Atlas Shrugs

Eric Holder: You've Got Mail

Ah, remember when the adults were in charge? Those were the days. McCarthy is magnificent here. Lots of pearls and wry smiles ........ but considering the odds and the AG, I am hardly smiling.

Andrew C. McCarthy

May 1, 2009

By email (to the Counterterrorism Division) and by regular mail:

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.

Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.  20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases.  An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.

The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.”  I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith.  Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States).  Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues.  I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people.  Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct.  Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government. 

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities.  This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case.  Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.”  Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay….  President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]”  (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting.  After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.
For what it may be worth, I will say this much.  For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated.  Essentially, there have been two camps.  One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s.  The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission.  Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism—a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people. 

There are differences in these various proposals.  But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing:  Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted.  We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans.  Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.
The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight.  Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year.  The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules.  Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried.  Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy.  It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance.  I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees.  According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training.  Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law. 

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness.  But I can decline to participate in the charade. 

Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.  It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties.  It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States.  I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno—as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the “blind sheikh” would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment.  In any event, I’ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology.  Thus, my conservative political views aside, I’ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who’ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial.  It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.

Very truly yours,

/S/       

Andrew C. McCarthy

cc:        Sylvia T. Kaser and John DePue
National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section

WELCOME TO OBAMERICA: HOMELAND SECURITY BANS ATLAS

An officer over at the Dept. Homeland Security - Customs and Border Protection sent me this screenshot when he tried to access Atlas. He is the third reader (who shall remain anonymous) who works at Homeland Security who cannot log onto Atlas. They had been able to access my site continually up until this week. "It went from to access to no access overnight".

 
The reader works for the Dept. Homeland Security - Customs and Border Protection. They all have Internet access through the national mainframe (somewhere in Virginia I think). All Internet connectivity runs through one central computer center. One 'click' and the Dept can turn off anyone.

In Obama's Amerabia - Atlas is banned. That's beautiful. ACORN, Blago, Reverend Wright, Farrakhan, Ayers, the scum of the earth welcomed into his lair - Atlas is banned. And is the tea bag terror!

I am flattered that he is shattered.

EGYPTIAN WITH TERROR MATERIALS FOUND NOT GUILTY OF BOMB CHARGES

The justice department does not work in the jihad's war on the West. Juries need crash courses on Islam, Quran and the jihad mandate. Youssef Samir Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed were tried separately on charges of carrying explosives in the trunk of their vehicle while speeding down US highway 176 in Florida - explosives that prosecutors said could have been used to build a dangerous rocket.

Youssef Samir Megahed was found not guilty of charges resulting in explosives, pipe bombs and a mysterious liquid  found  in the trunk of their car. Ahmed Mohamed has already been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Egypt’s government paid for the legal representation of at least one of the two suspects in the Goose Creek terror case.

Attorney John Fitzgibbons told a judge he was in talks with the Egyptian embassy in Washington and likely will be hired to represent suspended University of South Florida student Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed.

Ahmed el-Qawassni, an official in Egypt’s foreign ministry, said the government is closely monitoring the case and confirmed that an attorney is being hired for Mohamed, who was born in Kuwait to Egyptian parents. (more here)

I blogged on this explosive case in these following blog posts here:

Muslim Student Terrorists' Terror Ties and Terror Search

CAIR ACCESSORY TO JIHADIS NATIONWIDEPROVIDE ALIBIS

FLA Jihadi Students Indicted, DNA Tests

Muslim Student Terrorists' Terror Ties and Terror Search

CAIR CALLS WOULD BE BOMBERS "GOOD, Naive KIDS"

Muslim Pipe Bombers' "Mysterious Liquid"

Not terrorism, what then?

The evidence overwhelming.The juror let him go. This is the kind of jury the Gitmo enemy combatants are counting on.

Egyptian student found not guilty of bomb charges (hat tip Davida)

TAMPA, Fla. – In an emotional conclusion to a federal trial, an Egyptian student was found not guilty on charges of carrying explosives that prosecutors said could have been used to build a dangerous rocket.

Youssef Samir Megahed's family teared up as the jury read its verdict Friday afternoon, finding him not guilty of carrying explosives across state lines and possessing a destructive device.

Prosecutors said deputies found PVC pipes, fuses, and other materials that could have been combined with gasoline to build a destructive device when the former University of South Florida student and a friend were pulled over in South Carolina in August 2007. The attorney for Megahed (pronounced MEG-uh-hed) had argued that the items were no more harmful than a road flare, and that his friend, Ahmed Mohamed, put the items in the car trunk without Megahed's knowledge.

