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How anti-Muslim bigotry led to the wrongful conviction of Mohammed Hamoud

A full video of Mohammed Yousef Hammoud’s interview can be found at the end of this article.
By Esteban Carrillo Lopez | The Cradle | July 17, 2023

In 2000, Mohammed Yousef Hamoud – one of the most wanted ‘terrorists’ in the United States – was arrested while living in Charlotte, North Carolina, based on allegations that he sent a $3,500 check to the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, an allegation for which no actual evidence was presented.

Based on testimony from a single questionable witness, an American prosecutor accused Hamoud of leading a Hezbollah cell in Charlotte, and declared him to be one of the most dangerous ‘terrorists’ in the world.

The prosecutor, Ken Bell, who acknowledged that a successful prosecution of Hamoud would be the “case of a lifetime” for advancing his own career, successfully garnered a sentence of 155 years in prison for Hamoud. The jury voted to convict Hamoud amid the anti-Muslim bigotry and paranoia that swept through the United States following the September 11 attacks.

Years later, the sentence was reduced to 30 years, and Hamoud was finally released 3 years early and allowed to return to his family and friends in Lebanon.

Now 49, Hamoud was forced to spend more than half his life in prison without cause. But defying all odds, he obtained degrees in business management and psychology while also studying law to provide advice to his fellow inmates.

Below is an interview conducted by The Cradle with Mohammed Yousef Hamoud, after he was released from a US maximum security prison two months ago from serving a 27-year sentence on charges of providing “material support” to a terrorist organization. The interview took place at his brother’s home in the southern Lebanese town of Srebbine, originally Hamoud’s hometown.

The Cradle: As you were growing up in Lebanon, what were your political views?

Hamoud: Just like everyone growing up here, I was with the resistance and against occupation. I was pro-liberation and against poverty, and mainly the people with those views were Hezbollah, so I was supporting Hezbollah basically.

The Cradle: You said in a previous interview that you were the first Muslim to be convicted in the United States following the September 11 attacks. Do you feel this influenced the sentence that was issued against you?

Hamoud: Absolutely. I was the first Muslim after September 11 to go to trial. And I was the first Muslim in United States history to be tried under the law [passed in 1996] regarding providing material support [to a terrorist group]. Prior to me there was no blueprint on how to prosecute someone under that law. I was the first one, and the judge acknowledged those two things in his decision when he released me.

The Cradle: Of all the charges leveled against you, do you maintain your innocence against all of them?

Hamoud: No, actually. I did admit in court that from 1996 to 1998, I did sell cigarettes, and I did not pay the federal taxes during those years. And I did not fight those charges in court. I said am guilty of those, but as I said, the federal government acknowledged if it wasn’t for [the charges regarding] Hezbollah, I wouldn’t be there. The government was misinformed apparently, because [even though] the prosecutor had given a press conference announcing that he had arrested a Hezbollah cell in North Carolina, and I was its leader, years later, he did not find a single piece of evidence to show I sent money to Hezbollah.

But he wasn’t about to back off and lose his career because they spent millions of dollars [on prosecuting me]. So, they got this guy named Said Harb [to testify against me]. This guy had a lot of incentive to lie. He was facing decades of time in prison, and the government knew he was desperate to bring his family to the United States. He spent tens of thousands of dollars to bring his family and his dream was about to be fulfilled. So when they gave him that offer to testify against me, Said was the happiest person on earth, you know? So, he was granted his freedom, and he brought 12 members of his family to the United States using American taxpayers’ money.

The Cradle: Did you know Said Harb before he testified against you?

Hamoud: I did. He was one of the [Lebanese] guys who used to live in Charlotte, and from time to time, we used to meet and play soccer together, but he was not my good friend, which is how the government portrayed him. In fact, from 1999 to 2000, as he also admitted to the FBI, he said he was not associating with us. Said’s life went in a completely different direction than my life, and we barely saw each other. I was building my gas station and going to college, and he was doing whatever he was doing for his home, so from 1998 to 1999, we did not see each other much.

The Cradle: Do you feel that where you are from, and your religion, was a factor during your trial?

Hamoud: Definitely. At the time, most of the American people did not know the difference between Muslims. They did not know the difference between Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. To them, my name is Mohammad, and I am from the Middle East [West Asia], so I’ve got to be a follower of Bin Laden.

And the prosecutor did a great job insinuating to the jury, although indirectly, that I was guilty. The way he structured security in the court, and the way he brought me from the jail to the court, no one could think of me as an innocent person. The government was spending millions of dollars in security. I was transported along with my brother in a motorcade, in an armored truck. The area around the court was like a battlefield. Marshalls [federal police] were everywhere.

To terrify the jury, they were taking them to a secret place, taking them secretly to the court, and giving them numbers. So, if you are a juror in the court, would you think that person is innocent if the government is doing all of this? They closed off downtown streets just because of my case. They put extra metal detectors in the courthouse just because of my case, just to scare and terrify the people and make them think that I was a really serious [dangerous] guy.

The Cradle: At one point you were considered one of the most wanted ‘terrorists’ in the United States.

