Web visits put man in jail

[Ruby Romaine]

Jordanian is a threat to national security, FBI says

June 29, 2005

BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Mohammad Radwan Obeid is a threat to national security because he surfed terrorist Web sites and visited terrorist chat rooms, the FBI claims.

The 33-year-old Jordanian, who came to the United States with his American wife in 2001 and worked at a grocery store in Dayton, Ohio, before his arrest in March on immigration charges, says he was only gathering grist for a book about terrorism and world religions.
He said he volunteered to work for the FBI, but was rejected.

http://www.freep.com/news/locway/obeid29e_20050629.htm

[48pan]

1. And Pete Townsend was researching child porn.

OK. I'll buy that.

[merwin]

2. Gotta love our democracy, where you're free to read whatever you want!

[youspeakmylanguage]

5. Sorry, but if (and that's a very big if) this guy was participating in...

...online chat activities with terrorists, then the system worked for once.

[merwin]

9. Did you even read the article?

"Mehanna (his lawyer) said Obeid was stunned by what he found on those sites and called the CIA and FBI. He said they didn't take him seriously."

He was doing NOTHING that would lead any sane person to believe that he was a terrorist.

Next, you'll start seeing police arrest a shady looking black man standing next to an expensive car at night. Doesn't matter if it's his car or not. Can't bother with the details.

[JuniperLea]

12. exactly!

beware of being called a freeper if you lurk in their sites!!

;)

[youspeakmylanguage]

14. I think it's strictly against the rules here...

...to accuse someone of being a freeper, but thanks for your concern. I must be the only one here who lurks on conservative sites.

Perhaps you'd like to bring out the Spanish Inquisition and stick me in the Comfy Chair!

[JuniperLea]

26. i hope that post

was meant to be dripping in sarcasm!

:o

[youspeakmylanguage]

29. You mean am I going to report you?

No, because I assumed your post was sarcastic as well. Although if you were to start accusing people around here of being Freepers you would become very unpopular very fast.

[jayfish]

37. Actually I Believe What Juniper Was Saying Is...

, a persons lurking at Free Republic doesn't make him/her a Freeper. Hence a persons lurking at a supposed "terrorist site" doesn't make him/her a terrorist. That's called guilt by association.

Jay

[JuniperLea]

45. i don't fear being reported...

i just wanted to be sure i hadn't ruffled any feathers. i wasn't suggesting you were a freeper because you may have lurked on their sites. i lurk too. i was just pointing out how silly it is to assume someone is a terrorist if they lurk at terrorist sites.

how would one find such a site anyway? google? :p

[youspeakmylanguage]

47. I see what you mean now...

...I thought you were implying I was a freeper. Sorry for the mix-up.

I hope they haven't gotten so desperate that they would arrest someone for simply lurking in a chat room.

I have limits to where I would lurk. I wouldn't lurk in a white supremacy site, but I will lurk in right-wing fringe sites that sometimes teeter on the edge of racial prejudice. I believe in knowing my enemy and what they are discussing.

If I were researching a book and needed to lurk somewhere illegal, then I would do it in the presence of a law enforcement officer, preferably at a law enforcement office or station. At the very least it would be in the presence of a lawyer. I certainly wouldn't be doing it unsupervised at home.

[marbuc]

48. I don't only lurk, I post.

I find their site interesting when I have the stomach for it.

[youspeakmylanguage]

52. I guess as long as you follow the rules on both sites you can do that...

I haven't even applied for membership.

[JuniperLea]

54. i've often felt like posting there myself

just to start a ruckus:)

one of these days, when i'm in a particularly ornery mood, i'll do it. i registered for a baptist site once just because i wanted to start asking questions about killing and greed and such. you know, act like the proper sunday school girl and lead them to the answers i know they would give, then start asking about the current war and political climate, because as a person who was raised in a christian home, i'm quite confused about what i'm hearing some christians say now... am i passive-agressive? sure, i'll cop to that;)

[marbuc]

56. If you do decide to post

do so with full command of the issue you raise. They'll jump on you, but they can't do much (but call you names) if the truth is on your side. Who knows, some may agree with you.

