Slashdot Mirror
Former Intel Engineer Pleads Guilty To Taliban Aid
theodp writes "Following up on an earlier Slashdot story, software engineer Maher "Mike" Hawash pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to provide services to the Taliban, agreeing to testify against other suspects in exchange for the dropping of other terrorism charges. He will serve at least seven years in federal prison under the deal. In March, federal agents seized Hawash from a parking lot outside Intel Corp., where he worked, and held him as a material witness until charges were filed five weeks later."
I worked with him and thought, up to now, that he was innocent.
On his Free Mike Hawash site, they still have paypal donations links, and statements about his 'innocence'. I wonder how much money they racked it.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
FoxNews! The most factually solid news organization ever... anyway, I'm inclined to believe he was bullied into this plea deal.
"Just say you're guilty and we'll be easier on you"
Of course, I don't have any proof of this. But I just get that feeling. There is absolutely _NO_ reason to hold a person without charging them for five weeks. That's absurd. But then again, drumming up some charges does take a while.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
The other 5 that have been charged so far have all plead not-guilty. How many of them will change their plea now that Hawash has agreed to testify against them?
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
I would at least plea no contest and not guilty.
I would also not state in questioning I was willing to take up marterdom<SP> to aid the Taliban.
I would also not have any information to help them catch a coconspiritor<sp>
The FBI may have overstepped its bounds, but this guy is guilty.
If the FBI did overstep its bounds people should lose lose their jobs, but the guy is guilty.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
> Why, then, didn't they give up bin Laden when we asked?
Because we didn't show them the evidence against him, just as we would have demanded of them if they wanted us to hand over one of our citizens.
OK, that was probably just an excuse on their part, but there's no reason we couldn't have observed the norms.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"You and the others in the group were prepared to take up arms, and die as martyrs if necessary, to defend the Taliban. Is this true?" U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones asked Hawash during the hearing."
I think these guys are not as primitive as the propaganda machine makes them out to be. They do hide in caves but at the same time they also use the latest US consumer-grade gadgets, and maybe some military-grade gadgets (by way of France... just kidding), including encryption (thank you Pres. Clinton) which requires at least a couple of days to be decrypted*. I would think not all Talibani would just take up arms. Some white collar/geek Talibanis would resort to intellectual terrorism. This would make a perfect 007 movie plot. *If my memory stand correct, that was the number of days after 9/11 when some of the intercepted communications were decrypted.
Hey, hey. Ho, ho. TedCheshireAcad is not knowledgeable about the U.S. justice system. But even in this case, he should be. Remember when we all thought the RIAA was overstepping its bound when it sued the 3 college kids for billions in damages? Remember when all 3 settled for between $12,000-18,000. Remember when one of the kids later was _proven_ to have not in fact violated any copyright -- as he was being sued for having coded a searching service for his University's campus, much like Google. In short, plea agreements do not guilt establish. Especially when the the plea agreement stand in sharp contrast to the potential penalties and costs of going to trial.
The United States court systems treatment of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners is proof that when the U.S. government shouts terrorism, you better cop a plea. 'Cause justice ain't forthcoming.
If none of this is convincing, read the affadavit which is the basis of the indictment against Michael. Then read it again. Then tell us the United States government had anything but a smoke and mirrors case against Michael Hawash. (Fox News' reporting isn't even close to accurate.)
As for his guilt, there is always the possibility that he took the most certain way out rather than gambling his innocence against 20 years in prison. Given the witch hunt atmosphere, he could rightly believe that even though innocent he couldn't prove it.
Oh, by the way, why didn't they abduct the other 6 people and hold them without charge for 5 weeks to forver too?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Actually, if you know your history, it wasn't the Taliban that emerged out of the CIA-backed resistance. Afghanistan stood on its own for a few years after the Soviets were expelled... but a civil war broke out in 1990, I believe. The Taliban didn't emerge until 1995!!
Remember ...
... they hurt our economy by destroying resources, spreading fear, and general mayhem.
...