Hamoud: Yes, that’s the way one of the magazines, Reader’s Digest, described me, as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. Before going through this ordeal, my impression of the American media was it was the most honest in the world. But I found out it’s fake, I mean some stuff they exaggerated so much just to portray me as a real terrorist who deserved to spend his entire life in prison.

The Cradle: While the media was writing this way about you, did they ever approach you and try to speak with you directly?

Hamoud: No, they were just reporting from the government’s perspective. The only one that approached me was Fox News, but the prison would not allow them to come. So my voice was never heard in the American media.

The Cradle: You said that the only piece of evidence they had against you was that you sent $1,300 to the office of Sayyed Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, who is known as the spiritual mentor of Hezbollah. (Fadlallah was a spiritual mentor of millions of Shia around the world, not to Hezbollah members, who generally follow the guidance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei). You say that money was for your family?

I did send that check in 1995, but at the time, it was not illegal to send money to Sayyed Fadlallah. But I was convicted for allegedly sending a check for $3,500 to Hezbollah in 1999. You would imagine a check in 1999 would be much easier to find. Because that guy who said I sent $3,500 to Hezbollah, he said I sent an official check. So here is the irony, why would they find a check in 1995 to Sayyid Fadlallah, but they would not find a $3,500 check in 1999? The answer is very simple, because that check did not exist. The government subpoenaed all my bank documents, all my credit cards, everything. They had thousands and thousands of documents and they could not find this check and yet I was convicted for that check.

Its very interesting what the judge in the 1st District appellate court said in that regard. He said Said Harb was the sole witness against me on that count, and Said Harb was described throughout the trial as a manipulator and a liar who would do anything for his own interest. Those are not my words, those are the words of Judge Gregory of the appellate court. Yes, I was given 155 years based on one person’s word. No evidence, no checks, nothing whatsoever.

The Cradle: So why do you think they targeted you?

Hamoud: That’s interesting. Look, I came from Lebanon during the war, and I never hid my feeling towards Hezbollah and the Islamic resistance in Lebanon. And as I mentioned earlier, I really did believe there was freedom in the United States. So I was more active in speaking about the resistance. I was born in Bourj al-Barajneh, and I grew up there, so all my friends and people I interacted with were from that area and were pro-resistance. But I spoke about it more than anyone else, and I ended up with those charges.

The Cradle: You were sentenced to 155 years in prison. When you heard that sentence, what went through your mind?

Hamoud: The first thing that came to my mind was my mother, because she really struggled so much and cried so much so that she could have me in a peaceful place [away from the war in Lebanon]. And now I was thinking, “Look what happened to me. I left the war, I left everything to live in peace, and now I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison.” But God always gave me hope in my heart, and that kept me alive.

The Cradle: So, how old were you when you were sentenced?

Hamoud: I was arrested when I was 26, so I was sentenced when I was 28.

The Cradle: Today, you are 49, so you spent half of your life in prison. Where were you held?

Hamoud: I went through several prisons but spent most of the time at a prison called CMU (Communication Management Unit), which was built specifically for people who were convicted of things perceived as dealing with national security. CMU breaks basically every single rule that the United States claims to uphold. It has all the violations that no one would imagine a prison in the United States would have. There is no recreation yard. We were limited with phone calls, unlike other prisons that gave 500 minutes. We had only 2 calls a week. We had to preschedule them, and if for any reason the prison got locked down, we were not allowed to make them. Mainly there was nothing to do at that place except to sit down and wait for your time.

The Cradle: You are Shia Muslim, and they put you with Al-Qaeda members [who view the Shia as their enemies]. Did you ever protest this decision?

Hamoud: Of course. And that is the hypocrisy of the system. They would not put two rival gangs in the same prison, let alone in the same unit, because they know they’re going to harm each other. Yet they did not care about my safety, they did not care about my life. They put me with people who they know view killing Shia as permissible and sometimes as their duty. So, they [prison authorities] did not care. I protested that, I filed petitions complaining that they were putting my life in jeopardy with people that perceive me as an enemy. I was afraid if Hezbollah killed an ISIS leader, those people would retaliate and kill me. And what’s important too, one ISIS guy killed an older prisoner and tried to cut off his head. He tried to do what ISIS does on the TV, but the guards saw what was happening before he finished with the head and they took him.

The Cradle: How were you treated by prison authorities and the guards?

Hamoud: They claim they treat people the same and they don’t care about peoples’ charges, but in reality, of course, they are human, and they were told I was a terrorist, so they looked at me like a terrorist and some of them would try to not give me my rights. For example, I had a medical skin condition, and they did not treat me for three years, and so I feel I was tortured. I complained to officials all the way to Washington, and nobody cared.

The Cradle: How did the other prisoners treat you? Since you were being treated in the media as one of the world’s most dangerous men?

Hamoud: Well, thanks to the fabricated media in the United States, which portrayed me as a dangerous person that is well connected, that gave me respect from the prisoners because no one tried to mess with me, and they were scared of me. With the guards, it depended on the guards. Some of them gave me respect, knowing what my charges were, while some of them hated Muslims, and they would try to annoy me, feeling it was their duty.

