How could he enter the country if he was on that list? I wonder how many more terrorists are able to get around it.
It only takes one....
Spies should be summarily shot. That's how it's done in wartime.
Gitmo bound, hopefully.
Any minute now someone should be posting the latest whine from CAIR about how Ashcroft is trampling all over the civil rights of innocent Muslim men who just happen to have video cameras and ties to terrorist groups, spreading fear and hate and bigotry just to help his master George Bush get elected.
Grrrrrrrr....he's here with his wife and kids. Deport the family immediately. Bet his kids are in school getting a far better education than in Islamoland.
Why do I suspect an eventual hand slap and a stern warning as they release him with his camera?
A major difficulty that these terrorist operations within the U.S. are causing is how to deal with them effectively while still preserving our civil rights.
Fortunately they already had the financing thing in Chicago to pin on the guy. Otherwise, how do you detain someone for taking pics of a bridge?
The terrorists are hoping that their activities will impel us into making our country into a police state. If they can also get us to make life miserable for people who only look like terrorists but are law-abiding, that's all the better.
They would like to arouse the civilians to go overboard to increase tension. Remember when some knuckleheads were attacking Sikhs after 9/11.
We cannot trust the likes of John Kerry to handle this. He would be more inclined to put PC above security. This is a delicate balance.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-hamas-bay-bridge,0,4102792.story
Man Arrested After Videotaping Md. Bridge
By GRETCHEN PARKER
Associated Press Writer
August 24, 2004, 8:59 PM EDT
BALTIMORE -- A man described as a high-ranking Hamas operative was arrested after he drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge while his wife videotaped close-up shots of the structure, authorities said Tuesday.
Ismael Selim Elbarasse, long suspected by authorities of having financial ties to the Palestinian extremist group, was taken into custody last week and held as a material witness in an unrelated terrorism case in Chicago.
Neither he nor his wife was charged with any wrongdoing in connection with the videotaping.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich said the arrest "shouldn't be a generator of fear. It should serve as a reminder that there is a war going on around the world."
A federal grand jury in Chicago last week described Elbarasse as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 15-year scheme to finance terrorist activities in Israel. Hamas has carried out suicide bombings and other attacks in Israel.
Court documents allege he and defendant Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook -- considered one of the highest-ranking Hamas leaders internationally -- shared a Virginia bank account that was used to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars for Hamas.
Federal public defender Franklin W. Draper, who represented Elbarasse in court Monday, did not return a call Tuesday seeking comment.
Elbarasse's private attorney, Stanley L. Cohen, did not return calls either. A woman reached by phone at Elbarasse's home identified herself as his wife but declined to give her name or to comment.
Elbarasse was spotted Friday -- the same day the Chicago indictment was made public -- by police officers on the 4.3-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Authorities said Elbarasse was in an sport utility vehicle with his wife and their three children, ages 14, 19 and 21. He allegedly said they had gone to the beach but could not specify what beach they had visited.
According to the FBI, the tape in the camera shows the cables and upper supports of the main section of the bridge and zooms in on bridge joints. The tape also shows the Elbarasse family packing for vacation and on vacation.
Authorities said officers saw the wife try to hide the camera as officers approached.
Elbarasse is scheduled to appear in federal court Friday for a hearing on whether to turn him over to federal officials in Chicago.
Elbarasse was jailed for eight months in 1998, after failing to testify before a federal grand jury that was investigating Hamas fund-raising.
* __
Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Silver Spring, Md., and Tom Stuckey in Annapolis, Md., contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
Can someone please explain to me how groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are considered enemies by our government, yet the same government insists on an "even-handed approach" with respect to Israel and these same enemies?
One known-terrorist Muslim videotaping a bridge just gives all those other Muslims taping bridges (and dams, and chemical plants, and historic landmarks, and bank buildings, and military installations, etc.) a bad name.