Replies

the ruling may be a blow to that case and others brought in the war on terror.

For about 12 seconds. This, like so many of the 9th Circus, will have the staying power as a Democrat with no tax money.

Any suggestion on what to do about federal judges who provide aid to terrorist groups?

IT IS TIME!

Hang the Communist Anti-American TREASONOUS BASTARDS by the ....!

...after conviction of course.

For once it seems the 9th Circuit gets one right.

Oh well, even a blind pig roots up the occasional acorn.

L

Well, OK.

But no scholarship money for Christian Schools! THAT would be crossing the line!!

????

Its OKAY to commit treason????

Terrorist are Democrats?
Date: Saturday, November 30 @ 12:29:30
Topic War on Terror

Buffalo News Editorial
All five are native-born U.S. citizens. Four are married, and at least three have children. All are in their 20s. All lived within a few blocks of each other. One drives a motorcycle. Two have suspended driver's licenses. One was voted the friendliest in his high school class. One goes to Erie Community College. One sells used cars; another works as a telemarketer.

All five are registered Democrats.

Friends say detainees lived 'all-American' lives

By SUSAN SCHULMAN, GENE WARNER and LOU MICHEL
News Staff Reporter 9/15/2002

Friends and family describe the five men in 'all-American' terms, people who work, go to school, care for their families and enjoy a good game of soccer.The descriptions hardly match the demographic profile of anyone who would train to become a terrorist, accused of operating an al-Qaida cell out of Lackawanna.

In fact, their friends and families discount the FBI's claims that the five spent time in Afghanistan, training with the same group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

But for some of the men, at least, life in their hometown of Lackawanna - where at least four graduated from Lackawanna High School - was more than the routine 9-to-5 at the office and a Bills game on the weekend.

Faysal Galab, for example, left town for a few months last year, according to his brother, to study Islam in Pakistan.

At least three of the other men - even one struggling financially in recent years - went to Pakistan in recent years, according to relatives. They all traveled halfway around the world to study their religion, relatives said.

Saturday, sketchy portraits started to emerge of the five Lackawanna men of Yemeni heritage who were rounded up Friday evening and early Saturday by the FBI.

All five are native-born U.S. citizens. Four are married, and at least three have children. All are in their 20s. All lived within a few blocks of each other. One drives a motorcycle. Two have suspended driver's licenses. One was voted the friendliest in his high school class. One goes to Erie Community College. One sells used cars; another works as a telemarketer. Several are avid soccer players. All five are registered Democrats.

The five are:

• Shafal A. Mosed, 24, of 183 Ingham Ave., a Lackawanna High School graduate, married with one child. An ECC South student and telemarketer.

• Yahya A. Goba, 25, of 21 Wilkesbarre Ave., a Lackawanna High School graduate, recently married.

• Sahim A. Alwan, 29, of 24 Wilkesbarre Avenue, also a Lackawanna High School graduate.

• Yasein A. Taher, 24, of 213 Ludel Terrace. A registered Democrat and a former star soccer player for Lackawanna High School.

• Faysal H. Galab, 26, of 109 Holland Ave. Sells used cars out of a Route 5 gas station. Married, with two children. Lackawanna High School graduate.

Shafal A. Mosed is a devoted family man who grew up quickly after his father died, according to his family members.

The family moved from Detroit to Lackawanna 15 years ago when Ahmed Mosed, their husband and father, was transferred to Ford Motor Co.'s Stamping Plant here.

A few months later, a heart attack claimed him.

"That's when Shafal started taking responsibility for the family with my oldest brother Albaneh. They helped my mother," said Sofia Mosed, one of six children in the Mosed family. "Shafal cashes my mother's Social Security checks, pays her bills and gets people to repair things in her house."

Standing on the porch of their Wilkesbarre Avenue home Saturday afternoon, Fatima Mosed and her daughters refused to believe the allegations against their son and brother.

"I know my kids, and Shafal loves this country. He works in the day as a telemarketer and then at 5 p.m. he goes to college for computers. Everyone knows my son, and they say he's a nice guy," said Fatima Mosed.

