There is a Muslim exemption to the First Amendment.

It's official. There is a Muslim exemption to the First Amendment.

David Stone and members of his Hutaree anti-government militia amassed a huge arsenal of weapons, including the ingredients for explosives, and allegedly plotted to kill a police officer and bomb his funeral. A federal judge in Michigan said they were just venting and exercising their First Amendment rights.

Tarek Mehanna, a 29-year-old pharmacist from Sudbury, Massachusetts, emailed friends, downloaded videos, translated and posted documents on the web, and traveled to and from Yemen in 2004.

No evidence was presented in court directly linking him to a terrorist group. He never hatched a plot – indeed, he objected when a friend (who went on to become a government informer and has never been charged with anything) proposed plans to stage violent attacks within the United States. He never had a weapon. He did lie to the FBI. And he has just been sentenced by US District Court Judge George O’Toole to 17.5 years in a supermax prison on various material support to terrorism charges.

I'm flabbergasted.

Lookie there guess it's just not those "nutty right wingers" clinging to the "guns and religion".

But pay no never mind nothing to see here folks their Muslims.

It's things like this that make me cringe every time I turn on the television, or open up a news page. Hypocritical MSM loves to trot heroes and villians around for us to worship or hate, but when it comes to one of their "Heroes" becoming a villian, well, that just can't happen. And vise versa...it makes me SICK!

I think the point of the thread is being entirely missed. The Hutaree (David Stones family mostly) is a Christian militia group that the FBI asserts is a Domestic Terror group. Compared to the case of Tarek Mehanna who was convicted of plotting to commit terrorism after spending 3 years in solitary confinement.

Over a two-year period, a paid FBI informant and FBI agent infiltrate their cell, discuss building bombs and getting explosives and tape their conversations. By the time their homes are raided, they had amassed instructions and material for making bombs, night vision binoculars, machine guns, assault rifles, 148,000 rounds of ammunition, body armor, gas masks, tear gas, knifes and swords.

Before their trial started, one of their members took a plea bargain, admitting the group “advocated” and prepared for violence against local, state and federal law enforcement. True, the government’s case was not helped when the informant who received $31,000 to infiltrate the group got arrested for shooting at his wife, but it still seemed like the case against the others would be a slam dunk – right?

Well, it almost certainly would have been if they were Muslims. It is difficult to imagine any judge extending the protection of the First Amendment to taped conversations between Muslims stating that they should “start hunting” law enforcement “pretty soon” and that “it is time to strike and take our nation back so that we may be free again from tyranny.”

But that is what a Michigan federal judge, Victoria Roberts, did on March 27 in the case involving seven members of the Hutaree militia of self-described “Christian warriors.” Throwing out the most serious charges against the four members of the Stone family and their associates, she declared that the case was “built largely of circumstantial evidence” and that the alleged plot to kill a local police officer and then attack his funeral procession is “utterly short on specifics.”

While the prosecution insisted “these individuals wanted a war,” Judge Roberts agreed with the defense attorney William Swor who said that the group’s leader, David Stone, “was exercising his God-given right to blow off steam and open his mouth.”

No such generous lending of free speech to Mehanna.

At a time when armed extremist anti-government groups may have as many as 100,000 adherents, Judge Roberts’ homage to the breadth of First Amendment protected speech may appear welcome to some and foolhardy to others. But there is no denying that it highlights the chasm between the prosecutions carried out against suspected Muslim terrorists, and the homegrown domestic brand that gave us Timothy McVeigh.

On April 12, in the federal district court in Boston, there will be a sentencing hearing for Tarek Mehanna, convicted late last year on terrorism charges. From the time he was a teenager, this 29-year old pharmacist from Sudbury was subjected to every kind of surveillance the FBI could muster – secret sneak and peek searches, FISA wiretaps, the seizure of his emails, the use of informants.

Having spent three years in solitary confinement, he could face decades more in prison after being convicted of plotting to go to Yemen for military training (which he never had), translating classical Islamic texts into English and expressing his views about the invasion of Iraq on websites. He also was taped stating that taking up arms against the US would be a violation of Islam since he lived and practiced his religion here.

Mehanna never had a gun or an explosive. But he did refuse to become an FBI informant, even after being warned that unless he cooperated with the agency they would make his life hell.

In a striking departure from Judge Victoria Roberts, Judge George O’Toole in the Boston federal district court refused to allow the First Amendment to be introduced in the Mehanna case. He refused to admit an ACLU of Massachusetts brief asking for certain charges to be dismissed on First Amendment grounds, he did not allow defense attorneys to bring up the First Amendment and he did not instruct the jury on what the First Amendment protects.

While the Hutaree judgment sent the message that core Constitutional values are not to be trifled with, Mehanna’s conviction conveyed this warning: if you are Muslim and criticize US foreign policy, you too can be prosecuted – unless you agree to play the FBI’s game.

privacysos.org

This really makes me sad. Such a huge gap between a country's most fundamental laws, and the practice and implementation of it.

And nobody at all cares!
Tarek Mehanna has had a total of 3 mentions on ATS, and hilariously enough, all of them have been an attempt to show how evil muslims are, and how dangerous a terrorist threat they are.

Originally, he was accused of having plotted to attack a US mall. Interesting that they dropped that completely now, but back then, everyone lapped it up.

So what has he been accused of?
He has been accused of being part of Al-Qaida. No evidence of that, in fact, his blog and comments online have shown him opposed to them.

He has been accused of justifying killing of American civilians. Again, his online blog and comments show he actually OPPOSED killing of civilians.

He has also been accused of calling muslims to take up arms in violence against people living in the US. Again, his own comments on his website deny this.

What has he actually done?
He certainly was an extremist. And he was certainly critical of US policies, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and (ironically) false mass imprisonment of muslims. I guess that means it was okay to imprison him. I suppose one should be thankful they didn't shoot him quietly in the middle of the night . I wonder what that means for US residents of ATS who are critical of some or other point of US Policy?

Here is his website, with all his opinions, dating all the way back to 2008. Some of them are certainly exclusivist and abhorrent, he supports Jihad (but explicitly defines it as oppressed fighting back against military oppression in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine- no killing of civilians or taking of land and power) they certainly are critical of the US foreign policy, but he you won't find any support for Al-Qaida, or killing of civilians, or calls for muslims to come to the US to rise up in violence.

iskandrani.wordpress.com...

reply to post by links234


The article linked is not the best to determine a solid opinion on the statement "Muslim exemption to the First Amendment". Reading through some of the court documentation at the moment and seeking to see trial data -- not third-party opining.

Basically it is easy for any of us to frame an issue so that it seems in some form or another while playing loose with facts and/or quotes -- both of which I am not saying is occurring here -- rather just recognizing the fact that ATS posters rarely do any critical thinking and allow others to do it for them in the form of opinion pieces.