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......."
Great. Glad to hear that you know so much about the case. Could you perhaps share with the rest of us this "indisputable" evidence?
-- MarkusQ
I'm not defending the six weeks of "unexplained incarceration" (nice objective terminology there, there was an explanation, he was being held as a material witness which is not a new practice -- okay, maybe I am defending it a little bit), but if the guy was trying to wage war against his country's military, then in *any* country, you'd expect him to be arrested and charged. (Note: in China or Cuba, you're lucky if you are only sent to jail for speaking out against your government. Some people just get shot.)
I don't see why he should be entitled to special protection just because he's a software engineer or for any other reason. I don't care if he has friends!
This reminds me a lot of the Randal Schwartz trial (although let me be clear that I'm not saying Randal committed treason! I'm just talking about popular software types being charged with crimes). While I don't know all of the facts, it always seemed like people are especially ready to jump to the defense of someone, even without all of the facts, just because of their professional standing. This seems particularly true of people in the computer industry. (Maybe that's just because I tend to read technically-oriented forums like Slashdot.)
Anyway, treason is treason, alleged crimes are alleged crimes. It shouldn't matter if the guy was a software engineer or a shoe salesman.
King Kong is not smaller than a B2 bomber. I remember clearly that in Godzilla vs. King Kong it was an even fight in height and weight.
Also, there are too many Star Trek ships on that chart. Star Trek sux. There are some Star Wars ships, but where's the death star? Where's the star destroyers? Did I miss them?
Also the SDF-1 Macross is still missing. I am of the opinion that in a 1 on 1 fight the Macross can beat any other single starship of any category. The Valkyries will dominate!
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
"The New American Gulag Archipelago."
That shows an ignorance of history and the crimes of the Soviet system.
In the 19th century the Czarist Russian government deported around 1.2 million prisoners to Siberia.
After the Revolution the labour camps in Siberia were closed down. These were later reopened by Joseph Stalin and opponents of the regime were sent to what became known as Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagere (Gulag).
Large numbers of people living along the western frontier of the Soviet Union (Georgian, Ukranian, Baltic) and Chinese and Koreans who lived along the eastern border were deported to Gulags in the interior just before the outbreak of WW2.
Others were sent to labour camps because of their religious beliefs including Catholics, Baptists and members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
It is estimated that around 50 million perished in Soviet gulags between 1930 and 1950.
I know it's fun to consider the United States as bad as the Soviet system.
But it's not at all accurate.
All of the people killed in all the wars with the United States since 1776 don't add up to the number of citizens killed by the Soviet Union.
If the United States had a "Gulag Archipelago" then there would not have been a 9-11 or Oklahoma City bombing. All of the fringe people in the US that might do something like that would in in a chain of prisons in Alaska, dying by the millions. Or maybe they'd be in prison being tortured with psychiatry like Communist systems are so fond of. Or maybe they'd have thier hearts and livers sold to the highest bidder.
Likewise you can't just plug someone walking in front of your house because he's wearing an old World War II German helmet.
In between there is no black and white line that separates 'combat' from 'peacetime'. If you think there is, please tell me what's the current situation in Iraq. Is it war? Is it peace?
And the 'Patriot Act' has nothing to do with this continuum. In the Civil War US citizens were routinely incarcerated without due process - if someone got caught by Union troops wearing a Confederate uniform the person caught wasn't going to get a trial and access to a lawyer - he was going to a POW camp, unless he was deemed a 'spy' and sent to a military tribunal or a civilian court - pretty depending on what who caught the "spy" desired.
Same thing in WWII - a US citizen was executed by a military tribunal as an enemy combatant for aiding German spys/saboteurs in the US. The Supreme Court upheld the execution.
Probably the best analogy to Al Qaeda from history is the Barbary Pirates - that was pretty much state-sponsored terrorism against Mediterranean shipping in the early 1800s. But that's not really accurate enough because Al Qaeda is an organization the by its declarations and actions is at war with the US - thus making a member of Al Qaeda a military target and not only subject to civil or criminal actions such as arrest, prosecution, and jail but also to military tribunals and direct and not necessarily announced military action - like those schlubs driving across the Yemeni desert that a Hellfire missile sent to meet their 72 virgins.
The simple fact is that governments have always had this power, and have always used it - getting labelled an "enemy combatant" by a sovereign government has pretty much been a death sentence since Hammurabi's day, and I don't see any government ever giving up that power. Heck, even the French manage to kill a few Germans in the twice-a-century march to Paris.
He was held as a material witness. Nice and legal. And let's not mince words, people here are interested in him because he works in "our" industry. It's inconcievable that an IT worker, (and an American citizen, no less!) would want to answer the call to jihad. Nope, he makes money in computers, so he must be innocent. Note the deafening silence regarding his conspirators.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Real fucking useful that!
Explain to me how the UN isn't utterly useless in dealing with the likes of Saddam or North Korea. Remember that 1994 agreement with Bill Clinton where they stopped their nuclear program? Yeah right.
I don't believe the US signed a treaty saying it won't go to war with anybody without UN approval. Thus it's not an illegal war. It may very well be an immoral war, and that's a meaningful discussion to have, which can take place on the level of the justifications presented by the US administration, as well as on the real justifications used for the war (which are of course very different).