The case was filled with terrorist overtones, and came nearly four months after Mohamed was sentenced to 15 years in prison for making a YouTube video showing would-be terrorists how to turn a remote-control toy into a bomb detonator. The 12-minute clip was found on a laptop computer inside the men's car.

Megahed wasn't charged in connection with the video.

The 12-member jury deliberated for about 22 hours over four days before reaching their verdict. As U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday read the not guilty finding, Megahed's family watched with tears and joy.

"We feel comfort and happiness for our son that we win this case," Samir Megahed, the young man's father, said.

Defense attorney Adam Allen said the case shows that the justice system works.

During the trial, Allen told jurors Megahed, 23, and his friend were on "an innocent weekend college road trip" to see East Coast beaches when they were arrested near Charleston, S.C. But prosecutor Jay Hoffer said that what deputies found in the trunk of the men's borrowed Toyota Camry made them "jump back in fear" — four sections of PVC pipe containing a mixture of sugar, potassium nitrate, cat litter, plus fuses. He described the items as "low explosives" that were illegal to carry across state lines and could have been combined with gasoline to create a destructive device.

Hoffer said the men spoke to each other in Arabic after they were stopped, "getting their stories straight."

Deputies also found a laptop computer with a video Mohamed had produced and posted on the YouTube Web site. Mohamed narrated the video in Arabic, saying he wanted to teach "martyrdoms" and "suiciders" how to save themselves so they can continue to fight invaders, including U.S. soldiers.

Read it all and puke. CAIR weighs in with more deceit. Ramzy Killic, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Tampa Chapter, sat with Megahed's family in the courtroom as they awaited the verdict on Friday. He said he was not surprised by their finding.

"I was confident from the beginning the jury would choose fact over fear," he said.

Just the opposite. I think the jury chose fear over fact.

900 Million to Gazan Muslims who Hate us

We are suffering financially in the US and we are giving 900 million to Muslims who hate us. Yes, let's give them billions for killing. Suicidal insanity.

Poll: PA Leads in Anti-American Sentiment Israel national News

IsraelNN.com) A poll released this week by the World Public Opinion polling group showed the Palestinian Authority leading several other Arab and Muslim countries in hatred for the United States, belief that the United States is battling Islam and support for attacks on American civilians.

The poll was conducted in 2007 and 2008 among residents of Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan, and in 2008 among residents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Jordan, Turkey and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Nigerian Muslims were polled as well.

The survey also showed a slight increase in support for terrorism and attacks on US civilians in countries where the poll was conducted in both 2007 and 2008.A total of 638 PA Arabs were questioned for the poll, and the margin of error regarding their responses was four percent.

Among the findings:
A full 88 percent of PA Arabs said spreading Christianity in the Middle East was “definitely” or “probably” one of the United States' foreign policy goals, with PA residents the most likely to support this claim. Muslims in Turkey, Jordan and Pakistan were also likely to hold this belief, with between 70-80 percent of respondents in those countries answering that the spread of Christianity was “definitely” or “probably” a US goal.

Eighty-nine percent of PA respondents said the US was “definitely” or “probably” trying to control Middle East oil resources, a percent similar to that in other Muslim countries. Seventy percent said the US was “definitely” hoping to divide and weaken the Muslim world.

Over 50 percent said the US was “definitely” or “probably” interested in creating “an independent and economically viable” PA state. However, 90 percent said the US was also planning to expand Israel's borders.

Forty-nine percent said the US “purposely tries to humiliate the Islamic world.”

When asked about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, 42 percent of PA respondents said they believed Al Qaeda or another Muslim terrorist group was behind the attacks, while 27 percent blamed the American government.

UPDATE:  Obama's 900 Million Dollar Payout to Hamas

The Sultan rocks

JUDGES CAN'T JUDGE

Nookin futz!

Muslim translator who took classified Iraq maps is sentenced to 11 years (NY Sun)

A Brooklyn man who stole classified documents while serving as a translator in Iraq was sentenced yesterday to 11 years in prison after a federal judge showed leniency, saying he could not tell with certainty whether the translator was spying for the insurgency or was only a troubled man who gathered the material for no apparent reason.

The documents in Noureddine Malki’s possession included battle maps showing routes used by American troops and lists of locations that troops suspected were used to hide weapons of mass destruction.

