"As a practical matter, the president can do whatever he wants as long as he has the capacity and executive branch officials to do it," said Carl Tobias, a legal scholar at the University of Richmond in Virginia.

Lawmakers could impeach or withhold funding, or quash judicial nominations, among other measures.

The president, however, can veto legislation, including a law demanding the National Security Agency obtain warrants before monitoring communications. Such a veto would force Congress to muster a two-thirds vote to override.

"He could take the position he doesn't have to comply with whatever a new Congress says," said Vikram Amar, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, and a former Supreme Court clerk.

Douglas Kmiec, a former Justice Department official under former presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, speculated the younger Bush would assert executive authority to continue eavesdropping in the face of new legislation - perhaps leaving the Supreme Court as the final arbiter.

"He has as much a constitutional obligation to assert himself, just as much as Congress does," Kmiec said. "We do need an arbitrator, an interpreter. That's what the courts, the third branch of government, was intended to be."

On Dec. 17, 2005, Bush publicly acknowledged for the first time he had authorized the NSA to monitor, without approval from a judge, phone calls and e-mails that come into or originate in the U.S. and involve people the government suspects of having terrorist links.

Bush said he had no intention of halting what he called a "vital tool" in the war on terror.

When the Republican-controlled Congress adjourned last week, it left the spying program unchecked.

The next move falls to the Democrats who take control in January and are considering a proposal to demands Bush get warrants and others lengthening the time between surveillance and when a warrant must be obtained.

A spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, the incoming Senate majority leader from Nevada, said the eavesdropping issue "is something he expects to tackle early next year."

"He doesn't believe in giving the president a blank check to listen to the phone conversations of millions of Americans," spokesman Jim Manley said.

Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who will become House speaker, said eavesdropping legislation was under consideration and hearings on the topic were likely early next year.

Decisions are pending in dozens of lawsuits challenging the program.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the highest court squarely confronted with the issue so far, is to hear the American Civil Liberties Union's challenge Jan. 31. One stop short of the Supreme Court, the appeals court will review a Detroit judge's ruling that the program was unconstitutional.

The case is American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency, 06-2095.

His transfer to Syria, part of a series of U.S. clandestine "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects for interrogation in foreign countries, created a scandal in Canada.

The head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police resigned last week after a two-year judicial inquiry found his officers gave U.S. agents false information to cast suspicion on Arar.

The Canadian Parliament has apologized to Arar, now 36, and the Canadian government is preparing compensation for the engineer.

But the United States has never acknowledged any mistake in the matter, and Wilkins's disclosure Friday indicates Arar might again be detained by the United States if he were to enter the country.

His removal to Syria "was based on information from a variety of sources, as is his current watch list status," Wilkins said in a statement he issued later Friday. U.S. officials have made "our own independent assessment of the threat to the United States," he said.

"That the United States would have the gall to keep Maher on a watch list, implying that he poses a threat to this country, is outrageous," said one of Arar's attorneys, Maria LaHood, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. The nonprofit group filed a suit on Arar's behalf against the U.S. government, but it was dismissed.

"This administration is unwilling to admit its mistakes and still tries to conceal them," she said.

In Ottawa, New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton said the Canadian government should demand that the United States remove Arar's name from the list. "Otherwise, it sends a message the Canadian government will not stand behind its own citizens," he told reporters.

Under these statutes, an American citizen who sends a treatise on nonviolence to the Kurdistan Workers' Party to encourage it to forgo violence for peace can be sent to prison for 15 years. This is so even if he proves that he intended the treatise to be used only for peaceful ends, and that it was in fact used solely for that purpose. Such a moral innocent can be said to be "guilty" by association. 1

If you think this is an exaggeration and couldn't happen, think again. This is precisely the situation in which Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir found himself.

The T-word

According to United Nations statistics, every month throughout the 1990s almost 6,000 children under the age of five in Iraq were dying from lack of food and access to simple medicines.2 Three senior U.N. officials resigned because of what they considered a "genocidal" policy against Iraq.3 The United States led the effort to place restrictive sanctions on Iraq, and when Madeleine Albright, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was asked in a CBS interview if the deaths of half a million children was a price worth paying to punish Saddam Hussein, she infamously replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."4 When the deaths of children over the age of five and adults are added, the number killed as a direct result of the sanctions rises to between 1.5 and 2 million dead civilians.5

In response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by these brutal sanctions, Dhafir, a man of Iraqi descent and Muslim faith, and an American citizen for almost 30 years, started the charity Help the Needy (HTN).

Dr. Dhafir is a pillar of the Muslim community in Central New York. He was a founding member of the local mosque, and he served as the imam at Syracuse University until it hired a full-time imam. He paid a substantial amount of the running costs of the mosque and provided free medical consultation to those at the mosque without health insurance. His medical practice was in Rome, New York, an underserved area in which he was the sole oncologist. In his practice he provided free health care to people without insurance, and he paid for their expensive chemotherapy medicine out of his own pocket.6

For 13 years, Dhafir worked tirelessly to help publicize the plight of the Iraqi people and to raise funds to help them.7 According to the government, Dhafir donated $1.25 million of his own money over the years.8 As an oncologist, he was also concerned about the effects of depleted uranium on the Iraqi population, which was experiencing skyrocketing cancer rates.9

For the crime of breaking the U.S. and U.K.-sponsored U.N. sanctions on Iraq and sending humanitarian aid to sick and starving civilians, Dhafir was held without bail for 31 months and then sentenced to 22 years in prison.10 By implication, his were terrorist acts.