"My brother is innocent. He is an American, born in Detroit," Sofia Mosed said.

The last the mother saw of her son was Friday afternoon, when he showed up at her home and shared a meal with her.

"After we ate, he said he was going to work, and he would call me later that night when he got home," Fatima Mosed said.

He never reached home. He was arrested about 7 p.m. Friday at a deli at Genesee and Sherman streets in Buffalo by the FBI.

To his mother, it all seems surreal. She would rather remember that her son is a 1996 graduate of Lackawanna High School and the best goalie the school's soccer team ever had.

Sofia Mosed said her brother for years played soccer with neighborhood friends, including Faysal Galab, another of the men arrested Friday.

Sofia also said her brother traveled to Pakistan last year to study Islam. Galab also went that year, she said, adding she doesn't know if they went together.

Relatives said they didn't know where Mosed, who is financially struggling, got the money for the trip.

"He went to Pakistan for 11/2 to two months to extend his knowledge in Islam, and it was a vacation," Sofia Mosed said of her older brother.

Shafal Mosed's wife called her husband "an all-American guy." "He cheered the Buffalo Bills," said his wife, who refused to give her name.

Though the family members remained gravely aware of the seriousness of the allegations, one member had no idea what was happening - Shafal's 3-year-old son.

Throughout Friday night and all day Saturday, the little boy wore a smile punctuated by dimples.

"I love Shafal's little boy. He's my baby," Fatima Mosed said of her grandson, Muhsin.But even the child's winning smile was not enough to distract the 46-year-old mother, who came to the United States from Yemen 25 years ago.

"I have angina, and I get migraine headaches," she said. "This is just too much for me. Shafal is a good son."

*****Yahya A. Goba's in-laws said finding work and fixing up his new house were the young man's major preoccupations. Recently married, Goba was trying to lay the foundation for a new life with his wife, they said.

Cynical, disgusted and reeling from the events of Friday, Goba's in-laws dismissed the charges against Goba as racial profiling.

"Because he's a Muslim, that's why they charged him," said Goba's father-in-law, who wouldn't give his name out of fear for his family's safety. "And tomorrow, they are going to charge me because I'm a Muslim. We probably have to change our religion."

A brother-in-law said he seriously doubted the 5-foot-10-inch Goba had the physical stamina to withstand the rigors of an al-Qaida training camp.

"He weighs about 250 pounds and complains all the time that it hurts to walk. Forget about him training," he said.

Another brother-in-law said Goba's free time was spent going to restaurants and playing soccer.

Goba's father-in-law described him as a devout Muslim who had never been arrested before, and he said he wouldn't have approved of his daughter's marrying Goba if Goba were a criminal.

"I know him, and he's not guilty," his father-in-law said. "I wed him and my daughter. I know he's a good man, and he's a good Muslim."To learn more about his faith, Goba, a Yonkers native, traveled to Pakistan a couple years ago, but had never been to Afghanistan, his father-in-law said. He arrived in Lackawanna about five years ago from New York City and had worked at a plastic plant in Holland and a deli.

Goba was married in April, and he and his wife were renting an apartment above the closed Arabian Foods store at 21 Wilkesbarre Ave., where he was arrested Friday. When he wasn't looking for a job, he was fixing up the house they had recently purchased, his in-laws said. The couple had bought a small house at 64 Lehigh Ave. and had been doing constant repairs to it and preparing to move in.

But Goba's in-laws said the FBI turned the couple's world upside down. "The way they came in was wrong," his father-in-law said of Friday's FBI raid. "They tore the house upside down and scared my daughter. She's been crying for two days."

He added that his daughter is in shock and hasn't spoken a word since Friday.

The couple's neighbors on Wilkesbarre stood outside their homes also in disbelief Saturday.

Tashara Pierce, who lives at 29 Wilkesbarre, said she saw FBI agents, armed with automatic weapons, going into and out of Goba's apartment Friday.

"My husband is in the military in Afghanistan, so this is too much for me," she said.

