Friday, August 8, 2003

A MAJOR FIGURE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT HAS PLED GUILTY TO TO AIDING AL-QUAEDA. Instapundit pointed me to Geek.com:

An ex-Intel employee who was recently arrested now admits to attempting to aid the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Apparently, Maher "Mike" Hawash, who was instrumental in designing the Multi Media Extension (MMX) technology, admits that he traveled to China in 2001 in an attempt to cross over into Afghanistan, but failed to get to Pakistan. Mr. Hawash was charged with "conspiring to levy war against the United States," "conspiracy to provide material support and resources to Al-Qaida," and "conspiracy to contribute services to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban." Mr. Hawash pleaded guilty to the third charge. Mr. Hawash may now get up to 10 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine.
As one person who posted on the site puts it:
A co-developer of a technology ubiquitous in almost every PC on the planet admits to aiding terrorists...
Another person made a good link to media anti-Ashcroft bias:
Anyone ever wrong? (2:34pm EST Thu Aug 07 2003)
What gets me is all these people that supported this guy. These people call the DOJ and John Ashcroft racists, saying that they are trying to take away human rights. They were claiming that this guy was a victim of a witch hunt aimed against muslims. They claimed this guy was not getting his day in court (http: //www.oregonlive.com/letters/
oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial
/1052222128325430.xml
), that he was a victim of "Guilt by facial hair ( http://www.oregonlive.com/search/i
ndex.ssf? /base/editorial/1052222415
325430.xml?oregonian?edl
), and of course "such logic led to lynchings" ( http://www.oregonlive.com/search/i
ndex.ssf? /base/editorial/1052223142
325430.xml?oregonian?edl
). Now, this guy has pled guilty. Still, I don't see any press articles titled "Liberal Press Supported Admited Terrorist". Everyone is so afraid of being labled a racists or doing racial profiling, we leave the terrorists be and investigate the 80 yr old widow of a WWII veteran. Screw the PC garbage and start using common sense!
- by ArcherB

...

Re: voice devoid of reason (3:02pm EST Thu Aug 07 2003)
Check out http://www.freemikehawash.org/cover
age/index.htm.

There you will find articles titled, "Passing judgment prematurely", " A throwback to a past era", " What was the actual crime?", " Abusing the Material Witness Statute" (All from local papers), " Terrorism Task Force Detains an American Without Charges", " Critics Say Feds Misuse Material Witness Laws" (NPR), "Web Awash With 'Free Hawash'", (The Washington Post), " Intel colleagues incensed over man's imprisonment" (The Seattle Times), "Questionable detention" (The Seattle Times), " Colleagues Seek To Free Suspect In Terror Probe" (Newsday.com), "Editorial: Held without charge", " Go directly to jail, crime or no", " Rally Rails Against Patriot Act", "Abuse of government power doesn't make anyone safer", "Ashcroft Abuses Material Witness Statute" and many more.
Need more? Run a google for this guys name. Keep in mind as you read these articles, that this guy is/was guilty. I'm glad Ashcroft is doing his job. I'm glad terrorists are being arrested. I just hope people like you don't scream so loud that these people are released.
- by ArcherB

This story should be big news. Not only is the Justice Department completely vindicated, but this man was in a position to do some serious damage--and perhaps has-- by what he puts into software.

UPDATE (August 8): From Taranto/WSJ:

Second, Hawash and his alleged co-conspirators are from Portland--a city whose police department notoriously announced in November 2001 that it would refuse to cooperate with federal terrorism investigations. Let's hope there's some rethinking going on in the Beaver State.
My guess is that Portland police took this position precisely because the city had enough well-educated fanatical Muslims to put political pressure on them.

[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/03.08.08a.htm ]

 

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