The legal background

Since the events of 9/11, the government has implemented powerful new prosecutorial tools to gain convictions in its War on Terror. In an article entitled "Terrorist Financing," Jeff Breinholt, deputy chief of the Department of Justice's Counterterrorism Section, explains these tools and how they are being used.11 On page 31 of the article he lists the statutes employed in the criminal prosecution of terrorist financing. Among these statutes is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which Breinholt also labels as "United States economic sanctions."12 IEEPA provides the president of the United States with authority to deal with any "unusual and extraordinary threat" that has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States; this includes threat to "national security, foreign policy, and the economy."13

Prosecutors armed with the statutes listed in Breinholt's paper are further empowered by using them in conjunction with the "material support of terrorism" laws, Executive Order (EO) 13224, and civil asset forfeiture laws - particularly those under IEEPA, which were amended by the PATRIOT Act. Under the IEEPA civil asset forfeiture provisions, the government can close down an organization and seize its assets while an investigation is ongoing, without probable cause of criminal activity and without any charges ever being brought against anyone.14

EO 13224 was issued on September 23, 2001. It introduced a blacklist of organizations and individuals suspected of terrorism, materially aiding terrorism, or associating with terrorists. IEEPA and international law permit humanitarian assistance for these suspects, including food, clothing and medicine, but this humanitarian aid is outlawed under EO 13224.15 The penalty for an IEEPA violation for organizations that knowingly engage in terrorist financing already carried a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. What this new provision did was "drastically increase the penalties for knowing violations of non-terrorism-related IEEPA offenses."16 People with a concern for civil liberties are troubled by the fact that the government provides no legal definition of what they consider a "specially designated terrorist" and by the broad manner in which the government is interpreting the new rules.17

The effect on Muslim charity

In a March 2006 article in the Washington Post, Laila al-Marayati and Basil Abdelkarim, board members of Kinder USA, a Muslim-American nonprofit humanitarian organization, wrote:

We are among those American Muslims who decided that because it is our right as Americans to fulfill our religious obligation to help the needy both here and abroad, we would start a new charity. We did so in 2002 and have experienced our fair share of government harassment as a result. None of us is interested in engaging in illegal activity; it is immoral, unethical, and un-Islamic, and it serves no useful purpose whatever. Our crime is that we care about what happens to the children of Palestine. Who knows what price we will have to pay for our hot-breakfast program for hungry kids in Gaza, for our playground project in the West Bank, for our psychological trauma center in Hebron.18

It is Muslim charities and individuals connected with these charities who are bearing the brunt of EO 13224.19 Since September 11, 2001, six major U.S. Muslim charities and several smaller Muslim charities have been shut down.20 The U.S. government closed the three largest Muslim charities in the country in December 2001, accusing each of supporting terror.21 Yet working in close collaboration with the U.S. government does not provide protection from this fate. In 2002 a new charity, KindHearts (KH), was established, determined to work together with government agencies to ensure compliance with all the new rules. KH has nonetheless suffered the same consequences as its sister organizations. In February 2006, KH's assets were seized and its operations frozen because of dubious allegations of financing terror.22

In a report titled "Muslim Charities and the War on Terror," OMB Watch23 documented its concerns about the treatment of Muslim charities and the people involved with them.24 Among the many concerns OMB voiced were the use of questionable evidence to shut down the largest U.S.-based charities, resulting in much-needed humanitarian assistance not reaching people who desperately need it; use of anti-terrorist financing policies that deny Muslim charities the right of due process and are unequally enforced; and holding of organizations and individuals associated with humanitarian work "guilty until proven innocent." They concluded that despite the new investigative powers, the authorities have failed to produce evidence of terror financing by U.S.-based charities.25

Nudge nudge, wink wink: the Help the Needy case

Since the day of Dhafir's arrest, February 26, 2003, when 85 (!) agents went to his home, government officials at national and state levels have portrayed Dhafir's humanitarian work as support of terrorism.26 Simultaneous to Dhafir's arrest, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., others associated with HTN were arrested in Syracuse, New York; Boise, Idaho; and Amman, Jordan. At the same time, about 150 mainly Muslim families who had donated to HTN were interrogated by government agents.27 On the same day, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that "supporters of terrorism" had been apprehended - a completely unfounded assertion that was reiterated by New York Governor George Pataki in August 2004, just prior to the start of Dhafir's trial.28

At the same time, and throughout the trial, local government officials - the prosecutors and the District Attorney - denied that the case had any connection to terrorism. Instead they portrayed Dhafir as a common thief.29 District Attorney Glenn Suddaby said, "[T]here's no evidence that any of the Help the Needy money went to al Qaida, the Iraqi government, or to buy arms and bullets that could be used against U.S. soldiers."30

The inconsistencies in the government's position were a startling feature of this case fromits inception. They suggested two possibilities: either one hand of the government didn't know what the other was doing, or the government was aiming deliberately to deceive.

