"Muslim charity wants charges dismissed," by David Koenig for Associated Press:
DALLAS - A Muslim charity accused of ties to terrorists has asked a federal judge to dismiss many of the charges the U.S. government filed against it after the 2001 terror attacks.
Lawyers for the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development based the request on a ruling last month by a federal judge in Los Angeles, who struck down President Bush's authority to designate groups as terrorists.
Holy Land's lawyers argued in their motion, filed Monday in federal district court in Dallas, that a similar order by President Clinton, banning transactions with the militant group Hamas, was also unconstitutional.
They said the order was vague and arbitrary, lacking any standards for why a group or individual was labeled a terrorist. They also argued that the order could be enforced in a discriminatory way by police officers and judges.
Lawyers for the now-defunct charity asked the court to dismiss more than two dozen counts of a lengthy indictment. They earlier asked the court to drop other charges.
Holy Land officials have said the group aided hospitals, schools and orphans in the West Bank and Gaza. Federal agents shut down the charity in 2001 after the government accused the group of funneling millions to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The group and five of its officers are scheduled to go on trial in July in Dallas.
The group's former chairman, Ghassan Elashi, was sentenced last month to nearly seven years in prison in a separate case for having financial ties to a high-ranking Hamas official and making illegal computer exports to countries that support terrorism. A judge allowed Elashi to remain free to help attorneys prepare for the Holy Land trial.
Elashi was also the founder of the Texas chapter of CAIR.
Kathy Colvin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Dallas, said prosecutors would file a motion opposing Monday's request to drop charges. She declined to comment further.
In the Los Angeles case last month, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said Bush's September 2001 order designating 27 groups and individuals as global terrorists was too vague and could infringe their constitutional right of free association.
The 27 groups and individuals named in Executive Order 13224 included Al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Seif al-Adel. Many others have been brought under the authority of this order, including Hamas (see p. 47, column 2).
The judge said the groups had no way to challenge Bush's labeling of them as terrorists.
The Washington Post notes that:
Collins has previously issued similar rulings in favor of the Humanitarian Law Project, a Los Angeles group that has filed legal challenges to a 1996 anti-terrorism law and to the 2001 USA Patriot Act. Those issues are still being litigated after Congress rewrote parts of the Patriot Act.
Background on those rulings here, including Collins' complaint that those laws, which banned material support for terrorist groups, "offered no distinction between support for violent and non-violent activities."
Islamic charity is an oxymoron. But then again, their notions of everything are opposite of what infidels know to be true. They probably do believe in their hearts that sawing off heads and suicide bombing are indeed acts of charity. I prefer to call such organizations branch offices of the Bank of Jihad. They should be shut down whenever they are found.
Just keep thinking these two words over and over: "Imperial Judiciary."
ISLAMSFORLOSERS:
Are the jihaddists' beliefs the only distorted values and disconnects going these days?
Despite EU countries officially cutting off the Hamas-lead PA until such time as they recognize Israel's right to exist, the PA is receiving substantially more money than before the cut-off, and not only from their new Persian Shia corporate sponsor. They're still receiving foreign aid through back channels.
As for the establishment of an independent state -- in all the years since the PA was set up in 1994, there's never been money deployed in the PA to build new homes or repair existing dwellings, at least not for the people who aren't close to the governing powers.
Anyway, I'm not sure how far anyone supporting Hamas is going to get arguing that a distinction has to be drawn between its supposedly distinct terror and non-terror wings given the latest turn of events in the PA, but then the Audrey Collins school of jurisprudence could always surprise us with its gormlessness.
ARE the Islamic terrorist groups complaining about not getting their blood money?
One of the best weapons in fighting those inclined to violence is to cut off their money or seize it.
Judge Collins is either an Islamic mole or terribly uneducated in the tactics of the Islamic thrill kill machine known as Islam--The Religion Of Peace.
How am I to teach my children right from wrong when these concepts are "vague and arbitrary"?