[JuniperLea]

60. thanks for the advice

i am fairly well versed in... verses:) i was raised in a fundamentalist church and earned all my ribbons and bibles... genisis; exodus; leviticus; numbers; deuteronomy;joshua; judges; ruth; I & II samuel; I & II kings; i & II chronicles, ezra, nehemiah, esther; job, psalms proverbs ecclesiastes, song of solomon, isaiah jeremiah... yeah, got the ribbon for learning all the books too.

the thing is, i was raised to believe god loved us all and hated sin. so he loves saddam hussein just as much as he loves you or me. would you call SH a lesser man? well, christ said that whatever we do to a lesser, we do to christ himself. there are a lot of very basic christian beliefs that are being ignored and i want to know how the hell the RW'ers made that happen!

[youspeakmylanguage]

13. You missed the very big if...

Here it is again:

IF...

he is guilty of what they are accusing him off, then there is a problem.

I obviously have no idea if he is guilty or not, but usually whatever a defendant's lawyer says should be taken with just as big a grain of salt as the government.

[AndyTiedye]

16. Would That "Terrorist Chat Room" Really Be an FBI Sting By Any Chance?

Real terrorists wouldn't plan their stuff on an open chat room, would they!?!
That is a level of stupidity that goes way beyond asking for a refund on
your rental truck after using it to blow up the WTC parking garage.

How far can they go with this sort of thing?

If somebody from the FBI posted "terrorist" stuff on DU, could they
arrest all 72,221 of us, plus all the unregistered lurkers?

Suspicion crosses my mind that they have been setting people up so
they can very publicly bust them as "terrorists" so they can
crank up the fear factor again. It's the only thing that works for them,
as well as to set a very dangerous precedent.

[JuniperLea]

28. bingo!

my thoughts exactly!

[PsychoDad]

23. Freedom of speech

Includes not only reading but also conversing.

Online chats, a real threat to national security.... Almost as big a threat as DU is.

Real terrorists are not going to discuss any plans in a chat room where anyone can listen in, much less one that might be a FBI/CIA front.

Ahmid (CIA) : I have the explosives, death to America!

Abdullah (FBI) : Blood will flow in the streets on the 17th. Allahu Akbar!

Kasul (NSA): I will pick up the U-Haul truck at 9:00am in Dayton as planned.

etc... etc...

This poor joe was probably the only one in the room who wasn't a government plant...

[youspeakmylanguage]

27. Since none of us have any idea what was being discussed...

...this is pointless and stupid.

The 1st amendment is not absolute. It is against the law to plan an act of violence, terrorism or not, and the 1st amendment would not protect you. If someone on DU discussed committing an act of violence, it would be neither surprising or wrong if the FBI or police decided to investigate. And if it is proven that this person was actually planning to commit an act of violence, they would be arrested, jailed, tried, and possibly convicted.

[PsychoDad]

36. You are right.

We don't know what he was discussing, or even if he was. He may have been asking simple questions about the viewpoints of the other users... or he may have been actively planning an attack. (which would be stupid for anyone to do over the net).

But whatever happened to innocent until proved guilty of actually committing a crime?

And is it illegal for me to chat with my next door neighbor who might be in the mafia? And (shudder) I talk to people from the middle-east all the time...what if, unknown to me, one of them has a cousin in Al-Q. ? Will the time come when you can be arrested because you talked with me online and I know someone who has a cousin in a terrorist organization?

I know many Irish Americans also who may have, unknown to me, sent money to the IRA.... What about money sent to Palestinians in need? What if some of that got into the wrong hands?

Is anyone safe anymore?

[youspeakmylanguage]

38. Hopefully a judge and jury can figure out what's really going on...

...but you're right as well - if people can be arrested simply for talking innocently with someone who may or may not be a terrorist, then as a free society we're in big, big trouble.

[Rich Hunt]

34. you don't really think they'd talk that way, do you?

No criminal organization would go to a "terrorist" board and openly call for "Death to America".

They may have secret gathering places where they talk around the issues, though. That has certainly been the case with certain "cracker" hang-outs on the 'net. Bootleggers and child pornographers do this as well.

[PsychoDad]

41. Of course they don't talk that way...

Except maybe for the plants :).

A lot of people say a lot of things on the internet.. Much of it just BS. It just bothers me that someone in America can be picked up for being in the wrong chat room.

Soon it will be the wrong websites.

[tubbacheez]

3. I don't suppose the FBI publishes a list of "terrorist" websites...

... or "terrorist" chatrooms, do they?

I mean, how is anyone supposed to know which URLs are considered federal no-no's? Mind-reading?