No media outlet challenged the government directly and demanded that it provide an explanation for its contradictory assertions. However, Michael Powell of the Washington Post drew attention to them shortly before the trial began:

There is a shadow-boxing quality to the terror allegations lodged against Dhafir. In August, Gov. George E. Pataki (R) described Dhafir's as a "money laundering case to help terrorist organizations ... conduct horrible acts." Prosecutors hinted at national security reasons for holding Dhafir without bail. But no evidence was offered to support the allegations.31

Despite Pataki's pre-trial announcement, which was perfectly timed to reach potential jurors, the prosecution successfully petitioned Judge Norman Mordue not to allow the charge of terrorism to be part of the trial.32 Not surprisingly, the specter of terrorism hung over the trial throughout the proceedings, and prosecutors could hint at more serious charges but the defense lawyers were never allowed to follow this line of questioning.33

Dhafir's 17-week court case was conducted as a 60-count case of white-collar crime with no charges of terrorism. As a direct result of this, only the local Syracuse newspaper, the Post Standard, covered the proceedings. The paper proved to be little more than a mouthpiece for the government; on the rare occasion that it did provide coverage of cross-examination, it immediately followed with a restatement of the charges in the indictment.34 During the 17 weeks of daily coverage of the proceedings, the paper failed to give more than a passing mention to an ecumenical group that met every morning outside the federal building to worship for half an hour before the trial commenced at 8:30 a.m., or to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) court watchers who were present in court every day.35

Concerns have been expressed about reporters being embedded in war zones; there should be equal concern about them being embedded in federal buildings.

Avoiding the issues

Of the 60 counts in the Dhafir indictment, most were related to breaking the sanctions: conspiracy, mail and wire-fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. These charges are easily explained when viewed in the context of the sanctions. The government, however, did everything it could to prevent the condition of Iraq during the sanctions from being referred to at the trial.

According to the government, the investigation of HTN began with a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) from a bank. The government encourages financial institutions to report "suspicious activity" by watching out for money transfers between related accounts of related entities. But many nonprofit organizations that have nothing to do with supporting terrorism make these kinds of transfers on a regular basis.36 Because of the SAR report, seven government agencies investigated Dhafir and HTN for five years. They intercepted mail, e-mail, and faxes; bugged his office and hotel rooms; and conducted physical surveillance.

Because the government was unwilling to prosecute Dhafir for sanctions-related charges alone, the last 25 counts of the indictment were related to Medicare fraud. The government evidence for this part of the case was extremely weak.37 For example, a bar chart that supposedly compared the dollar amount of Dhafir's billing of Medicare with other doctors' billing was completely meaningless. It showed Dhafir's bar as being very tall and the other doctors' bars being much smaller - but when the witness was asked by the defense to say what types of doctors the other doctors were, or what their geographic location was, she could not answer.38

The whole of the Medicare case revolved around a single rule called "incident to," meaning any treatment performed by someone other than the doctor. The government claimed that Dhafir had filled out the forms incorrectly, and was therefore entitled to no reimbursement from Medicare, despite the fact that patients had received treatment and chemotherapy drugs. The defense contended that even if Dhafir's office had filled the forms wrongly (which they did not believe he had), Medicare had only overpaid 15% of $1,102.80 - the difference between what they pay for a doctor's time as opposed to a nurse practitioner's time - for a total overpayment of $166.00. This was not fraud, merely incorrect billing. Medicare fraud usually involves fictitious patients and made-up illnesses. Dhafir's case had none of this.

The government presented the Medicare evidence in the same way it presented the evidence related to the sanctions. After weeks of testimony following checks from bank to bank, the prosecution turned to day after day of testimony regarding Medicare forms, asking individuals from Dhafir's office to validate their signatures on the forms - thus proving that they had indeed signed the forms, but nothing else.39

The defense presented one witness, for 15 minutes. He was Dr. Edward Cox, head of the carrier organization that processes claims for Medicare.40 Reading from The New York State Handbook, Cox confirmed the defense's contention that in order to bill Medicare under the "incident to" rule, a non-physician was required to have a license or training.41 Thus, according to the Handbook, Dhafir's billing of Medicare was proper.

The Post Standard reported this testimony correctly on the day after it was given. On the following day, however, the paper had a front-page correction, with a picture of the witness apparently contradicting his testimony of the day before.42 And despite the testimony of this witness, the judge in his charge to the jury instructed them that under New York law a laboratory technician required a license; in other words, training alone was not sufficient.43

On the day of her sentencing, Mrs. Dhafir, Dr. Dhafir's wife and bookkeeper, was ordered to pay back $62,000 to Medicare. Asked on the same day how much of that money had actually been spent on chemotherapy medicine that was administered to patients, Michael Olmstead, the head prosecutor, was unable to say. When Dr. Dhafir was asked the same question, he said that 90% of this money had been spent on medicine.44 This leaves 10% of the money for the doctor's time, the nurse's time, and blood work. Dhafir also said that in 2002, Medicare reimbursed him less than he had spent on medicine alone. A look at the records would confirm or refute this, but Dr. Dhafir has been continually denied access to his own records that were taken from his house and office on the day of the arrest.

