Posted on 09/07/2001 10:44:13 AM PDT by veronica
FBI Raids Dallas-Area Internet Business as Part of Terrorism Investigation
By David Koenig Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 6, 2001
DALLAS (AP) - Federal agents continued searching the headquarters of an Internet company Thursday as part of an ongoing terrorism investigation, the FBI said. Muslim leaders said authorities acted on scant evidence and anti-Arab stereotypes.
InfoCom Corp., based in suburban Richardson, says it sells computer systems and Internet services to many large Islamic organizations in the United States and businesses in the Middle East.
The FBI said the search, which began Wednesday, was part of a two-year investigation by the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force.
FBI spokeswoman Lori Bailey said the investigation was not aimed at InfoCom's clients, but she declined to say why authorities targeted the company. She said more than 80 agents from the FBI and other federal agencies were searching computer files at the company's headquarters. Agents took boxes out of the building Wednesday and Thursday but did not say what was contained in them.
The search warrant was sealed by a federal magistrate, and the FBI did not elaborate on what evidence it sought. Bailey denied any bias to the investigation. "This is a criminal investigation, not a political investigation," she said. "We're hoping to find evidence of criminal activity." InfoCom attorney Mark Enoch said the company had no links to terrorist groups and was cooperating with the FBI, even helping agents navigate the computer system. InfoCom has 15 full- and part-time employees.
Internet service to the company's 500 clients was cut off by the agents, InfoCom's Internet operations manager said. Displaced employees moved across the street to the headquarters of a client, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Muslim charity that supporters of Israel charge raises money for Hamas and other Mideast terrorist groups.
The foundation denied the accusations, and Muslim leaders who gathered outside InfoCom's offices charged that the raid was orchestrated by Israeli sympathizers. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, linked the raid with U.S. opposition to international efforts to criticize Israel's handling of the conflict with Palestinians. "We suspect that all these attempts are to please the Israeli government but not to protect the U.S. interests," Awad said. "Siding with Israel, a racist country and state, I think does not do us any good."
Others viewed the raid broadly as the product of anti-Muslim bias. "We have deep concerns that this once again is an attempt to rush to judgment and to marginalize the American Muslim community simply because ... many of them are immigrants," said Mahdi Bray, political adviser to the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "There is a pattern of bias that often permeates all of these types of investigations."
The company has close ties to the Holy Land Foundation. Ghassan Elashi, a company vice president and brother of the owner, Bayan Elashi, is chairman of the foundation. Holy Land Foundation officials say they provides purely humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories and to refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. Israel, the U.S. State Department and congressional members have accused it of being connected to Hamas, the Palestinian movement that has taken responsibility for bombing civilian targets in the Middle East. The foundation is outlawed in Israel. >
Tell you what. You change your attitude into something more in line with the Constitution, and I'll support your efforts to do your job. Until then, furggeddaboutit...
Phoenix, eh? You got some changes coming your way. hehehe...
Rather ironic that a federal officer who is supposed to keep Mexico out of the United States is instead working to turn us into Mexico...
The lights are on here but nobodies home.
(snip)...The very existence of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad is largely attributable to organizing and funding from individuals living in the U.S. This may sound shocking or unbelievable. But here are several aspects of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas American connections:www.qudscall.com. Like other Islamist terror groups, Islamic Jihad has set up Web sites from the safety of the West. Its two primary sites are registered and hosted in Houston, Texas (by an outfit called Web Site Source, Inc.) and Toronto, Canada. The U.S.-based site provides the group's military communiques, including those taking responsibility for terrorist operations. In addition, qudscall.com includes a call to arms: "Our struggle with the sons of Israel in Palestine is on civilization, ideology, history, and existence. Our war with them is long and difficult. Our base is the Qur'an; our way is the Jihad." Other sections are more explicit, calling for killing Jews and attacking Americans. Most brazenly, Islamic Jihad solicits donations on this Web site for its violent jihad (sacred war) against Israel. In user-friendly fashion, it provides three addresses for donations to be sent in towns controlled by the PA -- the Charity Association in Gaza, the Charity Association in Jenin, and the Charity Association in Bethlehem. In each case, bank numbers and other details are helpfully provided. A top PA official has testified in an American court that the Charity Association is a front for Islamic Jihad. The Web site explicitly states the purpose of the donation: "Donate money for the military Jihad."
www.palestine-info.net. This is the official Web site of Hamas, maintained and operated from Florida, although officially hosted from Lebanon. It contains claims of credit for terrorist attacks, detailed listings of Hamas's "glorious record" of terrorist attacks, fatwas approving suicide bombings, interviews with Hamas leaders, bios of suicide bombers, and virulent calls to attack Jews.