"He was held as a material witness. Nice and legal."
Anyone who makes a statement like that needs to spend some time learning United States history and exactly what the purpose of the Constitution is. The Constitution is the highest law of the land, supersedes all other laws that conflict with it. The constitution makes no provision for lenghty imprisonment without charges on grounds that the person imprisoned is a material witness. It does on the other hand contain items specifically stating that such action on the part of the government is illegal. Just because Congress passed some legislation saying it was legal does not actually make it so, any more than passing a law to make it legal to kill all U.S. citizens found to be of Islamic descent in a gas chamber would make such action legal.
"Actually, he was held without charge but with the public's knowledge. The parent post is right, this isn't even close to being disappeared,"
Actually, the government wouldn't even admit that they had him for several weeks. And he certainly wasn't given access to legal representation. Then the government declared a fair bit of the information surrounding his case was "secret" and therefore did not have to be revealed in court.
Except for the "never seen again" part, that sounds pretty damn close to "disappeared" to me.
And now that the time initially set by the judge was about to expire, and the court would likely set him free, the feds have charged Hawash with every crime the can think of (If he were a little older, no doubt he would also be charged with the Lindburgh kidnapping) figuring that they can hold him for another year before it is even likely to come to trial.
Then, in 6 months or so, they might offer him a plea bargain "he can't refuse", all the while making noises about executions, life imprisonment, taking away his family's citizenship, etc. Then, once they extort a guilty plea from him, he won't even be able to appeal!
I don't know what we have here, but it sure ain't justice.
U.S. troops have been asked to fight for freedom and democracy - protecting our freedom and democracy at home, but also helping to give freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. However, when the USA Patriot Act was passed, Congress gave the executive branch sweeping new powers that undermined our Bill of Rights. What are the rights that are being threatened? They are:
o First Amendment - Freedom of religion, speech, assembly and the press. (New attorney general guidelines allow FBI spying on religious and political organizations and individuals without having evidence of wrongdoing)
o Fourth Amendment - Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. (Expands the ability of law enforcement to conduct secret searches, gives them wide powers of phone and Internet surveillance, and access to highly personal medical, financial, mental health, library, video, and student records with minimal judicial oversight.)
o Fifth Amendment - No person to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. (Allows FBI agents to investigate American citizens for criminal matters without probable cause of crime if they say it is for "intelligence purposes.")
o Sixth Amendment - Right to a speedy public trail by an impartial jury, right to be informed of the facts of the accusation, right to confront witnesses and have the assistance of counsel. (8,000 Arab and South Asian immigrants have been interrogated because of their religion or ethnic background, not because of actual wrongdoing; American citizens suspected of terrorism are being held indefinitely in military custody without being charged and without access to lawyers.)
o Eighth Amendment - No excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishment shall be imposed. (Thousands of men, mostly of Arab and South Asian origin, have been held in secretive federal custody for weeks and months, sometimes without any charges filed against them. The government has refused to publish their names and whereabouts, even when ordered to do so by the courts.)
o Fourteenth Amendment - All persons (citizens and non-citizens) within the U.S. are entitled to due process and the equal protection of the laws. (The press and the public have been barred from immigration court hearings of those detained after 9/11 and the courts are ordered to keep secret even that the hearings are taking place.)
I won't even try to address all the comments here -- they represent a wide spectrum of opinion.
/.ers:
...)
I'm Steven McGeady, I know Mike, and I have this to say to
You have absolutely no reason to consider Mike Hawash innocent of the charges being levelled against him -- no reason except one: the implied social contract present in our society that if *you*, or someone you love, was accused of a terrible crime, that other citizens would withold their judgement until all the facts came out.
All the liberties we enjoy are based on this social contract, in all its parts -- I don't condemn you because of the way you look, how you pray, or with whom you associate.
Recall that the Complaint -- the affidavit that we posted willingly on the "Free Mike Hawash" website -- is the U.S. government's side of the story. Mike has not been given a chance to tell his yet. I don't know the answers, nor does anyone else.
Mike doesn't deserve a free pass because he's a software engineer, because he's Palestinian, or because he's my friends. If he is proven guilty, then he will pay the price.
But I hope that this audience, more so than many others, will not judge him because of facial hair, based on scant but one-sided evidence, or because of his faith.
You are right to be skeptical. But you can contain both skepticism and a presumption of innocence, in the same way you can contain skepticism both toward those of us who believe the charges will ultimately prove groundless, and those who find sinister motives hidden among weak and circumstantial evidence.
S. McGeady
(dammit, now I've blown my (weak) pseudonym -- time to sign up for a new account
"Islam does NOT advocate terrorism. Just because the terrorists call themselves Muslim doesn't mean most other Muslims agree with them. Just because Jerry Falwell calls himself Christian doesn't mean most other Christians agree with him."
Right-o. Only most Christians (or anybody, in fact) deplore the hijacking of Christianity. Where's the "majority" Islamic outrage over terrorist attacks in the name of Islam. Double-standard? All I've heard from Islam is "don't profile us!", *NOT* "that's not Islam".