Jennifer Van Bergen, a journalist with a law degree and author of The Twilight of Democracy45 has written a two-part article on Dhafir's case entitled "New American Law: The Case of Dr. Dhafir" and "New American Law: Legal Strategies and Precedents in the Dhafir Case."46 In this article and other writings, Van Bergen warns about the danger of civil liberties being undermined when the government uses parallel legal tracks not intended to be mixed.47 She notes that, as happened in Dhafir's case, conspiracy laws and money laundering laws used "creatively" with the PATRIOT Act and IEEPA can be used to construct a vast distorted picture. Dhafir's case sets a legal precedent and means that others who provide humanitarian and medical assistance to those in need could, like Dhafir, end up being put away for the rest of their lives.

The government's strategy revealed

In November 2005, just weeks after Dhafir was sentenced to 22 years in prison for white-collar crimes, the government presented a lecture to a group of faculty and third-year law students at Syracuse University Law School in which Dhafir and the HTN case were highlighted. Jeff Breinholt, author of the article on terrorist financing mentioned above, and Greg West, one of the Dhafir prosecutors, presented the lecture, "A Law Enforcement Approach to Terrorist Financing."48 The other two Dhafir prosecutors were also present, along with representatives from the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT), a sponsor of the lecture.49

The slant of this lecture, along with Breinholt's 2003 "Terrorist Financing" article and the fact that Dhafir and the other HTN defendants are listed on the FBI's list of "terrorism convictions since September 11, 2001," give credence to the idea that the government's creative use of parallel legal tracks was a strategy from the outset.50

Breinholt stated that Dhafir's case had been under-prosecuted. In the context of the lecture's title, the implication was clear. He discussed the statutes being used as powerful tools for prosecution of terrorist financing, and explained that these tools were not widely known even among prosecutors. He voiced a hope that law schools could serve as a kind of farm system educating students in this new field of law, and that this in turn would create lawyers who would be familiar with and who could use these new prosecution tools.51

He explained that because the "American public won't tolerate anything less than the rule of law," creative ways had to be figured out to draft laws that can be used to prosecute what they are trying to prevent.52 According to Breinholt, this task was addressed by a Department of Justice Terrorist Financing Task Force that came together to craft ways to apply white-collar expertise to the problem of terrorism. In his article, Breinholt says:

Persons cannot be convicted of the federal crime of terrorism because there is no such crime. Instead, terrorism crimes have developed in the same manner as other crimes, policymakers determine what evil (or "mischief") should be prevented, and then craft criminal laws that take into account how such mischief is generally achieved. On occasion, acts that are criminalized are not ones that should necessarily be discouraged, if committed by persons not otherwise involved in the targeted conduct. In such cases, laws are crafted to criminalize such conduct only when in particular circumstances.53

A major tool that emerged from the work of this task force, said Breinholt, is the use of IEEPA violations to gain convictions in terrorist financing cases. He added that to convict under IEEPA, all that is necessary is to build a chain of inferences from available circumstantial evidence.54

In Breinholt's article, Dhafir and other HTN defendants are listed under the heading "Examples of 'clean money' cases."55 Listed under this same heading are Enaam Arnaout of Benevolence International Foundation (BIF); Sami Al-Hussayen, a graduate student at the University of Idaho, associated with Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA);56 and Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian professor from Florida.57 Further on, under the heading "crimes of terrorist financing," Breinholt lists the statutes being used in prosecution of these cases.58 Statutes under this heading that were used in Dhafir's case are 50 U.S.C. ss 1701,1702 (IEEPA) and U.S.C. ss 1956(a)(2)(A), "operating an unlicensed money transmitting business."59 One of the Dhafir prosecutors, Mr. West, explained to the class that one of the biggest frustrations of his career was having access to intelligence and not being able to share it.

Neither Breinholt nor West stated that these "powerful prosecution tools" are being used mostly against Muslim charities and individuals associated with those charities, while violations by large corporations like Halliburton, which did billions of dollars worth of business in defiance of IEEPA, go largely unpunished. At the most these corporations have gotten a slap on the wrist and a fine, but no individual board member or officer has ever faced prosecution. 60 And although many non-Muslim charities work in the same troubled regions of the world as Muslim charities, not a single non-Muslim charity has been closed.61 None of this was mentioned at the lecture.

By hosting this lecture, Syracuse University Law School gave credence to a charge never brought against Dhafir, and in doing so they became an accomplice in the government's subterfuge. After the lecture, a request was made that the ACLU court watchers who attended the trial be provided with "equal time" to speak to the students.62 Syracuse Law School Dean Hannah Arterian denied this request.

In testimony given on Capitol Hill by the U.S. Treasury Department, prosecution of Muslim charity cases is being used as a model of success in efforts to disrupt terrorism.63 However the testimony often contradicts the actual rulings in the cases, and the testimony fails to acknowledge that there are no terrorist convictions among any of the cases.

