Hannah: Our freedoms are being destroyed now under capitalism. They don't apply to everyone anymore, only to those who don't rock the boat. You remember what happened to that client of mine?
Stan: Right. The Arab again.
William: What happened?
Hannah: He was an agricultural science student from Morocco and spoke at an anti-war demonstration here on campus, everything legal and peaceful. The police photographed him and got the university to let them examine their file photos of foreign students. The cops identified him and searched his dormitory room, where they found a Koran, prayer rug, some ammonium fertilizer, and several Arabic language magazines, one of which had a picture of Osama bin Laden. They confiscated his computer and found he had the al-Jazeera website bookmarked and had written e-mails to people in Morocco with insulting comments about the American president. They searched his car and found a timer from a clothes dryer. And with that they arrested him for violating the Patriot Act. Front page story in the paper: "Terror Suspect Arrested, Bomb Materials Found."
It turned out the fertilizer was for a research project he was doing, measuring plant growth rates with different types of ammonium. He had just a small amount, not enough to make a real bomb even if he'd wanted to. He took me to the greenhouse and showed me the project -- twenty little pots of plants and charts for how much they're growing.
He was working in a coin laundry near the campus, doing everything from cleaning up to simple repairs. The timer on one of the dryers was broken, so he'd taken it out. He couldn't fix it, so he called the main office, and they told him to bring it in and they'd give him a new one. He put it in his car, where the cops found it.
They had no case at all, and it wasn't hard to convince the district attorney of that. The university confirmed his research project, an explosives expert confirmed that the amount of fertilizer was too small, and the laundry company confirmed they'd told him to bring in the broken timer.
The DA told the cops he was going to drop the charges, but they said they had an additional lead and needed another search warrant. They got it, and when they searched his room this time, they "found" cocaine.
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