The Cradle: You were released about two months ago. When did you find out you were going to be released?

Hamoud: When the judge granted a hearing after we filed for a compassionate release based on the disparity between my sentence and the sentences of defendants who had a similar situation to mine. I was optimistic that something good was going to come because usually, the judge always ruled against me, but for the judge to now grant me a hearing was something special, so I was waiting for it.

I was in the recreation yard working out when the case manager called me. When she told me I had to go to her office, I immediately knew I would get good news, and indeed it was. She told me to pack my stuff because I would be leaving. That was November 30, 2022. I then went to immigration detention for almost six months before finally coming home to Lebanon.

The Cradle: Do you think your release was politically motivated? Recently the US and Iran have been involved in nuclear talks and have discussed prisoner releases.

Hamoud: It has nothing to do with politics. The judge only reduced my sentence by three years because I have time for good conduct. It has nothing to do with politics, it was a judge’s opinion after all those years, he decided to do the right thing. If you look at the judge’s decision when he released me compared to the one he issued when he gave me 30 years, you would think he is speaking about two totally different people. When he ordered my release, he described me as a peaceful person, versus the last time I went to see him, he said I should spend more time in prison because I am still dangerous to US national security.

The Cradle: While you were in prison, were you approached with offers to reduce your sentence in exchange for something?

Hamoud: Before my trial, I was approached, but the prosecutor insisted I had to give him names of Hezbollah operatives in the United States. I told him I don’t know anyone. Either he did not believe me, or he did not want to believe me. My lawyer told me, “Look, he will never give you a settlement or a good plea deal unless you give him a name, because he wants to show the media that he got something.” I told my lawyer, “I left Lebanon when I was 18, do you really believe Hezbollah is going to trust me with information about the United States?” So, the prosecutor sent me a message through my attorney that if I don’t have anything for him, I will never see the streets again. And that was his word, and he tried hard to make that happen in the trial.

The Cradle: If today, someone you know tells you they want to emigrate to the United States, what would you tell them?

Hamoud: I would tell them, if you want to go there, don’t imagine you are living in freedom. Imagine yourself in a country that persecutes people. So, if you go there, just behave. Yes, you have the freedom to go with girls and party, but when it comes to politics and your religion, you’re going to be under surveillance just because of your belief, especially if you are Muslim.

The Cradle: During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, how were you following it?

Hamoud: I was reading the newspaper and following events on CNN. Of course, it was a very hard time because all of my family live in Beirut, and Israel was bombing everywhere. So, I was in a very bad situation, trying to make phone calls, and the calls were very expensive, each minute cost a dollar, but I got through it.

The Cradle: What are your plans now?

Hamoud: I am working now on my memoir, which I’m almost finished with. Hopefully, I’ll be able to publish it soon in English. After that I’ll see, I haven’t decided what to do.

The Cradle: Are you with Hezbollah now?

Hamoud: I am still not a member of Hezbollah, but as I said, I do support Hezbollah. These are basically my people, you know. I would love to support Hezbollah with everything that I could because, as I said you know, I believe in their cause, I believe they are heroes. They liberated my country. If it wasn’t for them, we probably couldn’t have this interview because ISIS or Israel would be here [in Lebanon].

The Cradle: While you were in prison, how was your family? Did Hezbollah ever approach them since you were in jail for allegedly being connected to them?

Hamoud: As far as I know, Hezbollah declared from the first day that I was not a member, just like I did. When I first left Lebanon, Hezbollah did not know I was leaving. Because I felt embarrassed to leave Lebanon when people who were my age were going to support my country and defend my country. So I felt like I was betraying everything I believed in. But I was in a tough situation because, on the one hand, my mother was crying all the time and wanted me to be away from Lebanon, and on the other hand, I believed in my cause and that I should defend my country. In the end, I said I can go to the United States. I can support the poor and orphans, I can support my people instead of carrying arms.

The Cradle: So you believed you could support the cause by sending money home? Because this is common among emigrants.

Hamoud: I do not believe that Hezbollah needs my $100, because, according to the CIA, Hezbollah receives over $500 million dollars a year. So to me, I would just send it to my mom, and just tell her, to give it to people who are around you, who are poor or orphans, to anyone who needs it, but not to Hezbollah.

Finally, I would like to mention my attorney, because after all those years in prison, I saw two faces of the justice system. One face was presented by the prosecutor, Ken Bell, who did everything to make a name for himself at the expense of me and my family, despite claiming to be seeking justice, because, as a prosecutor, he’s supposed to seek justice, not just convictions. He didn’t care about everything he swore to uphold, he just cared about getting a conviction so he could destroy my life and make a name for himself.

And another face I saw presented in the United States justice system was of a person named Jim McLaughlin, who represented me through all those years and who helped me with everything I needed, and treated me very kindly. He volunteered to work on my case, and we keep in touch still. He is one of the great American people. So now, when I think about the United States, I like to think about Jim McLaughlin, not Ken Bell, the person who oppressed me and prosecuted me just because he could.