At a 2004 Pace University Law School symposium, Dr. Laila al-Marayati addressed the way this Treasury Department targeting of Muslim charities threatens civil liberties, constitutional rights, and the rule of law not just for Muslims, but for every American, regardless of creed:

The ever-present threat of a "terrorist designation" by the Treasury Department functions based on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent." The use of secret evidence, hearsay, erroneous translations, guilt by association and press reports in recent court cases further erodes the ability of charities to rely on basic assumptions regarding their constitutional rights, especially when the courts ultimately favor the government when "national security" is allegedly at stake. Overzealous surveillance tactics of the intelligence community such as wiretapping, infiltrating organizations by bribing employees to work as spies (thereby disrupting normal and lawful humanitarian activities), and engaging in other forms of harassment - when added to the above bleak picture - will not only chill, but will freeze completely American Muslim charitable giving overseas. Perhaps this is the goal of the U.S. government. However, no one should be fooled into thinking that America or the American people will be much safer as a result.64

History watches

Writing during the McCarthy era, Judge Irving R. Kaufman warned, "Once we embark on shortcuts by creating a category of 'obviously guilty' whose rights are denied, we run the risk that the circle of the unprotected will grow."65

We appear once again to have entered a dark time in which the civil liberties of a select group of people are being denied. The message being sent to Muslims across the country is that pillars of their community can be knocked down without any call for equal justice from the non-Muslim community. It is incumbent upon each of us to defend civil liberties for all, not least because "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."66

Donations can be made to Dhafir Appeal Fund, c/o Peter Goldberger, Esq., Attorney at Law, 50 Rittenhouse Place, Ardmore, PA 19003. Write "Dr. Dhafir Appeal Fund" in the memo line and please note that donations are not tax-deductible.

Katherine Hughes began attending the 17-week trial as a court watcher for the ACLU but quickly found that she could not in good conscience be the uninvolved observer their organization required. Since then she has worked to achieve justice for Dr. Dhafir. More information can be found at her Web site: www.dhafirtrial.net. A version of this article with detailed footnotes may be accessed online at www.forusa.org/fellowship.

