to maintain Internet sites with links to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and in Israel. But he himself does not hold those views, his lawyers said. His role was like that of a technical editor, they said, arguing that he could not be held criminally liable for what others wrote.

Civil libertarians say the case poses a landmark test of what people can do or whom they can associate with in the age of terror alerts. It is one of the few times anyone has been prosecuted under language in the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, which makes it a crime to provide "expert guidance or assistance" to groups deemed terrorist.

"Somebody who fixes a fax machine that is owned by a group that may advocate terrorism could be liable," said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued against the expert guidance part of the antiterrorism law this year, in a case where it was struck down by a federal judge.

Mr. Hussayen, 34, a father of three who was pursuing a doctorate in computer sciences at the University of Idaho, is charged with three counts of conspiracy to support terrorism and 11 counts of visa and immigration fraud. His trial opened on April 14 and is expected to last until June.

The trial offers conflicting views of Mr. Hussayen, a son of the Saudi middle class. Defense lawyers have portrayed him as a loving family man who embraces Western values while holding to his Islamic faith; the prosecution team has presented him as a secret conspirator, aiding the cause of terrorism through his computer skills.

[In a ruling that bolstered Mr. Hussayen's case on Monday, Judge Edward J. Lodge of Federal District Court in Idaho would not let prosecutors show the jury a Web page that encourages suicide bombings. The judge said the government must prove that Mr. Hussayen created the page or endorsed its contents.]

Earlier this year, Judge Audrey B. Collins of the Federal District Court in Los Angeles, struck down a part of the antiterrorism law being used in this trial, ruling that it was overly broad and vague. But Judge Collins did not extend her ruling beyond the one case in California.

President Bush made several recent campaign-style stops on behalf of the antiterrorism law, saying it is an essential tool for law enforcement.

"The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States," Mr. Bush said in Buffalo on Tuesday.

Idaho, one of the most Republican states, has become an unlikely home of opposition to the act.

The state's senior senator, the Republican Larry E. Craig, and Representative C. L. Otter, also a Republican, have sponsored bills to amend the act, which they have called a threat to civil liberties.

Mr. Hussayen's lead lawyer, David Nevin, is best known for his defense in 1993 of Kevin Harris, who was involved in a standoff with government agents at a cabin in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, along with Randall C. Weaver. That case, in which Mr. Weaver's wife and teenage son were shot and killed by government agents, is a cause célebre among mainly right-leaning civil libertarians.

Some of Mr. Hussayen's supporters say they see a similar kind of government abuse in his trial.

"It's an illustration of how much power the government can bring against somebody," said John Dickinson, a retired professor of computer sciences who was Mr. Hussayen's doctoral adviser at the University of Idaho. "It should scare anybody."

Mr. Dickinson said he was interviewed by the F.B.I. for several hours after Mr. Hussayen's arrest in February 2003. "They kept saying his Ph.D. program was a front and that the person I knew was only the tip of this monstrous iceberg," he said. "But I've yet to hear one thing the government has said since then that has made me question his innocence."

Justice Department officials and prosecutors refused to comment on the broader implications of the case, citing the trial. But in court documents, the government makes a case that Mr. Hussayen funneled money to Islamic charities with terrorist ties and that he posted calls for jihad by different Saudi sheiks.

In the indictment, the government charged that Mr. Hussayen provided "computer advice and assistance, communications facilities, and financial instruments and services that assisted in the creation and maintenance of Internet Web sites and other Internet medium intended to recruit and raise funds for violent jihad, particularly in Palestine and Chechnya."

And they have argued that Mr. Hussayen's technical assistance, even if he did not share the beliefs of the groups he helped, were like providing a gun to an armed robber.

Most of the facts are not in dispute. Mr. Hussayen's lawyers said that he gave money to legitimate Islamic charities and that his Web site work was protected by the First Amendment. The Web sites he maintained also posted views opposing jihad, they said.

The government has argued that Mr. Hussayen, a Saudi citizen who is the son of a retired Saudi minister of education, does not have all the protections of an American citizen. They said he abused his privilege as a student by working for computer sites that advocate terror. His friends in the Idaho college town may have known one side of him, the prosecutor, Kim Lindquist, said in his opening remarks to the jury, but they seldom saw "the private face of extreme jihad."

The Saudi government is paying for the defense of Mr. Hussayen, his family said.

One of the charities that Mr. Hussayen supported, Islamic Assembly of North America, still operates out of Ann Arbor, Mich. On its Web site, the group says its mission is to promote the spread of Islam, and the group solicits money from the public. Mr. Nevin said the charity has never been classified as terrorist by the government.

But the government said the Michigan charity was one of the Web sites that "accommodated materials that advocated violence against the United States."

Both sides in this case are looking to appeals that will probably turn on the part of the antiterrorism law thrown out by Judge Collins in January.

In that case, the judge ruled on behalf of several humanitarian groups that wanted to provide support to the nonviolent arms of two organizations designated as terrorist in Turkey and Sri Lanka. Judge Collins wrote that "a woman who buys cookies at a bake sale outside her grocery store to support displaced Kurdish refugees to find new homes could be held liable" if the sale was sponsored by a group designated terrorist.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is trying to overturn the antiterrorism law in court, tried to join the Idaho case but was rebuffed by Judge Lodge.

"We very much wanted to be involved in this case because it is by far the most radical prosecution we've seen under the Patriot Act," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the national A.C.L.U. "You shouldn't be held liable for what somebody else said. Under this theory, you could charge the electrician who services the wrong client."