Free Republic

The real battle for religious freedom lurks beneath the Ground Zero mosque controversy. It is sadly ironic that our public debate presents the mosque proponents as the partisans of liberty: That includes everyone from imam Feisal Rauf, the project’s sharia-touting sponsor, to President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, and the rest of the Islamist-smitten Left, to the GOP’s own anti-anti-terrorist wing. Yet, wittingly or not, when they champion this mosque and its sponsors, it is the agenda of an alien and authoritarian Islam that they champion — an Islam against which many American Muslims chafe. When it comes to liberty, no one...

With all the battering prosecutors have taken recently from judges who worry they are too cavalier with the rights of defendants, it’s worth noting a disputed case where the prosecutors apparently got it right – but the judge won’t admit it.In early 2009, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia appeared poised to dismiss a criminal contempt of court case against a confessed supporter of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.In a Feb. 20, 2009, hearing, Brinkema harrumphed about the government’s contempt case against former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, saying there was...

Terrorism and the Middle East are continuing to roil the Republican Senate contest after a letter written by former congressman Tom Campbell emerged that appeared to contradict statements Campbell and his aides had made about his dealings with a radical Muslim professor. The professor, Sami Al-Arian, contributed to Campbell's unsuccessful campaign in 2000 for the U.S. Senate. On Sept. 26, 2001, when he was teaching at the University of South Florida, Al-Arian gave an interview to Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly in which he conceded that he had said, "Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution....

President Obama's new Muslim envoy Rashad Hussain admitted Friday to once defending a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group -- an admission that contradicts earlier claims from the White House that the quotes had been mistakenly attributed to Hussain.

SNIPPET: "No sooner than President Obama named 31-year-old lawyer Rashad Hussain to be America's new envoy to the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC), did reports surface indicating Hussain has held harshly critical views of his own country's treatment of Muslims. Politically motivated prosecutions, out-of-control surveillance of Muslims and the prospect that internment camps could one day return to American soil are among those concerns he has expressed." SNIPPET: "And Hussain can't remember what he said, or what his attitude was? Can he at least come forth now and describe what he does think? If he is to represent America...

Rashad Hussein, White House official and President Obama’s newly appointed Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, has a history of participation in events connected with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood as well as support for Brotherhood causes, once having called prosecution of the U.S. leader of a Palestinian terrorist organization one of many “politically motivated persecutions.” Mr. Hussain’s official biography states: Rashad Hussain is presently Deputy Associate Counsel to President Obama. His work at the White House focuses on national security, new media, and science and technology issues. Mr. Hussain has also worked with the National Security Staff in...

"Obama’s New OIC Envoy Defended Activist Who Aided Terrorist Group" Monday, February 15, 2010 By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor PHOTO CAPTION: "On Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010, President Obama named 31-year-old Rashad Hussain as his envoy to the OIC, the 57-member bloc of Islamic states. (Photo from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans)" SNIPPET: "On Saturday, Obama named the Texas-born, 31-year-old Indian-American as his envoy to the OIC, the 57-member bloc of Islamic states. The appointment is in line with the president’s goal, expressed in his speech in Cairo last June, to reach out to the Islamic world....

SNIPPET: "For all his public activity, Bray has rarely, if ever, discussed his life story in detail. His own MAS biography offers vague descriptions of his work as "a long time civil and human rights advocate." A charismatic African-American convert to Islam, Bray spent this entire decade working for Islamist organizations. Prior to joining MAS, Bray was political director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Those jobs have helped him build a growing public profile and given him access to politicians and policy makers. And that may explain his reluctance to discuss his life before political activism. The Investigative...

Now that Congress has recessed, and since the conventions aren’t for a couple of weeks, Thursday’s The Situation Room turned back to the "hot" issue of what many liberals are calling on congressional Democrats to do: arrest and lock-up Karl Rove for his failure to testify on the issue of the firing of U.S. attorneys in late 2006. CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, as part of a report on this possible move by the Democrats, conducted a search for the supposed jail inside the U.S. Capitol. He also addressed the little-used power of the legislature to arrest and try government officials...