[youspeakmylanguage]

8. I guess if someone is discussing committing acts of violence...

...in the name of jihad, then it might be a sign to back away slowly.

[mikelgb]

19. you're right

I heard some of the actor on the tv show '24' talking about plots against the US... they should be immediately detained

[youspeakmylanguage]

21. And I'm sure improvisational actors practice being terrorists online...

...just for practice, you know, in case "24" or the producers of the next Steven Segal movie have an open audition.

What an absolutely brilliant observation.

[tubbacheez]

22. But then, how slow is TOO slow?

This is why crimes should have specific elements that must be proven. Authorities don't have the ability to fairly enforce rules that they themselves interpret.

This should be an interesting court case.

[youspeakmylanguage]

4. I don't understand why ANYONE thinks that accessing...

...illegal information online can be done anonymously. Even with the most experienced and knowledgeable hackers securing your network, there is still a very good chance that someone knows what you're doing and where you're going.

It goes back to the fears people had about Gmail. The average user doesn't understand that ANY un-encrypted email is scanned and saved on a bunch of different mainframes while transversing one network to another. Any system admin on that network could access and read your mail. I guarantee that most people don't even know that every time they visit a website their IP address is being logged and there is a good possibility the webmaster of that site can find out the name of their ISP and even their identity.

If I were inclined to seek out illegal information or media, such as child porn or terrorist plans, I would stay the hell away from the Internet.

[soothsayer]

6. illegal information. bah! there should be no such thing, except

you should get in trouble for hacking into encrypted sites. Otherwise, public domain stuff should be free for the asking.

[youspeakmylanguage]

7. What? So child porn shouldn't be "Illegal information"?

I don't understand where you're coming from. No one here is discussing public domain/copyright issues.

If my next door neighbor is researching bomb-making materials or is accessing child porn, I sure hope the authorities know about it and start investigating him.

[Kraklen]

11. Child porn is different.

It has a victim by definition.

Reading how to make a bomb on a website or in a book in a library isn't a crime and harms nobody.

[JuniperLea]

15. if 'they' were all that savvy

about child porn viewers, there would be no more child porn sites, now would there?

[youspeakmylanguage]

18. I have no idea how many sites there are out there...

...so unless you're a law enforcement officer working in that field, that's really an argument that goes nowhere, right?

[JuniperLea]

24. nope

i thought my point was perfectly clear.

people get the parries over internet postings and surfings because of news articles such as this because they think big brother can spy on them. although i don't doubt that is absolutely true, i wonder why then that there are any number of child porn sites or terrorist sites at all. seems if BB were so good at all that james bond stuff on the 'internets' then all the bad guys would have been rounded up by now and the sites shut down.

[youspeakmylanguage]

30. I explained that in my original post...

People, including pedophiles and potential terrorists, don't realize the extent to which they can be monitored online. I'm not saying they are always monitored to this extent, but it is possible. Law enforcement have limited manpower and equipment.

If it were up to me the funding for anti-child porn law enforcement efforts would be multiplied by 10. Perhaps then we would be rid of online child porn.

[Rich Hunt]

31. not necessarily

What if the "information" was obtained through fraud, theft, burglary, organized stalking or something like that?

I mean, child pornography is the product of child abuse, but I'm sure there are other types of information that are illegal.

[gratuitous]

10. How did the FBI know the websites this guy went to?

Unless, of course, we have FBI agents . . . going to "terrorist" websites and participating in "terrorist" chatrooms.

You know, I'm so old I remember a time where you actually had to *do* something illegal before the authorities could arrest and imprison a person.

[rodeodance]

20. rather scary to think you can be arrested for visiting these sites.

[youspeakmylanguage]

32. Being arrested and being convicted are two different things...

It is completely up to the DA, US Attorney, or Grand Jury to decide who is arrested. It is up to a judge and jury to decide who is convicted.

[gratuitous]

39. That's true enough

Although in the old Soviet Union, being arrested was sufficient to put a person away for many, many years. Not to mention the incredible stress of being arrested and being at risk for a huge fine or imprisonment even on a bogus charge, the possibility of which causes some defendants to plead guilty to a lesser charge just to avoid the King Kong charge.

And if I was arrested on a terrorist-related charge, I don't suppose I could come up with the large bail that the prosecutor would almost certainly ask the court for, and though my employer might keep me on even after such an arrest, there's no guarantee of that, and who's going to hire someone with this kind of a cloud hanging over him?