... maybe you have a point :)
dark middle-eastern looking men are Terrorists
white balding men are Embezzalers and Stock Manipulators (for instance a certain umbrella organization or "canopy" group we can all think of), they hurt the economy by destroying competitors resources (money, clients, possible engagements/sales), spreading fear and
hmmm
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
With the threats they probably used against him he would probably have said that black was white if they wanted him to. The list of those that agree to pleas but later are proven innocent is longer than most people might imagine. Consider being given the choice of pleading guilty and serving 5 years, or fighting it out in what must at this point appear to him as a frighteningly hostile environment, and serving 20 - what would you do, guilty or not?
The exact same way Joe McCarthy got so many "communists" to testify against each other.
The FOX article was pretty light on but I'm guessing your new Patriot Act helped hold him for so long. Somewhere else on /. a poster said that a judge signed off on holding him as a material witness. Surely you guys have a seperation of powers? Your judiciary decides who's guilty and innocent on the facts available. Why is a judge deciding whether or not a man can be held without charge? Seems like a rubber stamp to me.
It seems like the executive is getting permission to do something from someone who does not have the power to give that permission. Yes, the legislature may have granted the judiciary the power but it does not fall under normal judicial powers, totally circumvents due process and, I would guess, would be unconstitutional.
Well at least he's better of that the guys living in dog kennels at Guantanamo Bay.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Hear, hear. If I had mod points they would be yours.
There was a bill called the Prison Rape Reduction Act put before congress, and I assume it was passed because it was jointly introduced. Whether the facilities respect it is another matter... they know what they're doing when they place new prisoners with rapists.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
I felt very much the same way he did.
Before 9/11 I was just an average minority guy. On 9/11, I was as shocked and devastated as everyone else. I spent hours in front of a TV with my co-workers wondering at the hugeness of it all and at the pain of it all.
But over the weeks that followed, things began to change.
I have always worn a little facial hair, and I have a dark complexion. I never thought twice about it, I thought I looked better with a little facial hair.
Well... After 9/11, I got accused by people I formerly thought I knew very well. Apparently many of them had no idea about my ethic background and were prepared to simply assume that everyone who wasn't white, black or chinese was Arabic. People would stop talking about 9/11 and the pain they felt when I came in the room. They would give me looks that I'll never forget.
I began to be accused in public places. People would actually yell out on busy streets: "Hey, check out the terrorist!" and people would catcall, throw drinks out of their cars at me, give me poor service at restaurants...
After 9/11, I began to realize that my "fellow Americans" actually hated my guts and wanted me dead. In fact, when I began to observe peoples' interactions with one another, I realized that much of the NAACP's lobby is actually right on the money... White America still wants minority people dead.
Once I came to this realization, it wasn't hard to begin to feel like I don't belong after all. Like maybe these aren't my people. When someone demanded to search me before letting me into their stupid little restaurant, it was easy to begin to feel as though I was betraying those who were like me if I was to allow myself to be searched or treated in this manner.
9/11 showed me that America is a hateful place. It proved that unlike in Europe (that Americans seem to hate with a passion), in America 3,000 white dead outweigh by a generous margin 3,000 Afghani dead or 3,000 Iraqi dead.
No, I'm not Arabic, either, or a Muslim. But I've been accused of as much umpteen times since 9/11 even though I was born here, and my parents were born here. That's right, accused. Being non-white is an accusation in the US.
So I can understand this guy's feelings after 9/11 because I had them too, and I wasn't even of the same heritage. And I, too, now wear a much longer beard than I ever did. Why? I suppose it's my little demonstration of anger at the way I was treated after 9/11.
Semantics. American citizens going out of their way to aid foreign terrorists are terrorists. I am all for due process, but I am also all for stringing up everyone involved with terrorists.
The fact that the Feds are willing to plea bargain with Mike means that he at least was involved enough with terrorists to implicate them in crimes. That's more than close enough to make him guilty in my book. Once again, the fact that he was dragged in as a "witness" almost certainly helped him get his plea bargain. If the Feds had waited until they had a case on Mr. Hawash then it is very likely that he would have received a far worse sentence than 7 years.
Mike should not have been taken into custody and held without being arrested, but the fact that he was guilty made it so that the situation worked in his favor. However, I don't want laws that allow Feds to be lenient with "witnesses." I want laws that protect the innocent, and this is a bad law.
Why does this mean innocents are going to go down? Jesus, can the Slashdot crowd get any more clueless? You people, which I somehow am one of, can't accept the fact that law enforcement has a purpose especially when it involves a "geek."
