Another high profile "terror" trial ends in quandary

The strategic utility of charging alleged “terrorists” and their supporters for ordinary criminal activities that the government can easily prosecute has raised the eyebrow of civil right activists. Commenting on the January jury verdict, Jules Lobel, co-author of the book Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror" said: "Civil libertarians worry that verdicts such as the one Jan. 11 in Boston deal a blow to the country’s freedoms, which they say have been reeling since the Sept. 11 attacks six years ago. 'My general problem … is that they are using these prosecutions to go after groups that they think might be connected to terrorism, where they really don’t have any evidence that they are connected to terrorism.'

“ 'So instead of going after the group on a terrorism charge, they use some kind of lesser or technical charge, in this case a tax charge. And I think that is illegitimate,' said Mr. Lobel, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. 'On the basis of their fears of terrorism, they’re just trying to find whatever law violation they can, and that strikes me as discriminatory law enforcement.' ”

Judge Dennis Saylor’s latest ruling to quash the January jury conviction vindicates what the civil right activists and groups have been saying that the American Muslim charities are being targeted to intimidate the seven-million strong American Muslim community that remains besieged more than six years after 9/11 terrorist attacks.

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