U.S. Treasury Freezes InfoCom Accounts

mbauser2 writes: "The U.S Treasury Deparment has frozen two bank accounts held by InfoCom Corp, the Texas-based web-hosting company raided by an anti-terrorism task force the week before the WTC/Pentagon attacks. The Treasury Department cited a 1993 investment by the wife of a man who was declared a terrorist in 1995. Are internet companies really supposed to run background checks on their investors' husbands, or is the War on Terrorism's lack of due process catching innocent (Moslem) bystanders in its net? Are other ISPs at risk if they upset the government?"

Comments

Hey, how about this option?

[PD]

Instead of just chalking this up to a case of overzealous and underpaid federal gestapo goose-stepping all over the rights of the peeps, why not just say that you don't know what's going on?

The monies seized were $70K, and one of the investors was the wife of a terrorist. Husbands and wives share money. If my Canadian wife fails to pay her credit card bill, those credit card companies can come after me to collect. This is no different. The wife of a terrorist invests money, so they seize the money. Because they are married, it's the same as if he invested it himself.

This sounds like a Bill of Attainder.

[bmasel]

US Constitution Article I Section 9
Powers denied the Congress

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Analysis of the Case History of this clause findlaw

InfoCom Corp., an Internet service provider that was under investigation by federal anti-terrorism agents before the Sept. 11 attacks, received a $250,000 investment in 1993 by Nadia Elashi Marzouk. Her husband, Moussa Abu Marzouk, is deputy of the Hamas political bureau in Syria.

Marzouk was placed on a Treasury Department list of terrorists in 1995, allowing the government to seize his U.S. assets.

InfoCom has SERIOUS links to Bin Laden

[Seth Finkelstein]

Check it out:

whois binladen.com

Registrant:
Binladen (BINLADEN2-DOM) 630 International Pkwy
Suite 100
Richardson, TX 75081
US

Domain Name: BINLADEN.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact:
Elashi, Bayan (BE159) bayane@INFOCOMCORP.COM
InfoCom Corp
630 International Pkwy, #100
Richardson, TX 75081
(972) 644-5363 (FAX) (972) 644-8609

binladen.com was Osama's family business, not him. But still, there a lot of reason for the FBI's interest.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) - Updated

Re:InfoCom has SERIOUS links to Bin Laden

[morcheeba]

let's see how that fits into the timeline:

1993 bombing of the World Trade Center
1995 detonation of a car bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
1995 truck bomb in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen
1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Aug 96: Issues his jihad (he issued a lot of stuff!)
May 97: During an interview with CNN, bin Laden reaffirms his call for a holy war against Americans
Aug 11, 97: binladen.com was registered.

It could be that infocom has some secret connection with the guy, but frankly, I'm surprised that the domain name wasn't taken earlier (of course, it could have been transfered, but considering its still at NSI, who would they have transfered it from?).

Was this site really used for his family's business? When I checked it out, it was for sale, and I didn't see any google references to the old site. My guess was that they are squatters, just like everyone else. Check out "whois alqaeda.org":

Registrant:
NAMEZERO.COM (ALQAEDA3-DOM)
51 University Ave, Suite K
LOS GATOS, CA 95030
US

Domain Name: ALQAEDA.ORG

Record last updated on 21-Dec-2000.
Record expires on 21-Dec-2001.
Record created on 21-Dec-2000.

Re:InfoCom has SERIOUS links to Bin Laden

[Seth Finkelstein]

Was this site really used for his family's business? When I checked it out, it was for sale, and I didn't see any google references to the old site.

Search Google Groups for "binladen.+com" (the plus sign is needed to make sure the search picks up the .com). There's a bunch of references

A particularly interesting posting claiming just how much Infocom is tied into various terrorist groups is by Abdul-Khinzeer Kalb'ullah

This material is not a "secret". It's been in the Dallas Morning News, for example.

The point is that there's abundant and extremely strong evidence to investigate InfoCom. It's not a case of "innocent (Moslem) bystanders" at all. Too much of the discussion has been people just doing the standard ranting and flaming, that the government is going after an ISP which "upset" it, that this is bigotry, and so on. Not this time. Not here.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) - Updated

Re:InfoCom has SERIOUS links to Bin Laden

[morcheeba]

Ahh! I searched just plain old google, not the groups. I initially composed my message without noticing that you said it had been a family site-- When I noticed, I tried to confirm that, but couldn't. So I posted my theory hoping you had some more info; thanks.

Also, thanks for fighting the good fight with your censorware work - I've been a fan for a while!

I never would have guessed...

[Omnivorous Cowbird]

that Zork was a terrorist training tool. ;-)

Critical Infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

ISPs are part of "critical infrastructure". If some of the critical infrastructure proposals go through, yes you WILL have to undergo background checks to run an ISP

Time to change the section title

[unitron]

This could have been any business, web related or not.

Perhaps this should be "Your Rights On Trial", or "Your Rights in Jeopardy".

Or with the AG in such a hurry to shove The Constitution into the shredder, maybe just "Kiss Your Rights Goodbye".