Watch the full interview here:

Interview transcribed by William Van Wagenen.

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Mental Health Round-Ups: The Next Phase of the Government’s War on Thought Crimes

By John & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | July 18, 2023

Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes: mental health round-ups and involuntary detentions.

Under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.

If we don’t nip this in the bud, and soon, this will become yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the First and Fourth Amendments at will.

This is how it begins.

In communities across the nation, police are being empowered to forcibly detain individuals they believe might be mentally ill, based solely on their own judgment, even if those individuals pose no danger to others.

In New York City, for example, you could find yourself forcibly hospitalized for suspected mental illness if you carry “firmly held beliefs not congruent with cultural ideas,” exhibit a “willingness to engage in meaningful discussion,” have “excessive fears of specific stimuli,” or refuse “voluntary treatment recommendations.”

While these programs are ostensibly aimed at getting the homeless off the streets, when combined with advances in mass surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, and mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, they could well signal a tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”

As the AP reports, federal officials are already looking into how to add “‘identifiable patient data,’ such as mental health, substance use and behavioral health information from group homes, shelters, jails, detox facilities and schools,” to its surveillance toolkit.

Now, through the use of red flag laws, behavioral threat assessments, and pre-crime policing prevention programs, the groundwork is being laid that would allow the government to weaponize the label of mental illness as a means of exiling those whistleblowers, dissidents and freedom fighters who refuse to march in lockstep with its dictates.

Of course, this is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced, declared unfit for society, labelled dangerous or extremist, or turned into outcasts and exiled.

Red flag gun laws (which authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others), are a perfect example of this mindset at work and the ramifications of where this could lead.

As The Washington Post reports, these red flag gun laws “allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.”

With these red flag gun laws, the stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats.

While in theory it appears perfectly reasonable to want to disarm individuals who are clearly suicidal and/or pose an “immediate danger” to themselves or others, where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.

This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.

This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.

This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

Let that sink in a moment.

Now consider the ramifications of giving police that kind of authority in order to preemptively neutralize a potential threat, and you’ll understand why some might view these mental health round-ups with trepidation.

No matter how well-meaning the politicians make these encroachments on our rights appear, in the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes.

Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation.

The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, the war on COVID-19: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands. For instance, the very same mass surveillance technologies that were supposedly so necessary to fight the spread of COVID-19 are now being used to stifle dissent, persecute activists, harass marginalized communities, and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

July 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Jim Jordan Calls on FBI Director To Amend Testimony on FBI’s Social Media “Misinformation” Censorship

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | July 19, 2023

Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has raised questions regarding the veracity of FBI Director Christopher Wray’s recent testimony on the bureau’s role in curbing social media “misinformation.”

Jordan, along with Rep. Mike Johnson, who chairs the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, have sent a letter to Wray offering him a chance to clarify his statements which appeared to be contradicted by information possessed by the committee and federal court findings.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Wray had previously stated that the FBI’s emphasis was on thwarting harmful disinformation stemming from foreign adversaries. He had stressed that the bureau doesn’t influence or control social media content, but instead may alert media companies about particular content. The decision of further action, according to Wray, remained within the purview of the respective social media companies.

However, Jordan and Johnson drew attention to Wray’s testimony conflicting with a federal court ruling in Missouri v. Biden. The ruling stated that the FBI had flagged domestic speech as potential misinformation and had significantly urged social media platforms to take specific content-related actions. The court had recently impeded key agencies of the Biden administration from liaising with social media companies, citing potential First Amendment breaches.

Jordan and Johnson also highlighted the court’s finding that the FBI did not attempt to distinguish the origin of misinformation reports related to the 2020 election. The court criticized the FBI for misleading social media platforms about the Hunter Biden laptop story.

The congressional duo also underscored their findings that the FBI had followed up with social media companies and asked for updates regarding flagged accounts. They also suggested that the FBI provided unsolicited advice on whether content would infringe the companies’ terms of service.

July 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Enemies Above: The FBI and the Creation of the Brown Scare Myth

By Brandan P. Buck | The Libertarian Institute | July 19, 2023

“Today’s threat to our national security is not a matter of military weapons alone. We know of new methods of attack. The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery.”

Such were the remarks from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chat on May 26, 1940. Roosevelt’s sentiments captured and propagated a growing sense of fear and paranoia that the United States was entering a covert war with a hostile foreign power. These sentiments, coupled with the steps taken by the United States government to fight them, are strikingly similar to those of today. With Vladimir Putin as a stand-in for Hitler and MAGA for the alleged rising presence of domestic fascism, supporters of the foreign policy status quo are mobilizing a version of history to frame current dissent as beyond the pale and to justify their extraordinary steps to curtail it.