In all the stories, I posted that this guy was probably guilty. As in, I would be surprised shitless if he wasn't guilty. I live in Portland, and it caused a stir. Nothing major, not like the news reports about people rallying.
So, he's guilty. People still bitch about it being wrong even though the US uses this process all the time, and has used it for a very long time. Material witness, guys, who is guilty.
And I got modded down, and flames because I said this guy was probably guilty. Well, tough shit. To all the conspiracy theorists who think he was brainwashed or forced to testify, eat a dick.
I get the impression that the "geek" crowd would be a perfect place for a terrorist to lay low. Don't need a social life. Access to technology. Co-workers and comrades whose principles (or lack thereof) dismiss responsibility and reality. Simply perfect.
And rally against the man if you ever get imprisoned, without looking at the facts.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
If he had been born a US citizen, I'd cut him some slack and merely imprison him for the duration of hostilities. As a naturalized citizen, he deserves either deportation or more jail time for lying during the naturization process.
Woah, first off I'm sure he gave his pledge of allegiance honestly. The USA was a very different country 14 years ago. It was a country where we tried and convicted Americans that promoted terrorsism like John Poindexter and Oliver North. Now one of those traitors is heading up the TIA and the other is a motivational speaker.
Just because someone is naturalized does not mean they ever had to take an oath of any kind. I was born at the only hospital near the military base my mother was living at. She immediately applied for my citizenship and I have been a naturalized citizen since before I knew we were still following that tragic example of the Spartans*. Or much less that we still used that other tool of oppression the super class conscious British Empire invented, the passport. She could have been anywhere outside the United States and could have applied for my citizenship, at the time any white child born to an American citizen had the right to citizenship. Now you are an alien under our laws until you are naturalized but then it was just a formality, if your mother was a citizen you had the right to a citizenship and could apply for it when you felt like it.
*The Spartans kept redefining citizenship after their pride ran even higher at the defeat of Athens, narrowing and narrowing it until there were just a thousand full citizens left. Then they battled the tiny city next door, who after decades of being plundered had learned to fight. They put ten men on every one Spartan, they wiped out four hundred of them in one fell swoop. Sparta soon lost not only it's slave class but all the tens of thoasands of people who had their citizenship stripped for not being patriotic enough or not paying their taxes promptly enough or marrying the wrong woman, etc. A few hundred years later they were a turist attraction for the Romans; a Colonial Williamsburg of their day, except they whipped boys to death in dramatic retellings of their former glory.
Absolutely dead on. That is what is so chilling about this case to me personally. I'm ex-Intel, and while I don't know Hawash, I have several Intel friends that know him very well -- or at least think they do. That's a little to close for me to be unemotional about the situation. Anyway, Hawash did not get due process. Would I get due process? Would I get due process because I have pink skin and blue eyes and my mommy said a rosary every day? That's not the way it is supposed to work in the US of A. Hawash is a citizen. He should get due process, guilty or no. I voted GHWB and GWB and will vote Dubya again -- but this ain't right.
Are you sure the picture wasn't modified with Photoshop? :)
I seem to remember him being well-shaven when he was picked up.
Funny how the courtroom sketch of him doesn't look like that at all. Not really worth picking on Fox News, though. CNN and lots of other news sites are using the same photo with the evil beard.
314-15-9265
We assume he's guilty because he pled guilty (I know, we're a bunch of loons, what are ya gonna do?).
If you've got evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, please, share with the rest of the class. Otherwise, shut your damn pie hole, already.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
This is a case of an American trying to take up arms against his own nation...that is treason, not legitimate mercenary action. Those of us who take their citizenship seriously understand this. And since he was naturalized, he, unlike most of us, had to actively take an oath to abandon all other national alliegances, and to take up arms to defend the US.
So, using your example:
If you were not French and did this, and were not wearing a German uniform, you would be a spy, and probably just be summarily executed after some painful questioning.
If you were French and you did this, you might get lucky and be convicted of treason, then executed.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Get a clue - Bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia, the Soviets invaded Afganistan.
A point about his guilt: was what he did illegal at the time he did it? I highly doubt it.
After all, the Bush administration was bargaining with the Taliban not two months before 9-11. The Bushies wanted the Taliban to grant permission to one of our stellar energy companies to lay a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan. The Taliban refused.
When exactly will Bush and Cheney be arrested for dealing with the Taliban?