Authorities found the documents in Malki’s Hoyt Street apartment in 2005, upon his return from a third tour in Iraq.

Taking the witness stand in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn for the first time since his jailing nearly three years ago, Malki, now 48, testified that he believed the government was going “hard” on him because of his “cultural background” — he is Muslim and from Morocco

[...]

An assistant United States attorney, John Buretta, suggested that Malki could have passed along the classified information to the insurgency. Mr. Buretta pointed out that Malki’s phone records and e-mails show that even after returning home to Brooklyn, he stayed in contact with Iraqis, some of whom had ties to the insurgency. The prosecutor also said Malki had been accused of sneaking off one of the bases he lived on while in Iraq and that a superior had shown concern over the amount of time Malki spent with an Iraqi source who had known contacts in the insurgency.

Mr. Buretta also tried to show that various files found on Malki’s computer — including pictures of corpses of Muslims as well as a music video extolling martyrdom and the capture of Jerusalem — demonstrated that Malki had a motive to harm this country. Malki countered by saying he was a collector of things, and he compared his Internet downloads to his collections of “stamps, currencies, and cartoons.”

If this story doesn't make you mad as hell, well then I don't know what. This judge has the blood of Americna soldiers on his hands. Here is the putz en tuchas that handed down his lenient sentence:

“There is a certain amount of bizarreness about this case,” Judge Korman said, adding that he was “not 100% sure if we are dealing with a spy or someone who has other problems.

One point that seemed to trouble Judge Korman was why Malki, if he had taken the documents truly by accident, had not destroyed them upon realizing they were in his possession.

Malki, answering the judge’s question on that point, said he had “kept them in my apartment for the sole reason that I would establish contact” with an intelligence officer to whom he could return them.

That did not happen.

ththththththththththtats all folks!

Muslim Prayer in Islamic Public School

This is unbelievable and sanctioned by the state. And it's not just Minnesota. This is happening all across America which is why I am so vocal about the public school madrassa in Brooklyn, The Khalil Gibran International Academy

The full Article can be read  here. BTW, Kersten is a national treasure.

Teacher breaks wall of silence at state's Muslim public school
KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune hat tip Clyde

Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.

Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law -- and "Islamic Studies" is offered at the end of the school day.

[...]

"teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."

"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."

Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. "When I arrived, I was told 'after school we have Islamic Studies,' and I might have to stay for hall duty," Getz said. "The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one -- the board said the kids were studying the Qu'ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."

After school, Getz's fifth-graders stayed in their classroom and the man in white who had led prayer in the gym came in to teach Islamic Studies. TIZA has in effect extended the school day -- buses leave only after Islamic Studies is over. Getz did not see evidence of other extra-curricular activity, except for a group of small children playing outside. Significantly, 77 percent of TIZA parents say that their "main reason for choosing TIZA ... was because of after-school programs conducted by various non-profit organizations at the end of the school period in the school building," according to a TIZA report. TIZA may be the only school in Minnesota with this distinction.

Why does the Minnesota Department of Education allow this sort of religious activity at a public school? According to Zaman, the department inspects TIZA regularly -- and has done so "numerous times" -- to ensure that it is not a religious school.

 

TIZA's operation as a public, taxpayer-funded school is troubling on several fronts. TIZA is skirting the law by operating what is essentially an Islamic school at taxpayer expense. The Department of Education has failed to provide the oversight necessary to catch these illegalities, and appears to lack the tools to do so. In addition, there's a double standard at work here -- if TIZA were a Christian school, it would likely be gone in a heartbeat.

TIZA is now being held up as a national model for a new kind of charter school. If it passes legal muster, Minnesota taxpayers may soon find themselves footing the bill for a separate system of education for Muslims.

Department of "Peace"

Your Muslim candidate at work! Infiltration at every level, in every sector. This over at Neil Boortz

DEPARTMENT OF PEACE

Keith Ellison is a Democrat congressman from Minnesota. He just took a little trip to Norway – paid for by your tax dollars, by the way. He went to Norway in order to reinforce his support for a bill that would create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace. No, I'm not making this up. An entire Cabinet devoted to "peace." So why did he have to go all the way to Norway? Because this is apparently where you go to be indoctrinated into the ways of peace and social justice. This idea of a Department of Peace gets even better. Guess who authored it? None other than our favorite Democrat Dennis Kucinich! (I wonder what his absurdly hot wife thinks about it?) When describing his trip to Norway, Ellison gave us a little insight into the war in Iraq. He says, "This conflict could have been avoided if we had a stronger cultural connection to peace. It's not just the will, but the skill to make peace." Did you get that, folks? It's because we don't have a cultural connection to peace. If that is what he has to say about American culture, what could he have to say about his own Muslim culture? Yeah .. we're talking about that Keith Ellison. Our Islamic member of Congress.