During the American civil war (1861-1865) there were judges like Collins who said that President Lincoln violated the constitution by the arrest and detention of known confederate sympathizers in the north, including many "copperheads" from his home state of Illinois. Lincoln dismissed such concerns from mostly Democrat appointed judges and others by noting that if the terrorists of his time were not detained and/or prosecuted/jailed the end result would be that eventually there would be no constitution to violate. That observation applies in our time to people such as Ghassan Elashi and to Al-Qaeda Lite (aka CAIR).
The great danger here, as Lincoln understood in his time, is that if terrorists are allowed to do their work, eventually they will cause a condition that will require martial law. Lincoln was very concerned about the naivitee and/or the malice of people such as Collins in his time. We must be concerned about people such as Collins in our time for the same reasons.
Zakat), islamic charity, its "primary" purpose is to aid and support the jihadist!
Judge collins is just another liberal using its position to give aid and support to terrorist and enemies of the united states of america!
Let the impeachment proceedings begin!
Examples like this only prove to me that the Islamic machine won't be satisfied until a great conflagration explodes across the world. They won't be satisfied with less because they believe their own propoganda. We're all going to have to suffer great pain at some point in time - but it's going to be sooner than later in my estimation. The True Believers continue to press the issue and at some point they will get what they want. No doubt about it in my mind anymore.
waterdragon52-
It truly is disgusting how much money makes it into palestine via official and unofficial means. As you said, that money doesn't go toward building anything-except a massive arsenal to "liberate" the mythical homeland. I suppose shutting down as many branches of the Bank of Jihad would help but those miserable Iranians will just increase their aid. It seems more and more that the only way to stop the flow of all money is for Israel to use an iron fist against the supreme losers but unfortunately that does not seem about to happen.
You know, every muslim I have ever talked to, is anti Israel, pro hamas, pro hezbollah and highly apologetic of issues of terrorism. (the whole yes-but thing) How many of you have experianced similar?
AMERICAN LIBERALS DEFEND JIHADISTS AND OPPOSE BUSH'S EFFORTS TO PROTECT THE USA
What a surprise. A liberal judge comes to the defense of Hamas, Bin Laden, AL Queda and the like, and chastises President Bush for meanly labeling them as terrorist groups without giving them the opportunity to refute the label.
The President is doing his best to protect the nation from seditious and murderous activity from these groups and is being opposed by liberal judges in our own country.
The liberals and the ACLU types need to realize that atheists are no less a target for their Islamic bullets than Jews and Christians. The reason the Muslims are not denouncing all atheists like they are Jews and Christians is because they currently see these atheists as their allies: Communist nations and Western Liberals.
It is the Western Liberals who give the jihadists their greatest hope for making in roads into American society with the ultimate goal of conquering America w/o even a single bullet being fired.
I saw a video on Youtube.com where Omar Quadafi was saying that the Muslims will conquer Europe w/o firing a single bullet. It will be done by immigration and population growth as Muslim immigrants are flooding into open European societies and Turkey is becoming a voting member of the EU.
Jihadists don't play by the same rules that we do. We restrict ourselves by imposing rules of honor that are merely exploited by Jihadists to advance their efforts for our destruction. The solution is: we need to understand where we are weak and susceptible to their methods and we need to take firm action to protect ourselves. Specifically....IMMIGRATION.
Enough is enough!
This perversion of our goodness has to stop. If you want to donate and help Hamas, Get the hell out!
is surprising that a judge in the peoples Republic of Los Angeles would pull this after all Los Angeles has a large Muslim population and it could well be that Judge Collins has political ambitions for the future and rulings like this will aid a run for Congress or the Senate and dhimicrats like Judge Collins unfortunately we with this for some time
You say it is your custom to fund Jihad fine. We also have a custom. When people aide Jihad we put them in jail and revoke their citizenship. That is the custom of the West. You can practice your custom and we shall practice ours. You try to help Jihadis. As you do that we shall call the police and military to remove your citizenship and place you in our unworthy version of hell for the remainder of your life. Then shall you suffer the true hell for all eternity when you die.
Yes...how dare we interfere with their money laundering to their terrorist allies masquerading as multi-level marketing format!
Off with their heads!
lol..oh, brother!