Jeanie Huff, who lives around the corner from Goba on Lebanon Street, said people were in and out of Goba's apartment and different cars with out-of-state license plates were parked outside the building during the summer, but she never suspected anything.

"The people you run into are nice and cordial," Huff said. "They are nice community people. You never hear of them getting into any kind of trouble. It's scary now. I feel terrorized."

*****Yasein A. Taher was popular in high school. He was voted "friendliest" in his class in 1996, the year he graduated. He was also a soccer star. In 1993, he was named to the Western New York high school all-star team for soccer. In 1995, he was co-captain of the Lackawanna Steelers varsity soccer team.

But all that was really no surprise. After all, Taher comes from a soccer-loving family.In the First Ward, Taher's uncles are well-known youth soccer coaches. They are passionate about the game. Saturday, Abdul Noman - Taher's uncle and former coach - left his front-row seat in front of a television set showing the Washington, D.C., news conference about his nephew's arrest to travel to Wilson to take part in a soccer meet.

"Yasein was excellent. He was a good player," said Noman, head of the Lackawanna Yemen Soccer Club on Ingham Avenue.

Taher played for his uncle's teams from ages 7 to 18, which is when he stopped playing organized soccer, got married and fathered a child.

Taher now lives at 213 Ludel Terrace in Lackawanna, a large yellow-brick house in a quiet residential section of the city. He owns a motorcycle, a 1998 Suzuki street model. And although Noman could remember which positions Taher played in soccer - forward and defense - he said he does not know where Taher has been working lately. Noman also said he does not know whether the FBI allegations are true. "I hope not," he said. All that Noman knows is, his nephew was a popular, athletic kid who didn't draw much attention to himself.

"He was quiet, cooperative. He likes to help and volunteer, to clean up after things," said Noman, who was born in Yemen and came to Lackawanna at age 16. "He's a good citizen; he's a good father. The news we heard last night was shocking. The United States is our country; we are part of this country. We raised our children here."

*****

Sahim A. Alwan is a man almost everybody in Lackawanna's First Ward knows - at least by sight. He's hard to miss.

That's because Alwan, although young, is a prominent leader in the mosque on Wilkesbarre Avenue. He cuts a trim figure: clean-cut, youthful, professional in appearance. He wears a shirt and tie and carries a cell phone. He drives a 2002 Ford Taurus SEL, which he uses to commute to his job as a counselor to disadvantaged young people in Medina.

When he speaks, Alwan - the son of a steelworker who spent 30 years in the Lackawanna mills - is articulate, erudite and thoughtful.

That's the way he sounded just one year ago, when, on his way into the mosque for prayers, Alwan talked briefly to a Buffalo News reporter about the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Yemeni community in Lackawanna.

Alwan said then that he felt threatened by the stares of strangers. He likened the feeling to the way he felt during the Persian Gulf War, when he felt people of Arab descent were singled out for harsh looks and cutting comments.

"When I'm driving to work, when I'm at a red light, people look at me," Alwan said. "We've been saying that more than 90 percent of the community was born here. We look at ourselves as targets, like anyone else. We're targets of both now: racism and terrorism. We're double targets, as Americans and Muslims."

Alwan has long been known on the streets of Lackawanna as a local success story: a man who graduated from Lackawanna High School in 1991, got married, fathered three children and rose to a position of prominence in the mosque.

He worked at Satellite Services, a company that runs the Iroquois Job Corps Center, a training program for disadvantaged youths near Medina. The center provides academic and vocational training for nearly 300 youths.

Alwan is well-known for leading Friday night prayer services at the mosque, where he lectures the other men about topics including the proper disciplining of children. Children should show great respect to their elders, Alwan frequently told the men.

"He speaks to the people about being a good Muslim," said Munir Mohsin, a Clark Street resident who works in maintenance for the Lackawanna School District and who plays pickup soccer games with Alwan, Faysal Galab, and others. "He's a smart guy. He speaks very good, both English and Arabic. He's very quiet."

Friends of Alwan's, reacting to his arrest, said they will never believe that Alwan conspired against the country where he was born and prospered.