As they had during the Great War, the United States government and American interventionists preceded official entry into World War II with a concerted effort to convince Americans of the need to aid the Allies. This push to move foreign policy opinion accompanied a growing panic concerning domestic extremism, particularly on the Right, in what historian Leo Ribuffo called “the Brown Scare.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was among the institutions that perpetuated the scare and constricted American foreign policy opinion. During the height of the “Great Debate” concerning American entry into the Second World War, the White House used the FBI as a means to surveil and gather political intelligence. The FBI’s authority to conduct these operations stemmed from a 1936 directive in which FDR formally granted the bureau the power to monitor “subversive activities,” primarily the presence of explicitly illiberal organizations like the German American Bund. The fear of domestic extremism, coupled with the domestic security demands of the Second World War, proved a boon to the FBI and the career of its director, J. Edgar Hoover. From 1933 through the end of World War II, the FBI’s budget grew 16-fold and its number of agents rose from 266 to around 5,000. With the outbreak of war in Europe, and the ensuing foreign policy debate in the United States, the FBI’s writ to monitor “subversive” organizations was extended to noninterventionist groups, chiefly, the America First Committee (AFC).

To achieve its mission to monitor the AFC and its leadership, principally Charles Lindbergh, the FBI employed its usual litany of odious and often extralegal collection techniques, including wiretaps, break-ins, and bugging. The entirety of the FBI’s surveillance campaign against the AFC was done without a criminal predicate, and was, therefore, illegal. In addition to the FBI’s assortment of black-bag techniques, the bureau also attended AFC meetings, gathered their materials, and collected public and often derogatory information on members and leadership. Among the information collected during the FBI’s campaign was some of the non-interventionist Senator Gerald Nye’s correspondence, collected incidentally during an illegal wiretap in the execution of another and eventually unfounded investigation. Knowledge gathered by the FBI, either fair or foul, revealed nothing legally actionable but did provide the Roosevelt administration and its allies in Congress with information it would not have otherwise obtained.

Throughout 1941, FBI headquarters and field offices received reports from private citizens in which they offered up gossip, commentary, and concerns about the America First Committee, its members, and its activities. Letters to J. Edgar Hoover and other government officials, located within the FBI files on the AFC, revealed that numerous Americans voluntarily participated in the FBI’s domestic surveillance and legitimately believed that non-interventionism presented an existential threat to the nation and advocated for authoritarian measures to address the presence of the alleged internal threat.

In a letter addressed to President Roosevelt, one such correspondent from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania wrote, “I therefore implore you, or have someone In Washington, try to break this rotten [America First Committee]” and added that “a Democracy should not permit traitors to go on and on and on causing more disunion.” Similarly-minded individuals who wrote to the FBI saw the AFC as an enemy within and opined on possible solutions to this “fifth column.” One concerned citizen floated the idea of sending AFC’s leadership “to concentration camps, or some place [sic] where they could do no more harm.” In a letter dated from June 10, 1941, a full seven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, another correspondent agreed with such sentiment. Its author complained that the FBI was unwilling to find all the “subversive individuals,” i.e., antiwar activists, and “round them all up.” Not content with mere extrajudicial imprisonment, still, another writer to the FBI lamented that America was too lenient with the America Firsters to do what other countries, “big or small,” do with their “traitors,” and put them “against the wall.”

While other correspondents with the FBI were considerably less authoritarian in their desires, they willfully offered up information to the bureau. These voluntary assets delivered the names and addresses of AFC members, forwarded AFC materials, circulated anti-AFC propaganda, and provided their assessments of individuals’ motivations and assumed links to Nazi Germany. These citizen spies made note of America Firsters’ views on FDR, his foreign policy, the location of new chapters, speculated on the presence of draft-dodgers within these chapters, and the ethnic makeup and presence of foreign accents at AFC events.

Correspondents also ratted out their neighbors and coworkers to the FBI, treating membership in the AFC akin to membership in a spy ring. One correspondent from Staten Island was appalled that AFC members showed disdain for FDR and his foreign policy. They noted that “a woman with a decided [sic] German accent” made the galling suggestion that FDR “should be impeached [underlined in original].” They went on to note that they were stunned into silence and dared not defend the honor of the president as they were “spotted” by “3 tough men.” Implicit within this correspondent’s letter, as with others, was the view that merely disagreeing with the president was worthy of suspicion.

The information citizens gave amounted to little more than gossip, generating more paperwork than leads. Despite the FBI’s failure, these acts of surveillance, including writing the FBI, matched with the official writ of the bureau and the often-glowing responses from government officials helped to sustain fear among the American populace. Correspondents, be they regular people or members of Congress, sought and received validation for their paranoia and thereby sustained a domestic panic that curtailed legitimate foreign policy debate; as historians Douglas M. Charles and John P. Rossi wrote, the FBI’s efforts, even if indirectly, “successfully defined the parameter of what was permissible in public debate and cautioned those who would oppose government policy.” Combined with those of the British government and (nominally) private actors, the FBI’s energies successfully collapsed the Overton Window. They created a useable (and mythic) history that has served the foreign policy consensus for decades.

Despite the FBI’s best efforts, their agents found no evidence of illegal activity or overseas connections, or unlawful funding activity within the America First Committee. From the perspective of the White House, the FBI’s efforts, at best, provided them with political information that gave it an edge in public debate. The FBI’s collection also served as a means of distributing information on AFC and other non-interventionists to friendly members of Congress. Despite failing to create a legal mechanism to silence the America Firsters, the FBI’s surveillance campaign succeeded in one area; it helped to sustain an environment of fear that successfully branded non-interventionism as a subversive activity worthy of opprobrium and suspicion.

