Judge to sentence civil rights attorney to jail for "providing info to

[geiger]

terrorists."

http://www.cnn.com/

[MADem]

1. She got 28 months

http://1010wins.com/pages/109003.php?contentType=4&contentId=224045

[warrens]

98. She got lucky

She could have got 20 years. This sounds fair. She knew damn well that transporting messages out of that jail was probably going to help terrorism. Even if it didn't, the odds were way against them being some innocent exchange about grandchildren. She was being very, very foolish.

[wakeme2008]

2. I do not feel sorry for her,,, she broke the law and she knew it

when she was doing it. :shrug:

[darthmix]

3. Trying to save her client from jail time is fine, because that's

her job. But if she actively helped him communicate with his followers, then screw her.

I'm having a hard time understanding how she responds to that charge. Someone explain this to me.

[SCantiGOP]

4. on NPR this morning

She said she rationalized it that she was trying to get word out and thus improve his living conditions in jail. She admitted that it was wrong. She's almost 70 and has breast cancer, so 28 months may be a life sentence. Not saying I can justify what she did, but if you've ever had a friend in jail you know how horrible it is.

[darthmix]

5. Okay. What I'm hearing is that she could've gotten 30 years,

but she got 28 months. She admits it she was wrong, she was found guilty correctly. And if it turns out ot be a life sentence, they weren't really going to be the best years of her life anyway, so I'm fine with this.

We don't really want people who argue for civil rights to be associated with those who aide terrorists, so I think it's proper for us to come out pretty strongly against her and what she did.

[ShortnFiery]

10. Bull! Our Country used to stand for Compassion for those who were

truly regretful of their transgressions.

I'm disgusted that our ONCE Great Country is a seemingly Gang of Heartless Thugs.

All of you who think that being cruel to a 70 y.o. lady with Breast Cancer who is truly sorry (did anybody die like they could have with PLAME outing?) for her crime DON'T be surprised when you are carried away to the detention camps for renting that car, etc. or giving financial aid to terrorists ... or when your neighbor turns your ASS in on the TIPs program.

I agree with Gore Vidal: America has gone Insane. :thumbsdown:

[geek tragedy]

11. Pretending to be sorry doesn't mean you don't get

sent to jail.

She only played this "I was really emotional at the time and now regret it" line once her sentencing date approached.

[Name removed]

80. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

84. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lurking Dem]

12. Yes, people died.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sui generis]

13. amen!

and to see this on a "progressive" board no less, boggles me mind.

:silly:

[Dick Diver]

6. Impossible to justify her actions in any way.

She released to the press a statement by her client to his followers in Egypt to "reject any cease fire with the government." Several days after that, 30+ people were killed in bombings by those very same followers. Additionally, she had signed an agreement with the government not to reveal her conversations with her client to external parties and was audio taped laughing at the ruse she was pulling on her client's guards.

[coalition_unwilling]

66. WRONG--You are woefully ill informed. The statement Rahman

released merely suggested that his followers should actively consider whether to continue to maintain the ceasefire. The statement in no way urged followers to "reject any cease fire with the government."

[Dick Diver]

79. According to The Nation...

The case against Stewart was fairly straightforward. She represented Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, now serving multiple life sentences for conspiring to blow up several Manhattan bridges and tunnels. Rahman is barred from any contact with the outside world beyond his immediate family and attorneys. As his lawyer, Stewart signed an agreement not to transmit messages from him to unauthorized people. In June 2000 she violated that agreement. After meeting with the sheik, Stewart called Reuters to say that he had withdrawn his personal support for a cease-fire then in place in Egypt. Two days later she issued a clarification explaining that the sheik "did not cancel the cease-fire," but "left the matter to my brothers to examine it and study it because they are the ones who live there and they know the circumstances better than I."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050307/cole

Several things are noteworthy here. First, Stewart called Reuters initally to relay this information to them, thereby making herself an active participant in the leak. Second, when a Sheik publicly to his followers "withdraws his support" for something, that means he's advocating the opposite of that "something." Third, Stewart was not, as some have suggested, "overzealously" representing her client. By the time of this incident, Rahman had been convicted and his appeals exhausted. Finally, it's clear, she deliberately violated her agreement with the government. She should rot in jail; unfortunately, she won't, she'll make big bucks on the lecture circuit, at least until her morbid obesity, hypertension, and diabetes make that no longer feasible.

