Starting with this one.
This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I heard a story on NPR that I couldn't quite believe. After a little research, I couldn't help but be angry. Submitted for your approval, activist lawyer Lynne Stewart.
From her own website:
Radical human rights attorney Lynne Stewart has been falsely accused of helping terrorists. On Tuesday, April 9, 2002, she was arrested and agents searched her Manhattan office for documents. She was arraigned before Manhattan federal Judge John Koetl. This is an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to silence dissent and install fear in those who would fight against the U.S. government's racism, seek to help Arabs and Muslims being prosecuted for free speech and defend the rights of all oppressed people.
You know who she's in trouble over - the poor Arab/Muslim who's been denied his rights? Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the man convicted of planning to bomb multiple New York landmarks.
As for the "falsely accused" bullshit:
In May of 2000, Lynne Stewart signed an affirmation in which she agreed to adhere to SAMs [Special Administrative Measures]. These SAMs allowed her to be accompanied by translators when speaking to Abdel Rahman, but only to communicate with her client about legal matters. The SAMs also prohibited the dissemination of Rahman's communications to third parties.
A few days after agreeing to these conditions, Stewart allegedly visited with her client and pretended to consult with him on legal matters. In actuality, however, the government claims that she was permitting Abdel Rahman to discuss with his interpreter whether "the Islamic Group" should continue its ceasefire with Egypt.
The Islamic Group is an entity that has been officially designated by the Secretary of State as a foreign terrorist organization, and Rahman is allegedly the organization's spiritual leader. According to the government, after the meeting at which the prohibited conversation took place, Stewart announced to the media that her client had withdrawn his support for the then-existing ceasefire between the Islamic Group and Egypt.
Stewart is accused as well of having played a role in facilitating (by pretending to be consulting with her client) the release of other instructions given by Rahman. Among them was the issuance of a fatwah under Rahman's name, calling on "brother scholars everywhere in the Muslim world to do their part and issue a unanimous fatwah that urges the Muslim nation to fight the Jews and to kill them wherever they are."
* from Sherry Colb at FindLaw's Writ
Stewart doesn't deny she violated the court order she had signed. She challenges her indictment based on the idea that Rahman's right to free speech has been taken from him, and that her conversations with Rahman are covered under attorney-client privilege.
Again: bullshit.
She didn't support Rahman's right to dispute his guilt or to say he believed in fairies. Rather, she gave his followers the go-ahead to kill people. That's what happens when a ceasefire is declared void: the shooting can start again. On top of that, she let him declare a fatwah against the Jews with very explicit instructions.
Last I checked, incitement to violence was not free speech. Hate speech isn't free speech. And she can hug the Constitution to her sagging chest all she wants - it can't protect her from the fact that she is the embodiment of the reason our rights may be in danger: that lawyers like her have waved the Bill of Rights like a banner to protect the people that need protection the least.
These lawyers found the loopholes and stretched them to the point where all manner of scumbags have walked through, free, and back into a society that shouldn't have to deal with them. Is it any wonder, then, that something like the Patriot Act was conceived?
I'm reasonably sure the Founding Fathers didn't want their document, their beautifully-wrought Constitution, used like this. To them, every person had a chance, under due process of law, to prove his innocence. But that was all that was promised. They had a basic belief that the innocent would be free and the guilty would be punished.
I do so hope that's the case this time.
By the way: is my headline unprotected speech? If so, I know a good lawyer.
1 comment:
The hate filled left seems to be dominated by people like Lynne. Fraudulent elections in the Ukranine, French "peace keepers" shooting civilians, UN Oil for Food, they ignore it all. Then they work to actively help Castro improve his image while he throws reporters in jail and help terrorists comunicate their message of hate. I just hope Lynne spends a long time behind bars if she is guilty. We won every military battle in Vietnam but lost the war due to people like her. The same thing could happen again. Do any of these people understand what the world was like before the dominance of America on the world scene? There were about 6 democracies in the world in 1900. We are far from perfect but we have done way more good than harm. Lynne seems to part of that group that wants to counter the good with ... something else.
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