Sami al-Arian

Refusing to be silenced August 1, 2008

We will not be silenced . . .

http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/01/refusing-to-be-silenced

http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/01/refusing-to-be-silencedSpeech: Dave Zirin

Refusing to be silenced
August 1, 2008

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On July 24, about 100 people gathered in Baltimore for a forum to stand up against a long-term spying operation conducted by the Maryland State Police against anti-death penalty and antiwar activists.

The surveillance and infiltration of the groups took place while Republican Robert Ehrlich was governor, according to 43 pages of state police reports recently released to the ACLU. The spying continued month after month despite the fact that the state's agents never recorded a single illegal act among the groups' protest activities. This week, the current governor, Martin O'Malley, appointed a panel to review the state police surveillance operation against the anti-death penalty and antiwar movements.

Dave Zirin, a sportswriter and activist, was one of the activists named in the spying reports. At the July 24 meeting, he talked about his reactions to the spy scandal and activists' plans for "going on offense."

Marching Off Into Tyranny

Marching Off Into Tyranny

(Also published at Counterpunch, as "The Anthrax Attacks and the Assault on Civil Liberties")

By Paul Craig Roberts

05/08/08 "ICH" -- - In last weekend’s edition of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn updates the ongoing persecution of Sami Al-Arian by federal prosecutors. Al-Arian was a Florida university professor of computer science who was ensnared by the Bush Regime’s need to produce “terrorists” in order to keep Americans fearful and, thereby, amenable to the Bush Regime’s assault on US civil liberties.

The charges against Al-Arian were rejected by a jury, but the Bush Regime could not accept the obvious defeat. If Al-Arian was not a terrorist, then other of the Bush Regime’s fabricated cases might fall apart, too.

In open view, the US Department of Justice (sic) proceeded to trash every known ethical rule of prosecution. I don’t need to repeat the facts, as they are covered by Cockburn’s articles and in The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Instead, I want to point out another meaning of the Al-Arian case. The Justice (sic) Department itself knows that it is persecuting a totally innocent person for reasons of a political agenda--the need to convince gullible Americans of an ongoing terrorist threat. The existence of this threat is used to justify the Bush Regime’s adoption of police state measures, such as spying on Americans without warrants, arresting them without charges, and refusing to let go of them when they are cleared by juries...

Continued...
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2008/080508Roberts.shtml

Legislating Tyranny By Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20056.htm

("On May 9, 2007, President Bush signed the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. If in the president’s opinion a “catastrophic emergency” occurs, the directive places all governmental power in the hands of the president, effectively abolishing the checks and balances in the Constitution." . . . This is what worries me, many of us. Will something in September or October, 2008 happen? So much circumstantial evidence seems to say so . . . , and I hope obviously, I'm wrong. --Betsy)

Legislating Tyranny

By Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton

07/06/08 "Lew Rockwell" -- -The George W. Bush administration responded to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon with an assault on U.S. civil liberty that Bush justified in the name of the “war on terror.” The government assured us that the draconian measures apply only to “terrorists.” The word terrorist, however, was not defined. The government claimed the discretionary power to decide who is a terrorist without having to present evidence or charges in a court of law.

This Week Is Action Week for Dr. Sami al-Arian

While some of us have lost tenured or tenure-track jobs for pursuing 9/11 truth, Sami al-Arian is by far the biggest American academic victim of the 9/11 psy-op. Please inform yourself about this travesty of justice at http://www.freesamialarian.com and join the Action Week activities described below.
-KB

ACTION WEEK FOR SAMI AL-ARIAN
(Monday April 28th ˆ Friday May 2nd)

Just 3 Phone Calls & 1 Email to Make a Difference

Dear friends,

Dr. Sami Al-Arian is at an extremely critical juncture. Any day now he may indicted on criminal contempt, a charge that carries a minimum sentence of five years. Another Palestinian-American professor in a similar case was sentenced to eleven years for criminal contempt last fall.

On March 20th, in a blatant violation of the plea agreement signed between Dr. Al-Arian and the U.S. government, a Virginia federal judge forced Dr. Al-Arian to appear in court to testify before a third grand jury. Given that the government had in the past cynically twisted his words to try to convict him of perjury, Dr. Al-Arian recognized the perjury trap laid for him, and refused to testify as his attorneys advised.

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