"I don't believe that. We would have known about it," said Thabit Hussoni, 29, a longtime friend and classmate of Alwan's in high school.

Hussoni, who owns House of Billiards in the Town of Tonawanda, said Alwan made one fatal mistake: He traveled abroad in a time when that is viewed with deep suspicion.

"They went to Pakistan. That's it," said Hussoni of the arrested men. "Is it a crime to visit Afghanistan or Pakistan or wherever? If it's a crime, then that's their crime."

*****

Faysal H. Galab is a real Lackawanna guy, according to his family. He was born there, went to high school there, played lots of soccer there and is raising his children there.

While growing up, Galab's family at times moved around, going to California and Florida for a while. But in the end, they came back to Lackawanna.

The family once traveled to Yemen to visit the country of their heritage, but everything about Galab was American, according to his brother.

"We went to Yemen in 1983 when we were just kids. We were born here in Lackawanna, and we plan to die in this country," said Moses Galab, 35, Faysal's older brother.

The Galab brothers come from a big family, with 10 children. Their father, James, is retired from Bethlehem Steel.

Faysal is married and has two children of his own, a 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son.

He is a businessman, selling cars at a gas station, his brother said. Galab's driver's license, however, was suspended in July for failure to answer a summons, and he hasn't had a vehicle registered to him since 1999, records show.

He's either at the Sunoco gas station where he sells cars or at the neighborhood soccer field," Moses said.

Growing up in a big family, Moses Galab said, his family was much like many other American families. At dinner time, the family talked about how everyone's day went, and sometimes talked about soccer, Moses said.

At 5 feet, 9 inches tall, Faysal was a very good soccer player, according to Moses.

"He was one of the top players," he said.

Moses described his brother as an American patriot and denied the FBI's claim that Faysal is involved with al-Qaida or spent any time in Afghanistan.

About a year ago, Moses said, his brother traveled to Pakistan and remained for a couple months. But he was there studying Islam, not crossing into Afghanistan to train with al-Qaida, Moses insisted.

"That's absurd. Baloney," he said of the government claims. "He was in Pakistan last year sometime. He just went to learn the religion."

Moses said his brother was aware of the FBI investigation in Lackawanna and even planned to testify before a federal grand jury. But authorities had a change of mind and went on a manhunt for him Friday night, he said.

Faysal was among the last of five Lackawanna men to be taken into custody Friday, Moses said. "He wasn't hiding. He has a subpoena to testify Sept. 26. He's as American as you can be. He watches hockey. He was born and raised here," Moses said.

This article comes from Focus on Freedom
http://www.gohotsprings.com/focus/

The URL for this story is:
http://www.gohotsprings.com/focus/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=99

The ruling also requires the government to prove that defendants knew their activities, such as donating money to outlawed groups, were actually contributing to acts of terror.

I can't argue with that. When laws are written in such a sweeping yet vague fashion, the only protection for anybody's liberty is prosecutorial discretion.

All you mouth-breathing retards screaming "Hang the commies" ought to think for a minute about what the Justice Department could do to you, your family, and the causes you believe in, if such laws were allowed to stand and someone like Hillary Clinton were elected President.

-ccm

Who said the Constitution (in the hands of socialists) isn't a suicide pact? The 9th circuit is to America what Kevorkian is to ill people.

How did I know it was the 9th Circuit?

The court ruled in a case involving a civil liberties organization's efforts to lobby Congress on behalf of a group on the terrorist watch list. The court ruled that the Humanitarian Law Project could legally lobby Congress and provide other nonfinancial assistance to the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey.

THESE WERE TERRORRISTS that the 9th Circus wants to free...

http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20031125/localnews/704438.html

'Lackawanna Six' spill critical information
Al-Qaida recruits give intelligence as part of plea bargain
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
The Associated Press

BUFFALO -- Six Yemeni-Americans recruited to a terrorist training camp shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks have filled the government in on al-Qaida leaders, their training methods and other sensitive topics, according to federal authorities.

