Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Hawash, Monomania, Rocketships
Yes, charges are nice after six weeks of unexplained incarceration. purdue_thor writes "The various news agencies (CNN, FoxNews) are reporting that after being held for six weeks, software engineer Mike Hawash has finally been charged. His detainment as a material witness and subsequent incarceration without formal charges was discussed previously on /. Friends of Mike Hawash have created a website to publicize his case and have released a statement regarding the charges."
Randolpho adds "The Free Mike Hawash website has released the following affidavit (PDF file) received from the Federal Terrorism Task Force. The affidavit states that Hawash traveled to China in 2001 with several co-conspirators 'in an attempt to enter Afghanistan to fight against United States forces.'"
This just in from the cork-topped bottle. danny writes "One of the disadvantages of living in Australia is that my review copies arrive late. But my review of Google Hacks may be of interest, even after honestpuck's earlier review."
Free as in books. Author John F.X. Sundman writes: "PDFs of the complete Acts of the Apostles and Cheap Complex Devices are available for free download from wetmachine.com under the Creative Commons license."
And Robotech_Master writes "Remember the Honor Harrington CD-ROM, which Baen packaged with its most recent Honor Harrington book? The one that included over three dozen e-books and came with explicit permission to copy and share but not sell?
Well, Baen's done it again. The new CD comes with the fourth book in John Ringo's Aldenata trilogy, Hell's Faire . It includes still more free e-books, mp3s, and even a D20 Aldenata roleplaying game in electronic form. The book hits the stands this month, and the ISO is already available on-line. (Scarywater guy, please take note. :) Download it, burn it, give it to your friends...or buy the book and support one of the most Internet-clueful publishers out there today."
Free as in "you pay money." An anonymous reader submits "The original Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, was first a book, then a radio series. Adams edited both. All 7 hrs and 30 minutes of the Radio series have been released by the BBC in MP3 CD format. If you only caught the TV series this is a must."
I wish more audio books would arrive like this (compressed, so as to occupy fewer disks), though I'd choose a better method of audio compression ;) If you want to hear the HHGttG, though, a few minutes on Google will probably turn up some fan sites with recordings from the BBC broadcasts. (innocent whistling)
Yeah, but there's no Epcot Center. Sacarino writes "Las Vegas is *almost* on par with Disney now. The regularly-updated Monorail Society website has tons of pictures of the progress. Vegas' monorails are the same type as Disney's (Bombardier Mark VI), only with inwardly opening doors... slick! Also mentions the old MGM-Bally's monorail that's getting absorbed into the new automated network."
Is this what Microsoft thinks of viral licensing? Vagary writes "One of my friends just got a Microsoft router and asked me to check the security features for it. The ping denial doesn't work, which is good because a port scan found some pretty interesting things, including this string in the TCP/IP fingerprint: 'i586-pc-linux-gnu'. Does that mean Microsoft must provide Linux source to purchasers of this product?"
Can anyone confirm, deny or explain this interesting claim?
Click here to discuss the size of a fictional spacecraft ... photozz writes "The infamously slashdotted site comparing the relative sizes of several hundred starships from various Sci-Fi series has been mirrored to a somewhat more robust server. So cool. It's in draggable format, so you can put King Kong on top of Deep Space 9 and re-create a dream I had last night......."
You are doing a disservice to those who live with real memories of what being "disappeared" really meant. This guy is being held, and charged, on really indisputable evidence, and it is a matter of public record. The fact that he worked in your beloved computer industry does not change these facts. Take your whining elsewhere.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Oh, so he is An Offical Enemy of the State, I say send him to Guantanamo and lock him up for life - due process? Pfth, who needs it.
Considering he went to Hong Kong and associated with 5 people who were trying to fight with the Taliban, it doesn't look to good for him.
Moral of the story, don't help terrorists!
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Nonetheless, I'm going to withhold judgement on the Mike Hawash case, because at this point, assuming the evidence is as presented in the articles I have read, there certainly sounds like enough, that with some dotted I's and crossed T's, adds up to at least probable cause. I just wish our government would abide by its own rules in the way it prosecutes cases like this, and just show the evidence that lead them to make a detention in the first place. If the guy is really a flight risk, or potential danger to others, and there isn't enough to hold him on, then they could have him followed and monitored until the evidence is available, the same as is done with other criminals and potential criminals. I worry about all the exceptions that are made for terrorism, when increasingly, membership in certain non-terrorist organizations, or computer crimes, or other "mysterious" or "destructive" behavior seems to get bunched in with terrorism.
I'll be the first person to tell you that terrorism is never legitimate, and always criminal, and that we should arrest and prosecute and punish terrorists and attempted terrorists to the fullest extent of the law, and Americans who travel to fight in illegal combat with other terrorists get no sympathy from me. But how can we use different standards of evidence and prosecutorial conduct for cases that we don't _know_ are terrorism until they have gone through the courts? Due process doesn't mean due process when we feel like it - it applies to all citizens and residents, and even others within our borders.
Victory! Isn't that what every one wanted, for Mike to be charged or released? So now he's charged. And he's in some deep shit too.
I am not claiming there is a black and white delineation between peacetime and wartime, but there is a black and white delineation between a suspect picked up on US soil and a guy with a gun picked up in the Afghan mountains. If somebody is determined a "spy" or enemy combatant on US soil, I believe that determination should be made using our courts and due process, not summarily made behind closed doors, allowing the military to dispose of them as they please. I don't give a fuck if the Supreme Court upheld doing it once in WWII, it's still wrong. If the person is so clearly a spy, we should be able to prove that in court, THEN execute them.