[coalition_unwilling]

88. Note that the government didn't attempt to prosecute Reuters for

publishing the information Stewart provided to them.

If it turns out that much of the evidence against Stewart was collected through warrantless wiretapping, will you be willing to see the conviction overturned?

[NaturalHigh]

7. She got off with a light sentence, everything considered.

[w4rma]

8. Good. (nt)

[Name removed]

9. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Lynne Stewart's "crime" is that she pissed off John Ashcroft

Ashcroft is the one that should have been on trial.

Lynne Stewart re-indicted on trumped-up terrorism charges

By Jeff Mackler

On November 22, 2003 progressive New York attorney, Lynne Stewart was re-indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on trumped-up charges of terrorism stemming from Stewart's role as legal counsel to the imprisoned blind Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rachman. Rachman, despite clear evidence to the contrary, was convicted of conspiracy to bomb public buildings in 1995 and is currently serving a life sentence.

In July 2003 Federal District Court Judge John Koetl dismissed the original two terrorism charges against Stewart, aiding and abetting terrorism, as "unconstitutionally void for vagueness" and because they "revealed a lack of prosecutorial standards." The three lesser charges filed against her, which will also be litigated in the future, plus the two new terrorism charges, combine to carry a prison sentence of 40 years. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft appeared on the David Letterman television show to publicly announce the original chargers against Stewart who was not extended an invitation to reply.

Since that time Stewart has taken her case to defenders of civil liberties and democratic rights across the nation receiving broad support from major groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Lawyers Guild to the American Friends Service Committee. A tireless and undaunted campaigner, Stewart has addressed hundreds of public meetings where her appeal for support is proudly presented as a defense of the civil liberties of all who face government persecution for their political ideas. Her case has been covered widely in the major media.

There is no doubt that the Bush Administration seeks to make an example of Lynne Stewart, whose indictment is aimed at stifling dissent more generally and creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. It is reminiscent of the McCarthy-era witchhunt days when organizations such as the ALCU effectively renounced their birthright and refused to defend those accused of "communist conspiracies" not to mention simple membership in organizations that advocated revolutionary socialist or communist views.

http://www.geocities.com/mnsocialist/stewart.html

[Pavulon]

16. Yeah

her crime was proven in court to a jury of her peers. She is lucky she got 2 years not 20.

She knew what she was doing was illegal. How is what she did right?

[IndianaGreen]

17. The FBI violated attorney-client privilege

How would you like for the FBI to listen to your conversation with your attorney?

[geek tragedy]

22. Attorney client privilege doesn't exist if the attorney is involved

in helping the client carry out criminal activity.

[Pavulon]

23. Did they have a warrant?

Try findlaw. You will find the details of this case are pretty simple.

If I commit treason. I can not use my atty to pass more classified information.

She is lucky she got a light sentence.

[IndianaGreen]

25. The only traitors are Bush and his goon squad

and there was no classified information. The charges are trumped up by the nazis working for Ashcroft.

[Pavulon]

26. The appointed judges

They were not brought in. They were existing members of the court. This person has an appeals process.

Bush blinders, person broke the law, person got caught. Person can appeal, will lose.

Jury convicted, judge accepted verdict under rules of evidence.

Read up, the courts have rules, it ain't a swap meet.

[geek tragedy]

28. She helped him tell his followers to resume attacks. Screw her. eom

[IndianaGreen]

73. I'll put you down as one that believes in John Ashcroft

The charges are a fabrication typical of any dictatorship, which in case you haven't noticed, is precisely what the Bush regime happens to be.

[geek tragedy]

74. What charges are false? She admitted to doing exactly

what they said she did. The only question is whether someone thinks she had a right to do it or not.

[IndianaGreen]

76. First They Came for Lynne Stewart ...

Here is an article from that well known "Communist" publication... Truthout:

First They Came for Lynne Stewart ...
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 15 February 2005

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1945

Now they're coming for the lawyers, and we must all speak out.

<snip>

The government charged that Stewart allowed the Arabic translator to read letters to Rahman regarding Islamic Group matters, and to conduct a discussion with Rahman regarding whether Islamic Group should continue to comply with a cease-fire in Egypt. It also alleged that Stewart concealed those discussions from prison guards, and announced to the media that Rahman had withdrawn his support for the cease-fire, in violation of the SAMs.