Since pleading guilty to providing material support to Osama bin Laden's organization, the so-called "Lackawanna Six" have provided "substantial assistance and information deemed highly valuable" to government terrorism investigations, prosecutors said in court papers obtained by The Associated Press.

During several interview sessions lasting from two hours to full days, the men, obligated by plea deals to cooperate, detailed:

Al-Qaida recruiting methods, including "how to identify potential recruits from among the American population."

Means by which recruits were transported from their home countries to training camps abroad.

How recruits are indoctrinated to identify America as an enemy.

Descriptions of "a number of al-Qaida leaders, trainers and recruits."

Weapons and explosives training at the al Farooq camp in Afghanistan, and the availability of "additional, advanced terrorist training" offered by al-Qaida elsewhere.

The location of al-Qaida "guest houses" and routes taken in and out of Afghanistan.
The U.S. Attorney's office in Buffalo outlined the findings to support sentencing recommendations for Shafal Mosed, 25; Mukhtar al-Bakri, 23; Faysal Galab, 27; Sahim Alwan, 30; Yahya Goba, 26, and Yasein Taher, 25.

The men face between 7 and 10 years in prison when they are sentenced individually over the coming weeks, beginning with al-Bakri on Wednesday, Dec. 3. They could have faced up to 15 years if convicted at trial.

The government, citing the "highly sensitive nature" of the information, provided few details. An affidavit by assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul, the lead prosecutor, was sealed.

"The debriefing in this case has been extensive, more extensive than in my 28 years of practicing law," said Galab's attorney, Joseph LaTona.

Besides Buffalo-area investigators, the six have been interviewed by U.S. military officials, FBI agents and other investigators, LaTona said.

"He didn't finger Osama bin Laden," said Mosed's attorney, Patrick Brown. "I'm assuming they get bits and pieces from different people and different places and assemble it in a way that makes it beneficial to them."

Taher's attorney, Rodney Personius, described Taher as forthright, but left it to the government to characterize whether what he had to say was valuable.

"From where I sit, I don't know that Yasein knows an awful lot ... He certainly wasn't by any means an insider," he said.

The "Lackawanna Six," so named for the working-class city in which most were born and raised, were arrested in September 2002 after an anonymous letter tipped investigators to their travels to Afghanistan in the spring of 2001.

A seventh man, Jaber Elbaneh, 37, remains a fugitive, believed to be in Yemen. The FBI has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Although authorities said there was no evidence the group was involved in imminent terrorist plans, the case has been used by the Bush administration as a model in pursuing and prosecuting terrorism suspects. The worldwide notoriety has caused some unease over how the group will be received in prison.

"He's not running scared but he recognizes that there may be those that he's going to have to be wary of," Brown said of Mosed. He and other lawyers said it was unlikely they would seek special protections for the men.

In the meantime, relatives have written to U.S. District Judge William Skretny seeking leniency and painting portraits not of potential terrorists, but loving husbands, community leaders and brokenhearted fathers who struggle to explain to young children why they cannot come home.

Those who know them say the men were duped into seeking military-type jihad training by high-pressure recruiters who appealed to their sense of religious duty and adventure.

"Everyone once in their life have that moment where they wish they could turn back the hands of time. My husband is definitely not what he is put out to be in the publics (sic) eye," wrote Amira Nasser, Mosed's wife.

"The folly of the spring of 2001 has cost Yahya dearly," wrote Goba's sister.

Hassan Muhsen, a Yemeni immigrant and Bethlehem Steel retiree, described Goba as a teacher of young people at their mosque. "I believe Mr. Goba would never participate in any violent act against the United States of America. America has given us too much to turn against it," he wrote.

Taher was the only family member to step forward when his grandmother needed home medical care for a heart condition, relatives wrote. "He teached (sic) us what to watch for in the kind of friends we hang out with to better our self in life," read a note penned by a child's hand on school notebook paper and signed, "the nephew, Amir."

"Take care of my uncle," his letter ended.

NEED MORE????