1. David Cole, "Constitutional Implications of the Statutes Penalizing Material Support to Terrorist Organizations," Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary (hereafter Cole Testimony), May 2004: . Cole is talking about the same statutes that Breinholt mentions in his paper on "Terrorist Financing."
2. "UNICEF: Questions and Answers for the Iraq Child Mortality Surveys" (August 1999), . See also the Voices in the Wilderness Web site for more information on the condition of Iraq under sanctions.
3. Because of his humanitarian work, Dhafir was named as the sole honorary member of the Brussels Tribunal Advisory Committee. Two of the United Nations people who resigned, Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck, are also members of this committee:.
4. "Punishing Saddam," 60 Minutes, CBS Television, May 12,1996, quoted in John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World, p. 63 (Verso, 2002).
5. Dr. Gideon Polya, "Passive Genocide In Iraq," March 11, 2005 Countercurrents.org
6. Kristen Hinman, "The Iraqi Doctor: Patients Revere Him; The Government Wants to Put Him Away," Fall 2004: . Hinman's grandmother was a patient of Dr. Dhafir's. She was a student at Columbia University when she wrote this essay.
7. A video of a fundraising event at which Dr. Dhafir spoke was shown at his trial. The file is 120MB and can be viewed here: (Quicktime version): and here (Flash version).
8. Katherine Hughes, notes of Dhafir Trial (hereafter Hughes, Notes.)
9. See also Dhafir's address commemorating the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. The statement was made from prison on August 6, 2003, and Akira Tashiro Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium, (The Chugoku Shimbum, 2001).
10. For more information see Katherine Hughes, "Crime of Compassion," January, 2006: (hereafter Hughes, Crime of Compassion), and Katherine Hughes, "The U.S.A. v Rafil A. Dhafir: Individual Responsibility and Complicity," November 2005.
11. Jeff Breinholt, "Terrorist Financing," U.S. Attorney Bulletin, July 2003, Volume 51, number 4 (hereafter Breinholt); http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usab5104.pdf. Page 31 lists the United States Code provisions used to criminalize "terrorist financing."
12. Id.
13. IEEPA, Title 50, United States Code, section 1701(a), taken from indictment of Rafil A. Dhafir, August 18, 2004.
14. Jennifer Van Bergen, "How Government Forfeitures are Shutting Down U.S.-Based Muslim Charities: Going After Terrorism's Financiers Is the Right Strategy, But the Law Needs Reform," Findlaw Writ Guest Column, May 1, 2006: .
15. For a more detailed description of the effects of these new regulations, see: Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, "American Muslim Charities: Easy Targets in the War on Terror," presented on December 3, 2004 at Pace University Law Symposium, Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines: The Impact on International Philanthropy (hereafter Al-Marayati, Easy Targets).
16. ACLU Interested Persons Memo on the Conference Report Agreement on H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 (3/1/2006).
17. Cole Testimony, supra footnote 1.
18. Id.
19. Teresa Odendahl, "Philanthropic Patriot Games: How the U.S. Government Targets Charities in its War on Terror (hereafter Odendahl, Patriot Games), The Public Eye Magazine, Fall 2005.
20. Laila al-Marayati and Basil Abdelkarim, "The Crime of Being a Muslim Charity" (hereafter Al-Marayati, Crime), Washington Post, March 12, 2006.
21. The three charities closed down in December 2001, Holy Land Foundation (HLF), Global Relief Foundation (GRF) and Benevolence International Foundation (BIF). Al-Marayati, Easy Targets, supra footnote 15.
22. Al-Marayati, Crime, supra footnote 20.
23. OMB Watch is a nonprofit research and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting government accountability, citizen participation in public policy decisions, and the use of fiscal and regulatory policy to serve the public interest.
24. OMB Watch, "Muslim Charities and the War on Terror" (hereafter OMB Watch Report), revised March 2006.
25. OMB Watch Report.
26. See, for example, Michael Powell, "High-Profile N.Y. Suspect Goes on Trial: Arrest Was Called Part of War on Terrorism, but Doctor Faces Other Charges" (hereafter Powell), for a description of the arrest. The Washington Post, October 19, 2004.
27. Other HTN defendants accepted plea bargains by pleading guilty to breaking the sanctions. Maher Zagha of Amman, Jordan, Dhafir's co-defendant, was characterized during the proceedings as a fugitive by the government. On the contrary, he was held for two weeks after his arrest, interrogated by Jordanian authorities acting on behalf of the U.S., and then released to go about his normal business. Correspondence with Maher Zagha and Hughes, Notes, supra footnote 8 .
28. Powell, supra footnote 26.
29. Hughes, Crime of Compassion, supra footnote 10.
30. James Mckinnon, "Guilty As Charged ... of Philanthropy?" The Bachelor, September 2004, p. 5.
31. Powell, supra footnote 26.
32. Elaine Cassel, "The Lynne Stewart Case: When Representing An Accused Terrorist Can Mean The Lawyer Risks Jail, Too," Findlaw Writ Column, October 8, 2002. Cassel comments on a similar incident when, just prior to Lynne Stewart's case going to trial, Attorney General John Ashcroft appeared on the David Letterman show assuring viewers of her guilt.
33. The jury knew that Dhafir had been held without bail for 20 months and that it was the presiding judge, Mordue, who had denied him bail on four occasions. They also witnessed five federal marshals trade off every hour, approximately 240 times, throughout the trial so that two were always present in the courtroom. (This was done because Dhafir would not submit to a strip search on religious grounds.) One federal marshal sat directly behind Dhafir and the other sat adjacent to the jury near the opposite exit at all times. This marshal presence was over and above the two regular court guards, one at each exit. The non-verbal message that this sent cannot be over-estimated and it undoubtedly helped the government gain conviction in this case.
34. See, letter of Joel Cohen (one of Dhafir's trial lawyers) to the newspaper about the coverage: , November 15, 2004, and other letters at www.dhafirtrial.net under the headings, "court observers" and "media/judge letters."
35. Despite the bitterly cold Syracuse winter, a group of seven to 12 people met every day with clergy members leading the worship in rotation. People who responded to the request of the ACLU for court watchers were also present every day at the trial. There was a core group of about 12 people, several of whom attended almost every day of the trial. Experience of the author who attended almost all of the trial.
36. Odendahl, Patriot Games, supra footnote 19.
37. Hughes, Notes, supra footnote 8.
38. My witness of the proceedings.
39. A big screen was available in the courtroom so that the jury and the public gallery could see each piece of evidence. Here is a link to a letter written by Dr. Dhafir in 1993 to Medicare complaining about their ever-changing rules, about which not even Medicare employees can agree. Judge Andrew Napolitano speaks about this tactic of the government overwhelming juries with evidence. He says: "When prosecutors seek victory through illegal threats - rather than through fair negotiation or through the slow methodical presentation of evidence to a jury - they corrupt the cause they seek to advance." Andrew Napolitan, Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks its Own Laws, p. 152 (Nelson Current, 2004).
40. The government presented their case in minute detail over the 17-week period. Due to a lack of finances (the government had frozen all Dhafir's money) the defense was able to call one witness for 15 minutes.
41. Dr. Dhafir's laboratory technician had been with him for many years and was highly trained by Dr. Dhafir himself.
42. Katherine Hughes, "Dr. Dhafir's Trial Concluded Today," (summary of the last day of the proceedings) and this witness's testimony can be seen here.
43. Judge Norman Mordue, Jury Charge: U.S. v. Dhafir (U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, Case No. 03-CR-64 (NAM)) February 2005: .
44. From conversations the author had with Olmstead on June 1, 2005, and with Dhafir approximately one week later.
45. Jennifer Van Bergen, The Twilight of Democracy, The Bush Plan for America (Common Courage Press, 2004).
46. Jennifer Van Bergen, "New American Law," Part 1: and Part 2: http://www.counterpunch.org/bergen10092005.html (October 8 & 9, 2005).
47. Jennifer Van Bergen, "The PATRIOT Act and Other Dilutions of the Constitution: America's Parallel Legal Systems," July 25/26 2005.
48. The lecture was advertised by the "Institute For National Security and Counterterrorism" (INSCT).
49. INSCT is hosted at Syracuse University.
50. The New York Jewish Times, June 27, 2006: See also: The Washington Post, "330 Suspects Charged," June 12, 2005:
51. I attended this lecture. This section is based on my recollection and notes of that event. (Hereafter Hughes, Lecture Observations.)
52. In 2003, Breinholt was given the Attorney General's "Award for Excellence in Furthering the Interests of U.S. National Security," for his work in crafting creative legal theories that resulted in the initiation of several important prosecutions in the aftermath of 9/11
53. Breinholt, supra footnote 11.
54. Hughes, Lecture Observations, supra footnote 51.
55. Breinholt, supra footnote 11, at p. 19.
56. IANA is a not-for-profit religious group registered in the U.S. and its purpose is purely religious and educational. See Elaine Cassel, The War on Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights (Lawrence Hill Books, 2004). In a chapter called, "Guilt by Association: The Muslim Charities," pp. 87-106, Cassel speaks about the cases of HLF, GRF, BIF, and HTN.
57. Mr. Arnaout accepted a plea bargain by pleading guilty to using BIF donations in providing boots, tents, uniforms, and an ambulance to units of the Bosnian army at a time when Muslims in Bosnia were attempting to defend themselves against the genocidal atrocities of the Serbian army. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail. More information. In July 2004, after being cleared of charges, Sami Al-Hussayen was deported to Saudi Arabia. In December 2005, Sami Al-Arian was acquitted of the most serious charges against him and the jury was hung on other charges. Despite agreeing to deportation he is still being held by the government.
58. Breinholt, supra footnote 11, at p. 31.
59. Since Dhafir's conviction under IEEPA and for operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, in February 2005, he and other HTN defendants have been placed on the FBI list of terrorism-related convictions since Sept. 11, 2001. On June 12, 2005, The Washington Post listed the HTN defendants as part of the government list of 330 suspects in terrorist related charges. And on June 27, 2006, the New York Jewish Times listed Dhafir and other HTN defendants in an article entitled: "Examples of Terrorism Convictions. Since September 11, 2001" the FBI was given as the source. The indictment of Rafil A. Dhafir is available here: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/static/indictment.pdf
60. Barrie Gewanter, director of ACLU-CNY speaking on "Access" with George Kilpatrick, WCNY Public Television, Wednesday, October 26th, 11pm.
61. Al-Marayati, Crime, supra footnote 20.
62. Email from the author to Dean Arterian (11/27/05) available here.
63. Al-Marayati, Easy Targets, supra, footnote 15.
64. Id.
65. Pete Seeger, The Incompleat Folksinger, p. 473 (Simon and Schuster, 1972).
66. Martin Luther King Jr. in a letter from a Birmingham jail.