Stewart denied these allegations, and testified that she believed in good faith that relaying Rahman's statement calling for more consultation about the Egyptian cease-fire did not violate the SAMs. She said she was trying to have Rahman transferred to Egypt to serve his sentence by keeping him visible. Rahman is old, blind, does not speak English, and has been kept virtually incommunicado in a federal prison in Minnesota.

Her good-faith belief, Stewart tesfitied, was based on actions of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, another of Rahman's attorneys. Clark also signed these SAMs, held press conferences, and conveyed Rahman's statements about Egyptian politics to the press. Yet, Clark was never prosecuted.

Clark, who testified for Stewart at her trial, told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, "I don't know of anything that Lynne did that I didn't do." He said, "This case would never have been brought except for the fear generated, and the advantage that the Bush administration was taking of it, by the events of September 11, 2001. In ordinary times and circumstances, it would be recognized that everything that Lynne did was exactly what an effective attorney representing a client zealously would be obligated to do."

At a 2002 conference, Stewart noted, "Usually if one breaks a Bureau of Prisons edict, one is told one can't visit the prison again, or one gets some sort of administrative slap on the wrist of some kind. One does not usually get indicted for aiding a terrorist organization."

Why did the government wait so long before indicting Lynne Stewart? According to Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, Stewart was a "prime target for the Attorney General, who needed desperately to show that the Justice Department was actively fighting terrorism."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021505A.shtml

[Pavulon]

81. Pissant criminal

no different than a tax evader, defrauder, or a lawyer who takes your money out of his account.

She is an admitted criminal convicted in federal court, and she can appeal.

Next time I get caught going 90 in a 55 can you come to bat for me?

[sui generis]

87. next time you're convicted of going 90 in a 55

when you were only going 60 you'll probably be happy that there are defenders willing to take your case without fear of being prosecuted themselves.

[Pavulon]

95. If they bribe the judge

then they are not defending me, they are breaking the law. She is breaking the law.

[Name removed]

97. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[coalition_unwilling]

68. Based probably on illegal, unconstitutional wiretaps. Government

still has not been compelled through discovery to reveal the extent of its illegal wiretapping.

[geek tragedy]

70. They had FISA warrants. Doing some research

before making factual claims would do you some good.

[coalition_unwilling]

90. Uh, excuse me, they had one FISA warrant on the para legal, but

no warrant on either Stewart or the translator.

Doing some research before making factual claims would do you some good.

[geek tragedy]

92. They intercepted her conversations with the paralegal.

All wiretaps in this case survived constitutional challenge, so you're barking up the wrong tree.

[coalition_unwilling]

93. We shall see.

[Taoschick]

18. Omar was innocent?

Oh please. :eyes:

[geek tragedy]

20. Anyone who says that Rahman is innocent is utterly worthless

as a source of information or commentary.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. Nobody is saying that he is innocent

but you need to go to the Democracy Now website and see the interview with Lynne Stewart.

[geek tragedy]

42. The article says, and I quote:

Rachman, despite clear evidence to the contrary, was convicted of conspiracy to bomb public buildings in 1995 and is currently serving a life sentence.

As a practicing lawyer in NY, I'm fully aware of the facts and issues presented by the case. What she did went FAR beyond zealous advocacy on behalf of her client.

The attorney/client relationship is not a license to lie, cheat, and break the rules.

[geek tragedy]

41. Dupe. Pls. delete. eom

[Pastiche423]

19. There is way too much kool-aid drinking on this thread

Un-fucking-real.


:scared: :scared: :scared:

[geek tragedy]

21. By that you mean people who refuse to reflexively support Stewart

because she's leftwing, right?

[Pastiche423]

24. No

By that I mean who have bought Little Lord Pisspant's terrorist bullshit, hook, line and sinker.

After tomorrow at 9:35 EDT, every single one of us can be labeled a terrorist and be disappeared.

Have you not been paying attention for the past six fucking years?

No need to answer me. I should have put you on ignore a long time ago. I will now.

[geek tragedy]

27. Your loss. Toodles. eom

[Nolo_Contendre]

29. Well, that was interesting

Good job. The tasty Kool-Aid is dispensed by a chosen few these days, speaking of which....where's the thread about the treason charges brought against Adam Gadahn.....

[geek tragedy]

44. Yes, it's interesting that some DU'ers are leveling

ad hominems at DU'ers who happen to disagree with them.

The "Kool-Aid" reference is of course ironic when spoken by those with such a hive mentality.