Al Qaeda trainee gets 10-year sentence
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/03/buffalo.six/

(CNN) --The first of the six Yemeni-Americans from upstate New York who attended an al Qaeda training camp in 2001 was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Mukhtar al-Bakri, 23, was the last of the six to plead guilty earlier this year. His sentencing hearing was in federal court in Buffalo, New York, before U.S. District Court Judge William Skretny.

Al-Bakri and five other men in custody flew to Pakistan and drove to Afghanistan in the spring of 2001. During their six-week stay, they were instructed in the use of Kalashnikov and M-16 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and taught to assemble explosives at Al Farooq camp near Kandahar.

The recruits heard al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden speak in person just a few months before he ordered the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

The FBI learned of the Lackawanna, New York, men's illicit trip from an anonymous letter from an Arab-American and placed them under surveillance when they returned.

The tip undermined the group's cover story -- that they had gone to Pakistan for Muslim religious studies.

Prosecutors suggest the Lackawanna Six -- also known as the Buffalo Six because Lackawanna is a small city within 5 miles of Buffalo -- might have constituted a so-called sleeper cell, possibly waiting for orders to carry out some future attack in the United States, but they concede there was no evidence of such a plan.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul said the 1996 law under which the six were convicted defines "material support" as financial or personnel assistance.

Early in the case, defense lawyers argued that the law was being misapplied. Faced with the specter of more serious charges, ranging from weapons violations to treason, or even being labeled an "enemy combatant," each defendant entered a guilty plea between January and March, one by one, and agreed to cooperate with counterterrorism officials.

The six denied constituting a "sleeper cell" -- living incognito and awaiting orders from al Qaeda.

Al-Bakri was the first of the men arrested after two of his e-mails tracked by the FBI were interpreted to refer in code to imminent terrorist acts.

The FBI arrested the other men, named by al-Bakri, over the next few days in Lackawanna, where the men lived and grew up.

The men are expected to receive prison terms ranging from seven to 10 years as they are sentenced individually over the next two weeks.

The other men are: Yasein Taher, 25; Shafal Mosed, 25; Yahya Goba, 26; Faysal Galab, 27; and Sahim Alwan, 30.

A seventh man who traveled with the group, Jaber Elbaneh, 37, is still at large, and the U.S. government is offering $5 million for information leading to his capture.

The second Lackawanna man to be sentenced Thursday will be Taher, who is expected to receive an eight-year term.

The main recruiter of the Lackawanna Six, a Saudi born in Buffalo named Kamal Derwish, was killed in November 2002 by a CIA-launched Predator missile attack on al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

A Derwish friend and al Qaeda recruiter who preached the religious obligation of training for jihad at the Lackawanna mosque, Juma al-Dosari, has been in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since his capture by U.S. forces near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

For what it's worth, here's the actual opinion.

In addition, Pregerson wrote that it is unconstitutional to criminalize donations of personnel or training, which fall under the "material support" section of the law, because that "blurs the line" on protected speech.

So this Court has found that one has a First Amendment right to aide terrorism. Well, can't say this is surprising, coming from this Court. This ought to get overturned by the Supreme Court without having to even hear oral arguments.

They should use this example to break up the 9th circuit court. As far as I'm concerned, it's jurisdiction should be San Francisco and another circuit should be named to cover the rest (possibly even two courts). I've had about all I can stand from these freaks.

Aw, the good old days of the community lynching tree.

We just suffered thru 8 years of the power of the government used against you. The IRS and the Justice Dept in particular were used to intimidate, harrass and kill Americans that didn't agree with the policies of the Clinton administration.

In this light, I fail to see how the argument "it could be used against (your favorite organization) in the future" supports another boneheaded decision by the 9th, since it is obvious those in power can take away your life, liberty and property without the support of a court ruling.

So you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre, but you can financially aid and abet terrorism. How did I know this was going to be from the 9th Circus...?

"According to the government's interpretation ... a woman who buys cookies from a bake sale outside of her grocery store to support displaced Kurdish refugees to find new homes could be held liable," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote in the 2-1 decision

They do have a point, unfortunately.