This sort of arrest is a pretty severe punishment all on its own, independent of any prosecution or conviction that may or may not come out the other end.

[youspeakmylanguage]

42. In a perfect world, our elected officials would protect us...

...from unjust arrest.

But this is W's world and all of us just live here.

[BiggJawn]

43. Not anymore.

Just ask Nancy Grace, if you still believe "Innocent until PROVEN Guilty".

We have replaced that outmoded clunky system with "Trial by TV Pundit" now. Much faster, much more entertaining to watch while the masses munch their "stuffed crust" bread and watch Nancy's circus....

[PsychoDad]

46. Those were the good old days...

No need to charge you anymore. Now there's Gitmo and indefinite detainment for enemies of the state. :(.

There are still Muslims who were picked up here in america after 9/11 in detainment who have yet to be charged with any crime.

[Rich Hunt]

51. yes, it is

Fortunately, if you take time to read the actual article, you'll see that he was not jailed for going to a website.

[berni_mccoy]

17. What if someone wrote a pesky phish-mail

That caused half of the American population to hit a terrorist website...? Are they going to throw 150 million people in jail?

[Deja Q]

25. I hate to say this,

but if he was actively looking up known terrorist organization groups, visiting them, and chatting them frequently, that is not an unreasonable doubt to claim he may be a threat and to investigate further.

There aare limits as to what is and is not acceptable, but this I believe is. Like it or not, there are terrorists and more have been made. :-(

[youspeakmylanguage]

35. Exactly right...

I can't believe some of the posts here. Just because the terrorist threat has been exploited by W and the right does not mean that terrorists and terrorist organizations don't exist. Some of you are talking as if the threat doesn't exist at all.

[PsychoDad]

44. Oh, I know the threat exists..

But I think the threat to our civil liberties and our existance as a free society is an even greater danger.

[jayfish]

40. It's One Thing To Investigate...

it's quite another to toss a person in the clink.

Jay

[lateo]

33. How did the FBI know he was visiting those sites?

[QuettaKid]

50. what about just randomly clicking along through a series of links?

Like say if he was at a public library and click, click, click..... how could "they" possibly know who was using what terminal?

[Rich Hunt]

49. wait a minute

This subject heading is misleading.

Read the article. The "web visits" did not put him in jail.

"But a federal immigration judge in Detroit last week ordered Obeid jailed pending the outcome of charges that he entered the United States through marriage fraud. He also is being investigated by a federal grand jury."

[youspeakmylanguage]

53. That's how almost every suspected foreign terrorist has been jailed here..

..under "immigration violations". It gives the government carte blanche to say and do what they like in regards to the detention.

Until Dubya is out of office I guess the only way to protect yourself from that is not to be in the country illegally.

I'm not trying to be a smartass, as I know good people who are illegals and I do hope they are never caught, but just matter-of-fact about the situation. It's hard to argue an arrest if you are doing something illegal.

[Rich Hunt]

57. fair enough

It's hard to argue an arrest if you are doing something illegal.

Yes, I agree.

But the subject line is still misleading.

He was not jailed for going to a website, and that's getting lost here.

[WhoDaThunk]

58. Not arguing, just curious...

Is it illegal by definition to divorce someone once you've immigrated here, and not return to your home country? He's been married twice now to U.S. citizens and is engaged to a third. It was my understanding that they're alleging marriage fraud, not being an illegal alien. Just because the pretense for originally being here is alleged to be false doesn't mean he'd otherwise have been considered an illegal. Right? Or WAS he considered to be here illegally once his first or second marriage was dissolved?

I'm very curious to know if this man's attorney can provide evidence (or at the very least, names and dates with which to obtain evidence) of his supposed calls to the FBI and CIA. If it can be verified that he took concerns about these websites to the authorities and nothing was done, then it would appear more likely he's telling the truth. He'd have to be a certified half-wit to draw the attention of the FBI and CIA to his activities if he genuinely had a desire to use those websites to commit an illegal act.

I suppose that's always possible, too. Half-wits abound in this world.

[Ruby Romaine]

55. yeah- but then the bush gov't will say they got a terraist!

even if it's only for visa violations.
remember the hijackers were here legally & the person who set up the fast track program in Saudi Arabia got a large (20K?) bonus.

[Rich Hunt]

59. possibly

But that doesn't explain your choice of subject titles.