The United States did not look over the brink into the chasm of domestic fascism in the waning days of American neutrality, and moral considerations of entering the war aside, the United States was never under military or covert threat from the Nazi regime. Nor did their avatars within the German American Bund, or its fellow travelers like the Silver Shirts—however odious their presence—constitute a threat to the American republic. However, the United States took its first giant steps into imperium overseas, and it implemented a form of soft authoritarianism within its borders that lasted long after the end of the Second World War.

The federal government repurposed the powers, personnel, and legal techniques granted to the FBI during World War II against left-wing targets. The postwar growth of the security state, coupled with the normalization of corporatism (banally referred to as “private-public partnerships”) and an aggressive overseas foreign policy, bear many of the characteristics of the dreaded F word. Yet an AFC member with controversial views of FDR did not implement these transformations to American society. These changes were wrought by the federal government, bolstered by the opinions of the redacted correspondents who longed to imprison or execute their political opponents, all in the name of fighting fascism.

Yet, the image of the AFC as an inherently subversive organization has resurfaced in recent years. Despite the dispositive findings of the FBI and decades of scholarship from credentialed academics, the Brown Scare has returned to (liberal) American consciousness. Recent academic work like Susan Dunn’s 1940, Bradley W. Hart’s Hitler’s American Friends, Sarah Churchwell’s Behold America as well as Rachel Maddow’s pop history podcast Ultra, and the novel and HBO miniseries The Plot Against America have all resurrected the Brown Scare and view American non-interventionism as a subversive activity, one either essentially embedded within, or suspiciously adjacent to American fascism.

With the postwar American order under strain overseas and losing legitimacy within the minds of a growing number of Americans, consensus tastemakers have remobilized the image of America, teetering on the edge of fascist tyranny in the late 1930s to buttress policy objectives in a post-2016 world. In doing so, they not only repackage a long-debunked version of the past, but they obscure the civil rights abuses of yesteryear to legitimatize government efforts to censor speech or undermine associations deemed threatening to the regime in the present. As in the past, supporters of current American foreign policy, either earnestly or cynically, compare their domestic opponents to agents of outside hostile actors. Meanwhile, the federal government, yet again, has inserted itself into the domestic foreign policy debate, monitored antiwar activists, and allegedly suppressed online speech on behalf of a foreign power.

History is repeating, just not in the manner portrayed in the pages of The New York Times or on the programming of MSNBC.

July 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Bank’s reasons for booting Nigel Farage revealed

RT | July 18, 2023

UK bank Coutts dropped British politician Nigel Farage as a customer not because his accounts contained insufficient funds but because his social and political views were incompatible with its “values,” according to a 40-page dossier compiled by the bank and seen by the UK Telegraph on Tuesday.

While admitting “there is no evidence of regulator or legal censure of [Farage],” the document concluded Farage was no longer “compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organization.”

“This was not a political decision, but one centered around inclusivity and purpose,” the file stated, recommending the UKIP founder be put on a “glide path” to debanking as soon as his mortgage deal concluded – even though he was described as “professional, polite and respectful” in his dealings with Coutts.

While searching for a legitimate reason to drop him, Coutts apparently tried to leverage Farage’s “Russian connections,” only to find he did not have any. The file discussed his appearances on RT, where he was last a guest in 2017, alongside a claim about receiving payment from the Russian network that the bank admitted was bogus, and lamented that his comments about the conflict in Ukraine “fall short of endorsement” of the Russian position.

The bank ultimately settled on reputational risk. Farage “presents a material and ongoing reputational risk to the bank” as he is “regularly (almost constantly) the subject of adverse media,” the document explained, citing dozens of unfavorable news articles, including many from partisan sources like Hope Not Hate and Labour Movement for Europe.

The populist “is seen as xenophobic and racist” and a “disingenuous grifter” who promotes values that “do not align with the bank’s,” the dossier stated, referring to comments that were “distasteful and appear increasingly out of touch with wider society,” reportedly including tweets expressing his belief that the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights. His friendships with former US president Donald Trump and Serbian tennis champion Novak Djokovic were also brought up as liabilities.

When Farage revealed last month that Coutts had closed his account without giving a reason, the bank claimed his balance had fallen below the minimum amount required to maintain an account. The dossier, which he obtained through a subject access request, thoroughly contradicts the bank’s statement, explaining that his “economic contribution is now sufficient to retain on a commercial basis.”

Farage described the file to the Telegraph as a “Stasi-style surveillance report” that “reads rather like a pre-trial brief drawn up by the prosecution in a case against a career criminal,” noting the word “Brexit” appears 86 times and that Coutts found no fault with him before Brexit became an issue in 2016.