Alexandria, Va. (AP) -- The Justice Department may have hoodwinked a defendant in a high-profile terrorism case into thinking his plea bargain would protect him from further prosecutions, a federal judge said Monday. Monday's hearing in U.S. District Court was the latest in which Judge Leonie Brinkema questioned the Justice Department's tactics in pursuing a criminal contempt case against former professor Sami Al-Arian, once accused of being a leading Palestinian terrorist. Brinkema gave Al-Arian's lawyers 10 days to file papers seeking dismissal of the case on the grounds that prosecutors failed to keep promises made under the plea bargain. She...

ALEXANDRIA, VA - A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for Sami Al-Arian to stand trial for criminal contempt, ruling there is an "insufficient legal basis" for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad supporter's claim of selective government prosecution. U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema set a March 9 jury trial date for Al-Arian.

A federal jury in Dallas on Monday dealt the Stealth Jihad initiative in the United States a crushing defeat: it found five former officials of an Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), guilty of funneling at least $12 million of the charity’s funds to the jihad terror group Hamas. The notorious “Muslim civil rights” group, the Council on American Islamic Relations, is involved as well, since Ghassan Elashi, a founding director of CAIR as well as founder of the group’s Texas chapter, was among those found guilty; Elashi and his co-defendants face prison sentences of up to twenty years...

Ahmed Mohamed, one half of the Goose Creek two, received the maximum sentence yesterday for creating a jihad video that was to be used by Muslim “martyrs” fighting American soldiers in Arab countries. He and his apologists still insist on painting Mohamed as a regular college guy. The judge didn’t buy it. Good: ~~~ Former University of South Florida student Ahmed Mohamed received a maximum 15-year federal prison sentence Thursday for providing material support to terrorists. In court, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday pondered the 27-year-old’s potential aloud, gazing at the former engineering doctoral student and teaching assistant who...

Islamic leaders tied by federal investigators to the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America – including one under active investigation for alleged terror-financing – have recently donated to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign for president, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by WND. Jamal M. Barzinji earlier this year gave Obama $1,000, a gift that records show has not been returned. Other Democratic candidates, including Rep. Jim Moran, have refunded donations from Barzinji since federal agents raided his Virginia home and offices in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Obama's top Muslim adviser resigned earlier this month over controversy surrounding his...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

Sami al-Arian’s fondest wish is to be deported from the United States to the Palestinian territories. The US government has other plans, however, and will keep him in prison until he testifies to connections between charity front groups and terrorists. The former Florida professor claims he has immunity from further investigations, but somehow his side forgot to commit it to paper: Former university professor Sami al-Arian wants to finish serving his prison sentence for a terrorism-related crime next month so that he can be deported to the Palestinian territories. But the Bush administration is threatening to keep him behind bars...

Gainesville -- Officials at Mar-Jac Poultry said they were shocked to find out Thursday that federal officials suspect the company might have ties to terrorist funding. Company Vice President Doug Carnes said at least a half-dozen U.S. Customs agents spent all day Wednesday gathering financial records and charitable contribution files. They were "real nice, professional and complimentary," he said, but they didn't disclose the nature of their visit. It was only on Thursday that Carnes was alerted by company officials in Virginia as to what the agents were looking for. "I'm shocked. I'm in disbelief. I've worked for them for...

A former Florida college professor who pleaded guilty to aiding a Palestinian terrorist group was not immune from a subpoena forcing him to testify in an unrelated probe of Muslim charities, an appeals court ruled Friday. Sami Al-Arian, 50, had argued the terms of the plea agreement exempted him from testifying before a grand jury in an investigation of Islamic charities in Virginia. A federal judge disagreed and found Al-Arian guilty of contempt when he refused to testify. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Al-Arian's appeal Friday, ruling that federal prosecutors did not violate the plea agreement by...