HUH? I am no expert but this is all very Kafkaesque. After bugging this guy since 1994 the best evidence they can provide is a fax showing support, even pride, for terrorism? If Sami Al-Arian had been in jail they probably would have saved no lives. I can not know if he is innocent or guilty, but if the government doesn't have enough evidence against him, Patriot Act or no, they shouldn't be prosecuting him. Looking at this story another way: The political climate is such, that now we can get indictments on circumstancial evidence. I hope they can't get a conviction on such limited public evidence.

I think the question may be how you define "support." M-----'s excerpt makes it sound like the guy was arrested for making a simple declarative statement, but if you click to the article he's also accused of financially supporting the organization's activities, including payments to the families of suicide bombers.

I read the article. He is accused of being a "big fish", the leader of US Operations for a terrorist organizations, etc. The government has done a good job of making accusations, let's see some proof.

To the comment, "if we had stopped watching and acted..." I must respond that, by arresting Arian, we have acted. We are a slow, forgiving and (by choice) ignorant country but usually get it right in the end.

To the comment, "if we had stopped watching and acted..." I must respond that, by arresting Arian, we have acted. We are a slow, forgiving and (by choice) ignorant country but usually get it right in the end.

The article obviously doesn't spell out the entirety of the government's case, and the guy is of course "innocent until proven guilty", but I shall be curious to learn the evidence, and see how the case progresses. Less rationally, I am outraged that people even remotely involved in terror attacks, immigrants no less, have (allegedly) conducted their activities on/from U.S. soil.

I have a couple of buddies who are FBI agents, and one of them told me this story back in late 2001: The FBI had what it felt was conclusive evidence that a certain Middle East "charity" was channeling cash to Arab bombers and suicide-bombers ("martyr") kin, and Al Queada. Said "charity" had a U.S. fund-raising chapter on the West Coast, administered by a prominent Arab-American doctor there. A couple of agents were sent to interview the doctor, who vehemently denied that the charity's finds were so channeled. The doctor then contacted the local NPR affiliate, and when they interviewed him he accused the FBI of racial profiling, fear-mongering, etc., etc. This got him further press. When contacted by the media, the agents were not allowed to confirm or deny or specify the evidence. To those predisposed to believe the doctor, thought he was a post-9/11 victim of overreaching law enforcement. Those aware of the evidence privately gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming he was just naieve about the ways his U.S.-based fund-raising was being exploited by terrorists abroad - even as they deeply resented what they felt were his public misrepresentations of their interviews with him and outright lies about things the agents asked him about. In the end, the charity appeared on one of the government's early lists of U.S.-based terror funds and was shut down.

Take from the tale what you will, but the agents absorbed a brief beating in the liberal media (like NPR) yet privately stuck to their view that the charity funded terroriststs and the doctor was well-intended but extremely naieve. And post-9/11, those predisposed to believe a claim of profiling, or harassment, or whatever, might be well-served to question their predispositions because reality - both public and not- is rarely what it seems.

This article> is relevant. Turns out Al-Arian and W are buddies from way back.

Let's try that again: This article is relevant. Turns out Al-Arian and W are buddies from way back.