This whole Department of Peace idea is nothing but whiny political correctness at work. Does anyone care to take a stab at just how we would define "Peace?" Has the ferret figured that one out? The Soviets defined "peace" as "an absence of opposition to world communism." Perhaps Ellison defines peace as an absence of opposition to the idea of one world under Islamic law. Some people simply define peace as an absence of conflict. Well, when someone is attacking me I might suggest that my failure to enter the fray would be more of a capitulation than a quest for peace.

The Peace conspiracy.

Not a Happy New Year for the Boims or freedom lovers

Another treacherous judge.

US COURT OVERTURNS $156 MILLION AWARD IN ISLAMIC TERROR CASE hat tip turn
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Federal Appeals Court has overturned a $156 million judgment that had been awarded to the family of an American-born student killed in a 1996 attack in the West Bank.

European Union and the United States regard the Palestinian militant group Hamas as a terrorist group. It is illegal for U.S. citizens to provide funding for terrorist organizations.

The suit was filed by Stanley and Joyce Boim, whose 17-year-old son David was shot and killed by gunmen while standing at a bus stop near Beit El in the West Bank.

The Boims sued Muhammad Salah, a businessman from the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, the American Muslim Society (AMS) and the Texas-based Islamic charity Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLS).

Freeing Terrorist Al-Arian

In yet another act of judicial perfidy,

Judge Drops Contempt Citation Against Al-Arian
Josh Gerstein, NY Sun

A federal judge has lifted a civil contempt citation against a Palestinian Arab activist and former professor, Sami Al-Arian, after prosecutors essentially relented in their effort to keep him behind bars for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Islamic charities in Northern Virginia.

At a hearing yesterday morning, Judge Gerald Lee granted Al-Arian's motion to be removed from contempt after spending nearly a year jailed for his defiance, according to Al-Arian's legal team. However, the former professor will not be released immediately. He still has about four months left to serve on a 57-month criminal sentence stemming from his guilty plea to a charge of aiding an embargoed terrorist organization. After he completes that sentence, the Kuwaiti-born Al-Arian has agreed to be deported.

[...]

While it is unlikely that Al-Arian could be placed back in civil contempt, it is still possible that prosecutors could bring a criminal contempt charge against him. They recently won an 11-year sentence in a similar case in Chicago involving a Hamas activist who refused to testify.
"We hope that this will be the end of this chapter in the Al-Arian case," Mr. Turley said.

A spokesman for prosecutors in Virginia, James Rybicki, declined to comment on the developments.

An adviser to Al-Arian, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the grand jury that the ex-professor was defying was set to expire at the end of this month. In theory, prosecutors could call him before another panel and seek to have him held for civil contempt for up to six more months, until he reaches the legal limit of 18 months.

In 2005, Al-Arian stood trial in Tampa, Fla., on charges stemming from the government's allegations that he was a top ranking representative in America for a terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. After hearing about five months of testimony based on the fruits of a decade-long investigation, jurors acquitted Al-Arian on eight counts and deadlocked on nine others. Al-Arian later cut a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to a single count.

CIA Classified Leaker Gets off SCOTFREE

When did we stop prosecuting seditious behavior? When did we stop defending the sanctity of war time classified information. When did we stop protecting America from enemies within? When did we stop loving America?

The former CIA intelligence official who went public on ABC News about the agency's use of waterboarding in interrogations, John Kiriakou, apparently will not be the subject of a Justice Department investigation, even though CIA officials say he revealed classified information about the use of waterboarding.

Next thing you know they'll be giving him a Pulitzer. No,wait they gave that one to Preist already. Perhaps the Nobel for "Peace."

CIA Efforts to Prosecute Whistle-Blower Spy Stopped Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report, ABC News

The former CIA intelligence official who went public on ABC News about the agency's use of waterboarding in interrogations, John Kiriakou, apparently will not be the subject of a Justice Department investigation, even though some CIA officials believe he revealed classified information about the use of waterboarding.