[LostinVA]

33. I agree -- and know how I know it's so bad?

Over half the posts are by posters I have on Ignore...

I'll join you:

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[M155Y_A1CH]

34. Wow, me too!

This thread started out full of ignored posts;
I still found a couple to add.

[davepc]

30. This Abdel-Rahman guy the same dude Janet Reno's justice department caught

and threw in the slammer back in the mid 1990s?

If he is, then he's not one of Bush's boogieman terrorists, but the real deal. Bill Clinton was too busy going after real threats to America to waste his time chasing shadows and making up threats to turn people to fear, unlike chimp-in-chief.

Let Stewart rot in prison for helping him pass orders to his followers.

Janet Reno knew what she was doing, her justice department knew what it was doing; protecting America -- something the Ashcroft/Gonzales justice department fails to do on a daily basis -- the conditions placed on Abdel-Rahman were there for a reason. If Stewart knowingly violated them, then I have no sympathy for her.

[Lurking Dem]

35. archived...

Political Motive Denied In Action Against Cleric

*Please Note: Archive articles do not include photos, charts or graphics. More information.
July 3, 1993, Saturday
By DAVID JOHNSTON, (Special to The New York Times); Metropolitan Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section 1, Page 22, Column 5, 684 words

DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - The decisive event that persuaded Attorney General Janet Reno to order the detention of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman took place on Wednesday night when a van carrying the cleric tried to elude law-enforcement surveillance cars, officials said. That seemingly minor incident on a New Jersey street appeared to tip ...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. The "conditions placed on Abdel-Rahman" include

complete isolationa and sensory deprivation.

But I guess it's okay to be inhumane to a terrorist, more inhumane than to serial killers, because serial killers are middle-class white guys and this fellow's an Ay-rab.

[geek tragedy]

43. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The conditions included preventing

him from communicating with his terrorist followers. It wasn't sensory deprivation. It was common sense.

Kind of like mafia dons and drug cartel leaders aren't supposed to be allowed to communicate with their underlings on the outside.

Otherwise, what's the difference between him sitting in a cell in a federal penitentiary or in a cave in Pakistan? The only alternative is the death penalty.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. Not the way I heard it

He was not allowed to communicate with ANYONE other than one brief meeting with his attorney every month and one 15-minute phone call. He was in solitary, and the guards were instructed not to speak to him.

[geek tragedy]

47. Rahman doesn't speak English.

So, the guards weren't going to do a lot of talking with him.

As far as contact with the outside world, he could communicate with his wife and attorneys, through a translator.

Stewart and Rahman could have challenged the constitutionality of these restrictions, but didn't.

[Polesitter]

31. She knew the rules and was an officer of the court

Would have been entirely different if the communications she passed to his minions were part of her defense duties. But stupid she isn't - she made an adult decision knowing the adult risks. No doubt she is prepared to pay the penalty.

[HuffleClaw]

32. in a just world she'd never have been charged in the first place

but in BushWorld...

[Polesitter]

52. In a just world, she wouldn't have done it

And don't think that a progressive administion would have let her go uncharged either. I remember President Clinton's Justice Department in 1998 prosceuting Dr. Barbara Battalino (lawyer and former VA psychiatrist) for perjury about sex in a civil malpractice & sexual harrassment lawsuit that was dismissed. (yeah, kind of ironic, but ce' la vie)

From the Jewish World Review:

"In a medical malpractice and sexual harassment case brought against the hospital by one of Battalino's former patients, Battalino lied, under oath, about having had consensual sex with the defendant. The government prosecuted and convicted her for obstruction of justice, sentencing her to house arrest. The defendant's medical malpractice/sexual harassment lawsuit? The court threw it out. And Dr. Battalino, who also attended law school, lost her right to practice both law and medicine."

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/elder122198.asp

[hedgehog]

36. This thread is an example of the worst thing Bush has done -

He has lied to us so often about so much that some of us can't even see a hazard when it is right in front of us. The lawyer was serving as a courier between a terrorist leader and his followers. She knowingly and deliberately broke the law.

Another point - why is jail too harsh when the criminal involved is an elderly white woman? If the lawyer had been a young black man, would people be demanding the life sentence?

On edit - I'm not advocating a harsher sentence in this case. I just wanted to point out that often the sentence is more about the criminal than the crime. Somehow a white male executive who beggars thousands by stealing their pension always gets less of a sentence than the third time shop lifter.

