gliper
May 3rd, 2004, 09:34 PM
http://rense.com/general52/web.htm
"Al-Hussayen, who was arrested in February 2003 while working toward a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Idaho, is charged with providing "material support" to terrorists, a crime that was broadened by the PATRIOT Act to include "expert guidance or assistance."
"The core of the case," the prosecutors say, is four fatwas (religious decrees) that were posted at www.alasr.net, a site that Al-Hussayen helped maintain. The fatwas, which appeared in 2001, defend suicide attacks on "the enemy" as consistent with Islam.
But Al-Hussayenówho as a local Muslim leader released a statement after the September 11 attacks condemning "vicious acts of terrorism against innocent civilians"óinsists he does not agree with those fatwas. They were among thousands of postings that he handled for various sites, which also included articles arguing that terrorism is contrary to Islam. Prosecutors concede that "much of the content of the Web sites was seemingly benign."
Likewise, the government holds Al-Hussayen responsible for incendiary comments by participants in a Yahoo! e-mail group devoted to Chechnya. Although Al-Hussayen was listed as one of several moderators for the list, he served that function only 17 times over three years and deleted just one message during that time, a pattern that seems to indicate inattention rather than agreement. "
"Talk about guilt by association. Given the interconnected nature of the World Wide Web (they don't call it a "web" for nothing), just about any site with hyperlinks "could eventually access" something sinister. "
"Al-Hussayen, who was arrested in February 2003 while working toward a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Idaho, is charged with providing "material support" to terrorists, a crime that was broadened by the PATRIOT Act to include "expert guidance or assistance."
"The core of the case," the prosecutors say, is four fatwas (religious decrees) that were posted at www.alasr.net, a site that Al-Hussayen helped maintain. The fatwas, which appeared in 2001, defend suicide attacks on "the enemy" as consistent with Islam.
But Al-Hussayenówho as a local Muslim leader released a statement after the September 11 attacks condemning "vicious acts of terrorism against innocent civilians"óinsists he does not agree with those fatwas. They were among thousands of postings that he handled for various sites, which also included articles arguing that terrorism is contrary to Islam. Prosecutors concede that "much of the content of the Web sites was seemingly benign."
Likewise, the government holds Al-Hussayen responsible for incendiary comments by participants in a Yahoo! e-mail group devoted to Chechnya. Although Al-Hussayen was listed as one of several moderators for the list, he served that function only 17 times over three years and deleted just one message during that time, a pattern that seems to indicate inattention rather than agreement. "
"Talk about guilt by association. Given the interconnected nature of the World Wide Web (they don't call it a "web" for nothing), just about any site with hyperlinks "could eventually access" something sinister. "