"They were furious at the CIA this morning, but cooler heads have apparently prevailed for the time being," a senior Justice Department official told the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director, did sent out a classified memo this morning warning all employees "of the importance of protecting classified information," a CIA spokesperson told ABCNews.com.

Kiriakou was not mentioned by name in the memo, according to the spokesperson, who said he could not make it public because it is classified.

The spokesperson would not comment other than to say that "intelligence officers have a lifelong, moral and legal responsibility to safeguard classified information. This continues even after someone leaves the agency."

In his appearance on ABC News and later with other media outlets, Kiriakou revealed that captured al Qaeda figure Abu Zubaydah had been subjected to waterboarding during his interrogation. It was the first time any current or former CIA employee has revealed the use of the technique in public.

"The CIA has not commented on specific interrogation techniques," its spokesperson said. "Disclosing classified information is a violation of the law."

Send the bastard to jail!

Kiriakou said he did not seek CIA approval to appear on ABC News but said he knew "the rules."

Rules are if you are leftist you are safe from prosecution but if you are a Republican like Libby you are going to jail for forgetting where you were a year ago Thursday.

 

JIHAD JANE: "My God, she's married to one of our people,"

Unfreakinbelievable. This story gets more and more incredulous. America is, in the words of that famous Australian imam, uncovered meat.

"She was a great spy!" I hear they'd like to hire the hezbo mole back.

JIHAD JANES STATE OF BLISS NY Post hat tip

November 18, 2007 -- FBI fraudster Nada Nadim Prouty not only used a sham marriage to get jobs with access to secret terrorist intelligence - her current husband is a State Department employee who has held sensitive posts in Middle Eastern embassies, The Post has learned.  

  Her third hubby, Gordon Prouty, 40, now works for the State Department in Washington, a spokesman confirmed Friday night. He had been stationed at American embassies in Egypt and Pakistan.    

A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, refused to comment on Gordon Prouty's job, or say whether he was under investigation along with his criminal wife.

"He's not charged with any wrongdoing in this case," Boyd said.    

But the revelation surprised national security watchdogs.  

"My God, she's married to one of our people," said Mike Cutler, a former US immigration special agent.    

 

Nada Prouty, 37, admitted last week she faked her first marriage to a Michigan man in 1990, enabling her to get US citizenship that helped her secure jobs with the FBI and CIA. Her star as an agent rose, and officials trusted her to grill al Qaeda sympathizers.  

She also confessed to sneaking into government databases for secret information on her sister and brother-in-law, both linked to the Middle East terror group Hezbollah.  

One of the agencies credited with busting Prouty is the State Department's diplomatic security service.  

Gordon Prouty was a foreign service officer under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In 1999, he transferred from Cairo to Islamabad, Pakistan, a State Department document shows.  

The duties of a foreign service officer can include investigation of people applying for visas to enter the United States and protection of American citizens abroad.  

Prouty returned to the United States in 2001, records show. He currently works in the State Department's office of resource management. Co-workers said he was in the office on Friday, but took a "holiday leave" until after Thanksgiving. He did not return calls.  

It's unclear how or when Prouty met Nada, who divorced her second husband, Andrew Alley, in 2000. Records show the Proutys shared their current address, a townhouse in Vienna, Va., as far back as September, 2001. They have a daughter in preschool.  

 

"Maybe he didn't know what she was doing behind his back," Cutler said.
 

Yeah, got a bridge you want to sell me?

Read it all.

HOLYLAND MISTRIAL: ISLAMIC MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE! Jury Under Scrutiny

Jury Under Scrutiny In Holy Land Foundation Trial   VIDEO  

BACK ON 10/05/2007 ONE OF THE JURORS WAS STATING THAT HE/SHE WOULD NOT VOTE (MUSLIM ?)  NOW, 10/22/2007, THE CASE HAS GONE DOWN THE TUBES, ANOTHER VICTORY FOR ISLAMIC INTIMIDATION AND/OR INFILTRATION IN A USA FEDERAL TRIAL ON FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF TERRORISM.

Jurors had heard two months of testimony, mostly from FBI and Israeli agents who described thousands of pages of documents and hours of videotapes seized from Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, from former associates of the group, and from Palestinian charities that got money from Holy Land.

The US Federal Jury had no guts, these Federal trials on support of terrorism (Sami al-Arian) have mountains of prosecution evidence and yet the jury lets them go.  Jurists are intimidated, they must feel that they and their families will be harmed if they reach a guilty verdict, see Dallas TX Fox TV affiliate report.