Or is it only brown Moslem people who get arrested for dealing with the government of Afghanistan? Rich energy companies get the President himself to send envoys to offer $$$$ to the Taliban, and no one even gets investigated.
And one other thing: Afghanistan, and the Taliban, did not attack us. The Taliban merely demanded proof of Osama's guilt before they turned him over. There are certain rules of hospitality, not to mention morality, involved in just turning over a person to be executed without a shred of evidence.
We invaded them. And did a lousy job of it, since we didn't even get who we were gunning for. And have totally screwed up the country. And even now, the Taliban is taking the country back.
Even the Taliban would have given up bin Laden, had they and the world been provided proof of guilt. What choice would they have? The bugger was guilty. But by invading, we denied any responsibility to justify invasion, firstly, and secondly, Osama bloody got away. The Taliban WAS NOT bin Laden's organization. We used them as a proxy for the focus of our anger -- so well, in fact, that Osama is now a Tonight Show joke, even as he is still at large. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have somehow become the same, to the point where some poor bugger working at Intel is smeared with working with Osama, which is not even remotely true.
Oh the idiocy and nastiness of it all.
Police: Welcome to your new home! Confess.
Hawash: I'm under arrest? Aren't you supposed to Mirandize me?
Police: You're not uder arrest. Confess.
Hawash: If I'm not under arrest, let me out of this room.
Police: You are a material witness. Confess.
Hawash: Can I see my family? Or a lawyer?
Police: You can't see a lawyer because you aren't under arrest. Confess.
Hawash: Can I please go? My family might be worried. I have bills to pay.
Police: You aren't leaving, terrorist. Confess.
Having said that, if he can give evidence against his co-conspiriters, there's a good chance he really is guilty.
I must use every sig. For great justice.
There are no gods but ourselves.
As an Irish citizen living in the US - I have decided that it is time to leave this country - it is starting to look, smell, and act as Germany did during the 1930s. I wish you Americans luck in regaining civilized justice in your broken country, if not, I hope that the EU will be accepting of political refugees from this brave but failed experiment.
An incomplete analogy.
The Taliban were not refusing to give him up. They were refusing to give him up without some proof he was guilty.
Bush could have given them the proof, but instead gave them a deadline.
Here's a thing: the culture in that area respects hospitality towards guests as one of the highest duties a man has. They could not just hand the accused over to a lynch mob, not without some sort of fig leaf, anything at all, to establish his guilt.
Had they been given proof, they might have handed the al Qaeda over without a qualm. Instead, Bush showboated to a scared U.S. and declared that the Taliban hand over the group, or die.
Another part of the area's culture: they don't take threats of invasion well. They're kind of known for it. Ask the Russians.
And we are not the police. There is international law in place to handle situation such as bin Laden and his murderers. We blew it off. We stepped outside all law, and cannot claim the protection of the law now.
And as police, we pretty much suck. A wide open country, AND HE GOT AWAY.
And I still don't understand what all this has to do with Taliban supporters in the U.S. Bush and company did business with the Taliban not two months before 9-11. They gave them 60 million US dollars.
I don't see Bush locked up in a hole for six years. Isn't he a collaborator on a massive scale?
The American government should arrest itself, it has been helping the Taliban for years before the 9-11 attacks... or is that all forgotten now?
Let's think about this for a moment...
The feds pick you up because you had the same name as a terrorist (mistaken ID happens all the time at airport security now), so they wanna hang on to you for a while. During this time your family is going nuts worried you've been killed, you may have lost your job due to not showing, and all the while missing persons reports fall on deaf ears. Meanwhile, you're being interrogated daily without access to an attorney and are getting ready to say anything that will finally let you out to tell your family you're okay. If they hold you long enough, maybe your wife and kids will get evicted from the house and be living on the streets.
Yep, I can say I'm gonna lose sleep over this one.
Disappearing people is a tactic of a totalitarian state. There's a right way to keep someone in jail, and it's called being held without bond.
This is an important point to remember, and one that is well illustrated by a little history.