July 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Israel cuts water supply to Palestinians in Hebron

Israeli forces raze four water wells in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank [Ihab Alami/ApaImages]
MEMO | July 18, 2023

Israel’s water company Mekorot has this month reduced the water supply to the occupied West Bank cities of Hebron and Bethlehem, causing severe shortages for Palestinians, Quds Press reported yesterday.

Mohammad Al-Jaabari, a Palestinian from Hebron, said he has to wait for days in queues until he gets his turn to get a tank load of water for his house.

“However,” he told Quds Press while looking at the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, “we see the settlers play with water, irrigate their trees and home gardens.”

Al-Jaabari said: “This is unfair, but who can deter the Israeli occupation in order to stop its unfair distribution of water?”

Hebron’s Deputy Mayor, Asmaa Al-Sharabati, said: “The Israeli occupation continues practicing its control of natural resources. This complicates the water problem.”

She said that the amount of water being provided to Hebron each day is “far less than the needs of residents,” adding that some areas that used to receive water once every 18 days are not sent supplies every 28 days. This too during the summer heat.

“We do not have any roles in the water supplies,” she told Quds Press. “All we have is to receive water from the Israeli company and ensure fair distribution among the Palestinian residents of the city.”

Al-Sharabati said everyone needs 100 litres of water a day, and 30 litres during emergencies. “A Palestinian in Hebron receives far less than 30 litres a day,” she said.

“The water crisis is political,” she stressed.

July 18, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

DISCUSSING THE UK ONLINE SAFETY BILL WITH AMY PEIKOFF

Computing Forever | July 14, 2023

The Online Safety Bill: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137
Follow Amy Peikoff: https://dontletitgo.com/
Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/J8ygO5SbU3L1/
Twitter: @AmyPeikoff

July 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine Jails Senior Orthodox Cleric, Russia Demands Release

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | July 17, 2023

A senior figure in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was placed in pretrial detention. Cleric Metropolitan Pavlo is facing charges for voicing opinions deemed too pro-Russian.

A Kiev court ordered Pavlo to jail on Saturday. The cleric’s bail was nearly $900,000, and he could remain in pretrial detention for a month. The judge claimed Pavlo violated a court order by contacting a witness in his trial. Pavlo, who is also known as Petro Lebid, says he did not know that the person was a witness.

On April 1, Pavlo was placed under house arrest. Though initially only scheduled for a month, his house arrest has been extended several times. The charges against Pavlo include inciting hatred and justifying the Russian war in Ukraine.

On Saturday, Moscow demanded Kiev release Pavlo. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria said, “We demand strict compliance by the Kiev regime with its international legal obligations, the immediate release of Metropolitan Pavlo, who is suffering from a serious illness, and the provision of proper medical care for him.” She added that the arrest was “yet another manifestation of political arbitrariness and lawlessness [by Kiev.]”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has waged a culture war. The UOC has been a primary target of the “derussification” campaign. On December 1, Zelensky announced that Kiev would attempt to expel all religious institutions with ties to Russia, arguing the move would make “it impossible for religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation to operate in Ukraine.”

Kiev further ratcheted up the campaign to erase the UOC by seizing the assets and placing travel bans on several of the church’s top officials. Additionally, a series of raids by Ukrainian police targeted the UOC.

Zelensky’s derussification campaign has extended far beyond the UOC. Kiev has nationalized the media, renamed public places named for Russian historical figures, banned books printed in Russian and outlawed political parties representing Ukraine’s ethnic Russians.

July 17, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Australian Communications Minister Michelle Rowland Tries To Justify New Censorship Law

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | July 17, 2023

Australian Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is trying to push back against claims by Coalition MPs that the proposed upcoming legislation would lead to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”

The newly proposed legislation aims to strengthen the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) abilities to manage digital platforms that are seen to propagate “misinformation and disinformation.” However, critics rightly know that the move will threaten the very essence of free speech.

Despite these assurances, skeptics like Coalition communication spokesman David Coleman argue that the regulator will inevitably need to form an opinion on what constitutes misinformation to ensure platforms comply with the new legislation.

“For government to start defining what can and cannot be said in a democracy is hugely concerning. This bill would allow that to happen,” Coleman said, to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The proposed bill gives ACMA the authority to collect information from digital platforms about how they adhere to existing codes.

Moreover, ACMA will have the power to introduce a new “code” for companies that repeatedly fail to address so-called misinformation and disinformation or establish an industry-wide “standard” requiring the removal of harmful content.

Failing to adhere to these standards will carry significant penalties. These include substantial fines, either $6.88 million or 5% of a company’s global turnover, whichever amount is higher.

This policy approach is not without its opponents. Critics argue the broad definitions of misinformation and disinformation as material that is “false, misleading or deceptive” and “reasonably likely to cause serious harm” could be abused by political subjectivity, potentially stifling legitimate views.

Coleman expresses concern over potential self-censorship by digital platforms due to fear of incurring hefty fines. The proposed legislation, in his view, could lead to the suppression of Australians’ authentic opinions. The exemptions within the bill for professional news content, authorized electoral content, and satirical material do little to assuage such fears.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, also expressed apprehensions about the bill’s potential to chill legitimate political expression online, due to the potential for imposing “binding standards” with severe penalties.