Update: Holy Land trial ends in mistrial Jihadwatch

From AP

A judge declared a mistrial Monday for most former leaders of a Muslim charity accused of funding terrorism, after chaos broke out in the court when three jurors disputed the verdict that had been announced.

From WFAA's Holy Land trial blog

11:35 a.m. The Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial ended in a mistrial Monday after the jurors deadlocked on most of the counts. But a government prosecutor said the Justice Department would retry the case.

Information is temporarily unavailable.

Holy Land Foundation verdicts read

  "Holy Land Foundation found not guilty of financing terrorism," by Jason Trahan, also from the Dallas Morning News:

The jury in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial was unable to reach unanimous decisions on three of the six defendants, U.S. District Judge Joe Fish said Monday as he unsealed their verdicts.

On two others, they were able to reach unanimous decisions on some of the counts. And on only one defendant were they able to reach unanimous decisions on all counts.

The judge is now beginning to announce the jury's verdict on each defendant. In all, the jury must make 197 decisions on guilt or innocence this morning.

Ongoing updates at WFAA's Holy Land trial blog.

UPDATE: CONFUSIONS ABOUNDS (are there any O.J. or Menendez brothers jurors in this group of cowards?):

Confusion clouds HLF verdicts (IPT)

Jurors in the terror-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) were ordered back to the jury room Monday morning after three panelists told a federal judge that they disagreed with the verdicts. U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish polled the jury after announcing that HLF itself, and fundraiser Mufid Abdulqader were acquitted on all counts of providing illegal support to Hamas. Meanwhile, New Jersey representative Abdulrahman Odeh and founding HLF chairman Mohammed El-Mezain were acquitted on most counts against them. It isn't clear what jurors determined about HLF president Shukri Abu Baker or director Ghassan Elashi. They did tell the court they were unable to reach unanimous decisions on all counts. The men were charged with funneling more than $12 million in charity collections from the Richardson, TX-based charity to committees in the West Bank and Gaza that prosecutors contend are controlled by Hamas. The Dallas Morning News reported that Fish sent jurors back to deliberate after three jurors told him they disagreed with the outcome. "Your verdict must be unanimous and it's apparent to me from the answers of three members of the jury in respect to my question that the verdicts that I read earlier do not rep the unanimous view of the jury," the Morning News quoted Fish saying.

CAIR Gloats, USA Suffers 

UPDATE:  Randolph clarifies:

Only one defendant was acquitted of anything.  He was not acquitted on one count, so he can be retried on that one count.

For the four remaining defendants: a mistrial was declared on all counts, so they can be retried on everything.  Not great but not so bad.  Hopefully the DOJ learns from the first trial and streamlines it into a winning case on retrial.

Here's the court's link.

UPDATE: Glick on the Holyland verdict and sharia financing.

GOP SLAMS ISLAMIC CONVENTION

There are voices of reason. Note their names - get active in their campaigns. You are up against a criminal gang. Hoekstra, King - these are courageous men.

Republicans slam Islamic Society convention

By Audrey Hudson Washington Times

Republican lawmakers are urging the Justice Department not to participate in a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America -- a group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing terrorism-financing case.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Reps. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sue Myrick of North Carolina called the Justice Department's involvement a "grave mistake."

"In light of the threat that our nation is currently facing from radical jihadists, and because of the president's commitment to fighting the war on terror on all fronts, we believe it is a grave mistake to provide legitimacy to an organization with extremist origins, leadership and a radical agenda," the lawmakers said.

Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he agrees that Justice officials should not attend the conference.

"It is absolute insanity for the federal government, especially the Department of Justice, to be giving any credibility at all to a group like the ISNA, which has such strong links to Islamic extremism," Mr. King said.

UPDATE: Emerson on Hannity or click here to watch the video;

Hannity: But tell me that our Justice Department is not going to co-sponsor a convention with this group that is an unindicted co- conspirator in this terror case. Tell me this is false, the Washington Times got it wrong, Audrey Hudson got it wrong. Tell me it's wrong.

STEVE EMERSON: I wish I could tell you they got it wrong. But unfortunately, they got it right.

The Justice Department enlisted itself as a co-sponsor of the upcoming Islamic Society North America (ISNA) conference that is held – that's going to be held this weekend.

