Mike Hawash

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, April 30, 2003, at 06:49  AM, John Kelsey wrote:

> ...
>> Furthermore, since when is mere travel treason?  If you  could show 
>> that he had actually participated in war against the U.S. -- not just 
>> thought about it, not just taken leg one of a trip that could 
>> eventually get him to a location where he would have an opportunity 
>> to do so (if he didn't change his mind first) -- then there could be 
>> a case.
>
> It's fun to imagine this in the context of a normal crime....
>
> Prosecutor: "We will show that the defendant was seen in the company 
> of some people who were believed to have been planning to consider 
> going over to South Central, where they might have joined up with the 
> Crips and eventually tried to shoot at some police officers.  As it 
> turned out, they didn't make it to South Central (they got lost), and 
> if they had, the Crips would probably have robbed them and sent them 
> scurrying home, but it's clear that these people would have been up to 
> no good, if only they'd been competent enough to manage it.  As 
> evidence, we submit this copy of the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and 
> these five rap CDs, found in a midnight raid on his house.  We're 
> requesting the death penalty."
>

And several months later:

"We are prosecuting the defense attorney for the man convicted last 
month of thinking about planning to possibly travel to South Central to 
try to join a gang. His crime was that he whispered to his clients 
during meetings in the jail, preventing us from tape-recording what 
they they said. Inasmuch as his client was convicted as part of the War 
on Some Drugs and has been transferred to our military prison in 
Guantanamo Bay, we are charging this attorney as an "illegal combatant" 
in this War on Some Drugs."


--Tim May