Overall, the poll -- which includes questions that have been asked since 2002 and 2003 -- showed a continued skepticism about whether the government is adequately protecting privacy rights as it conducts terrorism-related investigations.

Compared with June 2002, for example, almost twice as many respondents say the need to respect privacy outranks the need to investigate terrorist threats. That shift was first evident in polling conducted in January 2006.

That sentiment is still a minority view, however: Nearly two-thirds rank investigating threats as more important than guarding against intrusions on personal privacy, down from 79 percent in 2002.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who is a professor in Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, said the poll results could spell trouble for the FBI and other government agencies as they continue to seek support for expanded anti-terrorism powers granted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I don't think you can view these polling results in isolation from an overall phenomenon, which is that people are more skeptical of the government's conduct of the war on terrorism," Hoffman said.

Sixty-six percent of those questioned said that the FBI and other agencies are "intruding on some Americans' privacy rights" in terrorism investigations, up from 58 percent in September 2003. Thirty percent think the government is not intruding on privacy.

Support for intrusive tactics has dropped even more significantly during that time. A bare majority, 51 percent, feel the tactics are justified, down from 63 percent three years ago.

The poll was conducted by telephone from Dec. 7 through Monday, and the results have a three-percentage-point margin of error.

According to ANI, Jasson was first stopped at London's Heathrow Airport and forced to remove the T-shirt because it caused "security problem in light of the present situation."

He faced a similar situation at the Adelaide Airport and felt that both incidents were attempts to prevent him from exercising his freedom of expression of his feelings.

"I told her I had the right to express my opinion. I felt I had made my point and caved in," Jasson said.

However, the Aussie passenger wore his Bush T-Shirt again but was yet again banned from boarding a subsequent connecting flight.

"It was argued other passengers could be offended. I said it was most offensive that I would be prevented from expressing my political views," said the Aussie traveler.

However, a Virgin Blue spokeswoman said "Most people use common sense and don't go out of their way to offend people."

Mind control is an important weapon in the 21st century. Mind control includes electromagnetic devices which can affect the brain and physical functioning, some pharmaceuticals, some behaviour modification "conditioning" and "chaining", and regular hypnotic techniques. Some of these may be used in conjunction with others.

Research into mind control has a valid defense purpose, of course.

For example, the worst excesses of World War 2 could all have been achieved from behind the scenes by mind controllers. It is worth noting that mind controllers get used to enjoying complete concealment, and therefore never do the dirty work themselves.

Highly intelligent people, and highly telepathic people, were early found to be easier to mind-control (in the 1940s this would have included Jews and gypsies, for example). These days, with electromagnetic and pharmaceutical tools, almost anybody can be susceptible.