It is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, as detailed and revealed by the Justice Department's own papers, and was listed as an unindicted co- conspirator. And its links to Hamas in the past have been absolutely unimpeachable.

The question is, why would justice do this? And my only response is two things. One is that there is tremendous naiveté – when a group says they're against terrorism, somehow we just automatically believe them.

And two, they're people that have an ulterior agenda.

HANNITY: But, alright, now that we know and now that it has been exposed, and now that we know that, hey, if I was this unindicted co-conspirator group, and I was in this case in Texas, the first thing I would say is, "Even the U.S. government partners with us and sanctions us through this activity here."

Why don't they now admit they made a mistake and say, "Oops, sorry," and fix it?

EMERSON: Well, they've got 48 hours to do so. A letter was sent today by Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Sue Myrick to Attorney General Gonzales, deeply protesting this association and asking them to revoke its sponsorship of this event this weekend.

And I think – I think you're 100 percent right, Sean. They will use it as a defense to undermine the government's case.

Gonzalez Resigns

ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES HAS RESIGNED but he should have been FIRED FOR THIS.

US SPONSORS ISLAMIC CONVENTION WITH TIES TO TERROR

This is not scrappleface. This is not a joke. The Justice department is co-sponsoring an Islamic convention held by unindicted co-conspirator ISNA. Imagine Justice sponsoring a convention for the Gestapo back in the day. How can the government begin to protect its citizenry when they haven't a clue as to who and/or what the enemy is? Staggering.
ISNA terror lies are well documented here. Giuliani's advisors better explain, in the simplest of terms, why the second amendment is crucial and necessary. If he loses the nomination, it will be on this point - not his "social liberalism" or  his trifecta of marriages. We are at war and the silent majority knows it - in their bones. The political, media and intellectual elites are "fantasists" with little to no grasp on reality.

Sayyid Syeed, former Secretary General of ISNA, and current National Director of its Office of Interfaith Relations, is also on the list as a “records custodian” to testify about “bank records of the Holy Land Foundation.” Syeed is appearing as a representative of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), also named by the HLF prosecutors as a Muslim Brotherhood group and an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case. NAIT, a subsidiary of ISNA, holds the deeds to more than 25% of the mosques and Islamic centers around the U.S. What NAIT does not control, it attempts to acquire, even against the wishes of the mosque’s membership (free registration required) and sometimes by force.

There's more on ISNA's nefarious dealings here. Audrey Hudson breaks this explosive story in this morning's WT:

US SPONSORS ISLAMIC CONVENTION Audrey Hudson, Washington Times

The Justice Department is co-sponsoring a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) — an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing federal terrorist funding case — a move that is raising concerns among the Justice's rank and file.

Justice lawyers have objected to the affiliation with ISNA, fearing it will undermine the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Dallas.

"There is outrage among lawyers that the Department of Justice is funding a group named as a co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case," said a Justice lawyer who spoke to The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity.

According to an e-mail from Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, acting deputy chief of the Voting Rights Division, the sponsorship will involve sending government lawyers to man a booth for the Labor Day weekend event in Illinois.

"This is an important outreach opportunity, and a chance to reach a community that is at once very much discriminated against, and very wary of the national government and its willingness to protect them," Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere said in an e-mail obtained by The Washington Times.

"It would be a great step forward to break through those barriers. And Chicago is lovely this time of year," Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere said.]

How can Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere know what the weather if she wears the burka? She's only steps away from that now.

ISNA is one of more than 300 unindicted co-conspirators in a case against the Holy Land Foundation, whose top officers are accused of raising money for Hamas.

Justice spokesman Erik Ablin said the agency participates in the annual convention to educate Muslims about their civil rights.

White House Spy Aragoncillo Gets 10 and Inmates Credits

Read this and weep. Isn't treason punsihable with the death sentence. WTF?

Ten years for Aragoncillo, aide to VPs Cheney and Gore hat tip eretz

Leandro Aragoncillo, a former U.S. Marine and FBI analyst, spied out of  White House, gets only 10 years

A former U.S. Marine and FBI analyst was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for espionage charges in connection with stealing classified national defense documents from the White House, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of State.

Leandro Aragoncillo, 48, received his sentence on Wednesday in U.S.

District Court in Newark, N.J. A release from the Department of Justice noted that there is no parole in the federal system, and Aragoncillo, who also was fined $40,000, can be expected to serve nearly the entire sentence except for potential "good-inmate" credits.

Read it all and puke.