Islamic Association for Palestine, and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. These two U.S.-based organizations (with offices in Texas, Illinois and New Jersey) support Hamas politically.
Islamic Committee for Palestine, and the World and Islam Studies Enterprise. ICP was one of several U.S.-based "charities" directly connected to Islamic Jihad. (On this basis, it was closed down by the FBI in 1995). A tape made public by the Immigration and Naturalization Service shows Fawwaz Damra, an imam from Cleveland, proudly announcing that ICP "is the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine." He added that in the U.S., "for security reasons," it is called the Islamic Committee for Palestine. William West of the INS describes the ICP, along with another organization, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, as "fronts for the purpose of fund-raising activities for the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas terrorist organizations." Mr. West also notes that these two organizations have another role: to bring foreigners "into the United States who are leaders and/or operatives of the Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other terrorist organizations." He is referring to the fact that ICP and WISE arranged for entry visas into the U.S. for the entire three-man leadership of Islamic Jihad.
Of special note is Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, who for several years worked as a professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, but since 1995 has lived and served in Damascus as none other than the top leader of Islamic Jihad.
Meanwhile, the person in charge of ICP and WISE was also a tenured professor at the University of South Florida named Sami Al Arian. Despite what has been known for years about the ICP and WISE, he remains in good standing at his university and has even attended four White House events in the past four years.
Trivial Camouflage
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what the U.S. government should do, starting with excluding the leaders of terror front groups from the White House. Once that's done, the federal authorities should use the tools it already has for closing down these Web sites and organizations. A 1995 executive order signed by the president authorizes them to prohibit any financial transactions in the U.S. by 12 groups, two of which are Islamic Jihad and Hamas. A 1996 law gives Washington the power to freeze the assets of such groups.
Despite these laws, almost nothing has been done to shut down the front organizations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The reason is embarrassingly simple: Both groups are smart enough not to register under their own names. This trivial camouflage works; the U.S. government finds itself stymied and leaves the groups alone.
The time has come to close down terrorist organizations in the U.S., even if they don't conveniently carry their full, formal names.
Huh? What does abortion have to do with this? Oh, and BTW, veronica was very polite about the dupe post issue. Try and learn from her.
a) No, the one you have is just fine
b) We're working on it. Are the problem supervisors you are talking about political appointees?
/john
Perhaps even scarier is its corollary: "because we only accuse the guilty".
LOL
No, just lifetime Dems.
Our current boss is giving Arizona back to Mexcio.
/john
If they did not have that connection, this would not have happened.
Since they are an ISP, they have many connections. They have been hacked quite a bit recently (everyone has unless security is topnotch). That may be the connection. They cooperated fully with the FBI (even offering more up-to-date equipment to help the FBI). These guys strike me more as capitalists than terrorists. Just because the FBI gathers evidence at AOL doesn't mean AOL is the target.
/john
"Everybody was treated correctly with respect," he said. "If it doesn't work out, you just tell them, 'Thank you for your time.' It's worth it." From the unrelated Cobb County Georgia FBI fiasco from 2 days ago. Ten years ago this would have been "We're investigating and heads are gonna roll when were through". Arragance such as displayed above should have NO place in Federal law enforcement, period. And, yes, I've spent most of my adult life living in third world s#$tholes, so don't lecture about "try it overseas then complain". The US is starting to resemble those places more every year.
were=we're Sorry
We don't have to agree on everything. I'm just a little to far to the right for some of these folks. But, I believe in a pro-active law enforcement.
Sometimes mistakes are made, but most often not.
Some people would rather wait for these people to blow up some building and kill hundreds of people before law enforcement reacts.
Or some of us would rather deal with the occasional random terrorist than the systematic repression of a police state. We've had two major terrorist attacks on American soil, and IMO federal authorities had foreknowledge about one of them (OKC) and did nothing to act. In the meantime, we've had hundreds of people killed in police raids gone wrong, others with assets seized without criminal charges filed ... it just gets worse every year.
Most of the problems come from levels way above you. But I'm sorry, whenever I see ANYONE in law enforcement or prosecution say that if I am innocent, I have nothing to fear, it makes me shudder - because that is a well-intentioned step towards tyranny - and that is why we have the Bill of Rights in the first place, to block that first step.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.