The scariest part of that 43 page affidavit is where some of the evidence came from. On page 7:
Since when does the FBI collect trash as evidence based on the recommendation of a random neighbor? Or is this a special exception since it contained, huge shock, Arabic writing?
More on page 36:
So, let's get this straight. The first neighbor called the FBI because he recognized that one of the people who had been arrested had been to Hawash's house. That, I can almost understand, especially if there was media attention from the first arrests (seems likely).
The second neighbor, on the other hand, called the FBI because.. why? Let's see, first, Hawash spent more time at home after 9/11. Gee, yes, that's suspicious, only like 80% of the people I know decided to spend more time with their family after that. And second, he wasn't as friendly as usual. But gee, huge tradgedies usually make people so *cheerful*, what could be his problem?
Then, when the FBI actually followed up on this inane call, they found that he started attending a Mosque, dressing in "eastern" clothes, grew a beard, and became withdrawn from his neighbors, in turn associating with other Muslims. Gee, that certainly sounds like he found religion, doesn't it? And while that's arguably not the brightest thing to do, last time I checked it wasn't illegal, even if it's an officially unpopular religion like Islam.
This whole thing is sick. Yes, there's other evidence in there that links him to the other people, that's fine. I'm not saying he's innocent. But the fact that the points above, particularly the 'second neighbor', made it into the report is just wrong.
>>Hawash's neighbors became suspicious after the September 11 terrorist attacks and called the FBI, according to the affidavit. One of the neighbors said Hawash, who worked for Intel, was "spending more time at home following September 11, 2001" and "was not as friendly as usual."
Given the rampant anti-Arab sentiment after 9/11, is this any surprise?
Even if he is guilty, which would be very unfortunate especially in this case, that is entirely beside the point. The important point here is the loss of rights under which US citizens can now be detained in this manner. This is what people are protesting, and the point stands that this is a serious problem whether or not he is actually guilty in this case.
Sadly, if it turns out that he is guilty, then many people will forget the important point here - because they will inevitably confuse the concept of defending his basic rights (that all US citizens are supposed to share), with the concept of defending him.
"What are you talking about? After the the reds siezed power, they executed a large number of people they felt were enemies of their new state. And let's not for get Stalin. He'd have to rule a hell of a long time to kill millions of people one at a time. "
You are intentionally missing the point. A common tactic.
The point is that things start small, with fascism such as we are experiencing. Every "victory" over the 20th century that Ashcroft scores emboldens and justifies what he will do next.
Pointing out the horrors of an unrelated social movement is another diversionary tactic. Yes, the Soviet Union was bad, wicked bad. It is also dead. The Mongols were bad. Nazis were bad. McVeigh was bad.
But the present bad, the Fascist takeover of the U.S., is something we can do something about. They are, as someone mentioned, repealing the 20th century in its entirety -- civil rights, control over corporate power, ecologically sane policies... Racism and religious hate has become de rigeur as a not-so hidden justification for what we are doing now. Father Coughlin would be applauding.
Just because we have not killed millions -- yet -- does not mean we will not. Remember (or rather we DON'T) that the U.S. killed two million in Vietnam. We do have a record of ideologically justified slaughter. We just butchered thousands of soldiers in Iraq based on a set of outright lies created outright by Bush's Project for a New American Century thinktankers.
It just depends on who's getting killed. And who cares about them. If a white man from a nice town blows up a Federal building, the members of his ideological movement (militias, christian and otherwise) are not arrested en masse and sent to Cuba. Nothing happens to those loons at all.
But if members of a brown people worshipping a different god blow up a building, the Constitution is ignored, due process is shut down, and we invade countries ('cause they LOOK like the bad guys, all brown, mustached, and worshipping Satan). And we cheer this on, 'cause we must trust our leaders, who have out best interests at heart.
Unless they are a Democrat. Then, during wartime, say when the President is trying to find and destroy the enemy with no friendly media coverage, the Governent is EVIL, and the President can be harrassed with lawsuits, calls for his assassination (shout out to G. Gordon) are ignored by the FBI, and an impeachment can be ginned up on a denial-of-blowjob charge.
Back to point. Big evils can start small, and this, what Ashcroft is doing, is evil on a scale that can compare with any fascist takeover in history, from Caesar to Mussolini. The manner of the change is completely different from case to case. History never repeats itself.
But methodologies do repeat. What we have is, in no particular order:
- identification of an exterior enemy. whether the threat is real or faked up is irrelevant.
- the insistence that previously held rights be surrendered for the safety of all. logic has no sway -- fear is the trigger. well-fanned fear.
- identification of the leader with the heroism of the armed forces.
- elimination of any oversight over the actions of the executive.
- elimination of all public records of the actions of the executive.
- insistence on obediance in the smallest things from members of the elected legislature.
- establishment of government control of the major media. in the present case, it isn't necessary, because the rightist press has become loudspeakers for the executive.
- elimination by whatever means of alternative press, by physical or other means. marketing is one of those means. disinformation is another.
- demonizing foreign countries, pandering to common hates and ignorance (yes, France, Germany, etc).
- commingling the exective government with corporate business power. This was Mussolini's fascism: he at first called it "corporatism", amazingly enough.
- demonizing and