In 1930s Stalinist Russia, hundreds of political prisoners were convicted of treason and either executed or carted off to the gulag. What is remarkable about these cases is not the fact that they happened, but the fact that the trials and subsequent convictions appeared to be conducted in accordance with proper forms and procedures. The accused would be afforded access to legal representation, but would then proceed to get up, in open court, and swear on their mother's grave that they were guilty of the most heinous treason when all they had possibly done was express the mildest dissent, often privately, or ended up in the wrong political faction. The Soviet regime was then able to deflect criticism of the suppression of dissent by simply pointing to the apparent fairness of their trial process, often with the assistance of Western apologists such as English QC D. N. Pritt.
The trick, of course, was worked before trial, during a period of a number of weeks (usually) when the accused was held incommunicado and subjected to severe psychological pressure and physical mistreatment (such as food and sleep deprivation, interspersed on occasion with outright physical torture) designed essentially to brainwash the unfortunate suspect into confessing. If necessary, threats were made against the suspect's family to induce a confession. This process was referred to by its architect, Soviet prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky, as "the conveyor", and it is the twentieth century's greatest testament to the need for access to criminal suspects at all stages of the judicial process, from arrest to conviction.
Until verifiable physical evidence of what Hawash is alleged to have done is produced, this confession convinces me of nothing other than that John Ashcroft, the man who ultimately bears responsibility for Hawash's treatment and prosecution, is just a latter-day Vyshinsky and a disgrace to his profession.
Not exactly. What happened in Afghanistan was indeed wrong, America had no business arming and training fanatics, more akin to breeding fanaticism. But due to a war largely between the Soviets and the US, Afghanistan descended into 3 decades and counting of warfare. What america's MORAL responsibility was 'after' the war was to stick around, spend AMERICAN money and FIX the country, which america didnt do. A lot of people in Pakistan HATE and feel betraued by america for this exact reason. The level of violence in Pakistan shot up by many times after the war. You can buy Klashnikov's for around 50 bucks. People have used Rocket Launchers in Pakistan to attack cops, leftover from the war. Each and every single one of those deaths, rapes by the Afghani warlords (which still continue) are directly the responsibility of both you and me, because we are the ones that are ultimately bankrolling the CIA and Dubya's ilk.
That smell is the Constitution burning.
Actually, his actions are not those of a terrorist.
This guy simply wanted to go home, and protect his country from what he viewed as US aggression. He didn't blow up any buildings, or from any reports I've seen, plan to. He had plenty of time to try it if he wanted to.
No, he just wanted to go home, and protect his country. Considering all the options he had, this was actually very honerable. After all, if you spend a few years working in Japan or China, and then find out that an attack is about to take place, are you evil for travelling home to join the fight to protect your country?!
Certainly not.
Now, whether or not the Taliban is good or bad is another thing. Certainly we have no personal proof one way or the other, only what the media has told us. Obviously, this person thought the Taliban was incorrectly labelled. Heck, let's face it, there were thousands of innocents in the Taliban, just as there are thousands of innocents in every governmental system that are not responsible for the acts that government takes.
Wanting to defend his country doesn't make him a terrorist.
"Repeat after me: The CIA never funded Osama bin Laden."
No, they didn't give him used non-sequential bills, but you may have heard about a travelling group of troubadours called the 'Hezbollah' who were quite active during Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during a period in history called 'the cold war'...something that all sides lost because of the number of interested parties that were left holding guns without income. The Hezbollah were supplied and funded from 'the west'.
Which raises an interesting point, who sold arms to Afghanistan?
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
I'm sorry, but the man took an oath of citizenship when he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. At that point "his country" became the United States of America. Attempting to assist the enemies of one's country in a time of war is NOT considered honorable in most instances and particularly not in this case. I will agree with you that those actions are not those of a terrorist. Rather, his actions would be more appropriately characterized as "treason".
No it frightens me that our government passes the Patriot act, and nobody realizes that they now have very few rights. And it frightens me how now we have little recourse for governmental reform without being considered a "terrorist".
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
The parent post definitely needs to be modded down.
/. for a while.
I have not seen such a self-serving and hideous post in
People in the third category enter this country based on merit. Capitalism is based on meritocracy. It does not give a shit about whether you follow western culture or other culture.
All it cares is follow a culture that best suits your upbringing and inclinations.
America will be a diverse and multi-cultural society. If you don't like diversity, then you got problems to deal with.
You have problems with group 3 because they are here to compete with you and the group2 is not yet at your level because they are uneducated and illegal immigrants working for minimum wages.