Mike Hawash

[Andy Lopata]

Declan McCullagh wrote:

>> "No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the
>> Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in
>> open Court."

Kevin S. Van Horn wrote:

>This also precludes conviction of Hawash, as there was no overt act,
>only  a claim that his intentions in travelling were to later commit
>such an act.

The actual charge against Hawash is _conspiracy_ to 1) levy war against the
U.S., 2) provide material support to designated terrorist organizations
(Al-Qaida), and 3) contribute services to Al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The "levy war" statute is titled "Seditious Conspiracy" (18 USCA ? 2384) and
states that:  "[i]f two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any
place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to
overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United
States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority
thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law
of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of
the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be
fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

There is a general conspiracy statute (18 USC 371), on which charges (2) and
(3) are based, which states that when "two or more persons conspire ... to
commit any offense against the United States, ... in any manner or for any
purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of
the conspiracy" those person are punishable under the statute.

Conspiracy is the closest thing we have to a thought-crime in the U.S. and
it is used quite a bit by the feds.  The only things that saves it from
being a pure thought crime is that a conspiracy must be an actual agreement
between two or more people to commit a crime (or fraud), and that an
affirmative action must be taken in furtherance of the crime (in some
drug-related offenses, this isn't even needed).

The "act" to effect the object of the conspiracy does _not_ itself have to
be illegal.  The gov't can argue that merely going to China (getting closer
to Afghanistan) or the alleged "weapons training," were acts in furtherance
of the conspiracy.

These charges are obviously B.S. From what I have read (including the
indictments against the Portland six) the main gov't "informant" was really
a provocator, and the evidence against all of them is pretty thin.  However,
I wouldn't be surprised if the gov't gets a conviction.  They might resort
to threatening the suspects with "enemy combatant" status to force a plea,
like they did to the suspects in Buffalo.  It will be interesting to see how
far the feds push the "enemy combatant" strategy to see if the courts can or
will do anything about it.  Since the courts have been handing out material
witness warrants left and right allowing for indefinite detention, things
look pretty bad.

The hype about a "terrorist cell" is ridiculous fodder for the media.
Assuming Hawash and the Portland Six were really doing what the feds allege,
they certainly aren't terrorists.  If they were they wouldn't have bothered
trying to get half way around the world to kill americans.

-Andy Lopata