It is an indictment of current governments that young people are still not warned of this danger, therefore are naive and susceptible, and cannot protect themselves through knowledge from mind control situations.

We will know we have honest governments when schools routinely teach young people, "You can be controlled against your will - watch for these danger signs and be careful."

Crimes are quite often performed by a person who is mind controlled and does not know he is committing the crime. Afterwards he might be instructed to forget and the amnesia might last many years. Other crimes are often covered up using mind-control in officials.

Physical assaults can be committed by knowing people using mind control directly, too. As an example, perhaps a victim is in the middle of conversation when he is suddenly plunged into a trance state, then something is injected into his body. When he is brought back to conscious functioning he is unaware he has been attacked. He may be conscious only of experiencing a little difficulty in speech or concentration for a few seconds.

Here following is the evidence that military research is overseen in the USA by the Navy, in case people have not seen it:

SECNAVINST 3900.39D
6 November 2006

Page 9:

(2) The Under Secretary of the Navy (UNSECNAV) is the Approval Authority for research involving:

(a) Severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects (such as consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques).

Scientists have found that frequencies in the human voice are sensitive to honesty, becoming higher when a person is lying.

This is because in moments of stress, such as telling a lie, our muscles tighten as our body prepares to flee or fight causing the pitch of our voice to alter.

The inventors of the lie detector claim the software mimics police technology by monitoring the stress levels of the person speaking on the phone to judge whether they are telling the truth.

Already 320,000 people have downloaded the lie detector system. Using the infamous example of Bill Clinton's denial about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the developers show on their website a graph which rises as he utters the lie: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'

The software measures stress levels between one and 100, with a green light which shows when stress levels are normal, which then changes to red when they rise to high, allowing the user to gauge whether the other person is lying.

Many police forces across America use the controversial technology when interviewing crime suspects, and it has also been used by the US military in the 'war on terror'.

The lie detector is currently available for those who make calls using Skype technology.

Skype, which has over 100 million registered users worldwide, is one of the best known of several internet-based phone systems which allow callers to make free calls around the world.

Using the communication software, calls to other computers are free, while other calls to landlines are charged at around 1p a minute.

Paul Amery, director of Skype developer program, said: 'This is a really neat application, and the kind of thing we want to see more of. The Kishkish team has managed perfectly to integrate this unique application to meet the needs of our clients.'

'Lie detector is the latest in a variety of products in our premium add-on program which greatly enhance the Skype communication experience. Extras are all about helping end users do more with Skype, and this will certainly encourage it,' said Dr Zvi Marom from the programmes makers, BATM.

'We are delighted to be able to introduce this unique software to Skype's premium offering and will continue to work closely with them to develop new software-based communication applications.'

The Republican President, William McKinley, stated he had prayed for guidance, and the divine advice was to 'uplift and civilise' the Philippines. The Americans expected a welcome from the Filipinos, and indeed the US was seen as a liberator by many - initially. But US occupation became increasingly unpopular and a protracted guerrilla war developed. During the conflict, more than 4,000 US troops died and several hundred thousand Filipinos lost their lives during the occupation.

An outcry swelled over civilian deaths and over US treatment of Filipino prisoners, including a torture used known as 'the water cure' (a technique similar to the 'water boarding' Vice President Dick Cheney defended as a practice in Guantanamo). Some GIs were reprimanded. Military morale fell. When a leader of the insurrection was captured and executed, some thought this would end the violence - it did not.

The Americans enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in military technology, but Filipinos fought using what they had to hand. Muslim islanders, called to jihad, launched suicide sword attacks in crowded streets. Christian islanders also resisted, but there was conflict between the faiths. Those co-operating with the US were often threatened or assassinated.

The US war with the Spanish had been planned for months, with a media campaign focusing on the barbarism of Spanish rule. But the Americans had not done their research on the people, nor did they have any detailed plans of how to administer the country. The US organised elections, but was disappointed with the politicians who emerged. It spent millions of dollars improving infrastructure, but won over few hearts and minds. Back home, enthusiasm for the war eroded. Celebrities and intellectuals voiced opposition. The media began to turn, despite the US military offering preferential treatment to journalists who gave favourable coverage. Even big US businesses that were close to the White House started to lose faith in the supposed commercial opportunities the occupation might offer. Eventually this was reflected in the polls and by 1912 the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress, ending years of Republican domination.

The US decided to leave the Philippines in 1916, granting the islands independence as soon as a stable government could be formed. This proved harder to achieve than expected, for fear the country would descend into chaos. The Second World War intervened and sovereignty was handed back to the Filipinos only in 1946. The years since then have brought the islands mixed fortunes, a long dictatorship under Marcos, economic underachievement and continued strife between Christians and Muslims.

There are important differences between Iraq and the Philippines a century before. But also surely there's been a wasted opportunity to learn lessons, by an America that, for all its virtues, does not enjoy examining the past. Mark Twain, who stood up against the Philippine occupation, wrote that, if the past does not repeat itself, it at least rhymes. Sadly it seems the more influential view was Henry Ford's, who declared history 'more or less bunk'.