Despite previous attempts to increase ACMA powers by the former Morrison government in March 2022, draft legislation was never released. Rowland asserts the Albanese government’s openness to “constructive suggestions” to enhance the bill and is holding public consultations for feedback. However, the opposition has yet to take a formal stance on the legislation.

July 17, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

This Is Why We Need to Talk About CBDCs

TruthstreamMedia | July 15, 2023

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July 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Ron DeSantis Vows to Ban CBDCs if Elected

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | July 15, 2023

Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, in a conversation with former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, vehemently argued against the possible introduction of a digital dollar by the Federal Reserve. The discourse took place at an event spearheaded by the right-leaning Family Policy Alliance lobby group.

DeSantis, who has a long-standing aversion to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) emphasized that any move towards the creation of a digital dollar would necessitate congressional authorization.

Despite this, he warned that the Fed might endeavor to push this financial innovation unilaterally – an act he contends is at odds with constitutional principles.

“If I’m the President, on day one, we will nix central bank digital currency,” DeSantis affirmed, expressing his hostility towards CBDCs.

The underlying cause of DeSantis’s staunch opposition is rooted in his belief that the Federal Reserve will exploit CBDCs to advocate an anti-cash, anti-crypto policy. The Florida Governor predicts a future where CBDCs usurp all other forms of legal tender, effectively granting the Fed the power to restrict purchases they deem unfavorable, such as fuel and ammunition.

The controversial issue of CBDCs has taken center stage as the 2024 electoral race intensifies. Many, especially within libertarian sections of the Republican Party, are apprehensive that such currencies might encroach upon the sacrosanct privacy rights of American citizens. There’s a growing chorus arguing that CBDCs could bestow governments with an unprecedented level of control over individual expenditure.

In his critique, DeSantis harnessed the emblematic values of America. He insinuated that proponents of CBDCs aim to establish a “social credit system” in the US, emphatically referring to CBDCs as a “threat to American liberty.”

DeSantis is not the lone voice in the wilderness expressing discontent with CBDCs. Republican contender Vivek Ramaswamy also shared similar sentiments. “Just like ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] came out of the 2008 financial crisis, central bank digital currencies are what is going to come out of this next one… This is likely where this is heading. It is a longer-term game to a disaster,” Ramaswamy said.

On the Democratic front, Bitcoin advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has categorized CBDCs as tools of control, cautioning about their potential misuse.

DeSantis’s skepticism towards CBDCs has been consistent. In his capacity as the Florida governor, he ratified a law in May barring CBDCs from achieving legal tender status. The aspiring president is pushing Republican-led states to adopt similar deterrents against CBDCs. As part of this mission, he has reached out to a coalition of 20 states to counteract federal endorsement of CBDCs.

July 15, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , | Leave a comment

Israeli military’s onslaught on Jenin amounts to war crime: Legal experts

A building damaged by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 5, 2023. (Photo by Reuters)
Press TV – July 15, 2023

The Israeli military’s deadly raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank fits into the parameters of war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, legal experts argue.

Susan Akram, a clinical professor at Boston University’s School of Law, said the raid, which killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded dozens more, clearly amounts to a war crime for a number of reasons, including intentionally attacking a civilian population and attacking medical units.

“The Geneva Conventions include as war crimes during occupation, willful killings, willfully causing great suffering to an occupied population and extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity,” Akram said during a webinar hosted earlier this week by the Arab Center Washington, DC.

There’s no doubt, she declared, that what Israel carried out in Jenin constitutes a war crime.

Daniel Levy of the US/Middle East Project and journalist Dalia Hatuqa, the other panelists on the webinar, also agreed that Israel’s actions in the West Bank amount to a war crime.

Akram said the narrative used by Israel that the raids on Jenin and other Palestinian cities like Nablus are an attempt to root out resistance groups does not stop its actions from being illegal under international law.

Pointing out that the West Bank is an occupied territory, she said, “Israel’s attacks on an occupied population are criminal in and of themselves because occupation law forbids the occupier to use military attacks against civilian targets in the territory it occupies.”

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), some 900 Palestinian houses were damaged and many of them became uninhabitable in the wake of the Israeli military’s raid on the Jenin refugee camp.

Adnan Abu Hasna, the spokesman for the UN agency, said on Tuesday that his fellow colleagues are still documenting the damage caused inside the camp during the onslaught.

The UNRWA’s priority is to help restore some sense of normality by resuming its services like education, healthcare and sanitation, he added.

“The other urgent priority is to provide cash assistance to families who were displaced from their homes, and help them pay for rent and rehabilitate their residences,” Abu Hasna noted.

Last week, a group of UN experts said Israel’s military raids targeting the Jenin refugee camp “may prima facie constitute a war crime.”

“Israeli forces’ operations in the occupied West Bank, killing and seriously injuring the occupied population, destroying their homes and infrastructure, and arbitrarily displacing thousands, amount to egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force and may constitute a war crime,” the experts said in a statement.

July 15, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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