[sui generis]

49. the best thing Bush has done is exposed our weaknesses

we can't agree on crime and punishment, on gay marriage, on abortion, on damn nearly any topic.

Wedge issues are not THEIR weakness, they are an exposure of ours.

That and there are some righteous bastards making pronouncements about "hive mentality" who are the proverbial lynch mob themselves.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

37. I saw her interviewed on Democracy Now last night

The fact is, whatever her client did or is supposed to have done, he was being kept in solitary confinement, not allowed to speak to anyone, even his guards, and allowed to speak to his attorneys for only a half hour per month. During the attorney-client interviews, they were not allowed to talk about anything other than his case (which suggests that the Feds were monitoring the conversations).

In addition, the client is blind, so he couldn't even pass the time by reading.

Now the hard-hearted law and order vengeful Puritan types among you might say that as a terrorist, he got what he deserved. However, we've known since the nineteenth century that that kind of treament drives people mad.

I don't care what he did or is supposed to have done. You don't treat people like that. Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy were treated better than that, but just because he's a "terrorist," then it's supposed to be okay to treat him worse than we treat serial killers.

I guess Bush's signing of the Torture Law is just a formality, but then I've heard for years that prisoners accused of political crimes are treated worse than murderers and are subjected to isolation and sleep deprivation.

The real point here is attorney-client privilege. Dictators always start by violating the rights of people whom the general public hates. They have convicted an attorney (and an interpreter, who was only doing his job of conveying exactly what the two parties said) guilty by eavesdropping on conversations between the attorney and the client.

Can't you get it through your heads, people? If the Kool-Aid drinking masses can accept violation of attorney-client privilege just because the client is a terrorist, next the authorities will tell you that it's okay because the client is an accused murderer or an accused bank robber, and in a few years, attorney-client privilege will be gone.

[ShortnFiery]

40. And today Dear Leader legalized torture and suspends Habeas Corpus

TODAY is a proud day for Al Quaeda. Yes, today the Terrorists have won by turning US into the *evil-doers* we most fear and despise.

When This Evil Administration finds reasons to drag in YOUR friends and family in for "questioning", I wonder?

Many seem to believe the lies and disinformation that is fed to them by Pentagon PsyOps. Further, you ASS-U-ME that *all* the people in Guantanamo are automatically *untouchable* terrorists. You will NOT cheer on this EVIL when one of your loved ones is detained indefinitely. :( That is, if you think that these UN-Just measures signed into law today will only be applied to the people being held in Guantanamo ... well, you've got another thing coming. :nuke: They will come for YOU in time, but now, when their tyranny can be halted FAR TOO MANY "Good Americans" are too AFRAID of manufactured "boogie men" to realize it my soon be too late to protest. :(

With Dear Leader signing the UN-Constitutional Legislation today, every American Citizen is also a "potential terrorist" if they pose a threat to the sustainment of ONE PARTY (Republican) RULE.

Today EVIL in it's most lurid and horrific form, has won. The sacrifices that my belated Father and Older Brother made in combat within WWII and Vietnam respectively, are now PROVED to be made in vain.

I've served my country honorably in The Army. I still love My Country more than words can say. However, today is the first day that I MUST admit ... that TODAY I'm 100% ashamed of what our criminal leaders have done to mind-zap the American populace.

I'm ashamed of what our beloved country has become, i.e., clutches of frightened and sometimes bloodthirsty racists. I'm ashamed of my fellow Americans allowing these Evil Leaders to rule them through fear-mongering. I'm ashamed at the seemingly never-ending blood-lust after we torture and hold other Human Beings in Secret Prisons around the world. I'm ashamed that 650,000 Iraqis have sacrificed their lives for an illegal invasion and occupation. I'm ashamed that The American People see that our losses, although equally horrific, ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE IMPORTANT than the hundreds of thousands of deaths and continuing hardships of The Rest of The World combined.

Most of all I'm ashamed that TODAY our entire country is the epitome of *UN-American.* :cry:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. And I'm horrified at the vicious reactions on this thread

If these posters are representative of the mood of the American people, then we're only a few short steps from Argentina in the 1970s, where the government got away with outright murder in the name of fighting terrorism.

And no one will raise a peep in protest until THEY or someone THEY care about is dragged off into detention and denied Constitutional rights.

They're so caught up in "hate the terorrists, hate the terrorists" that they can't see that denial of Constitutional rights to ANYONE could eventually come around and bite THEM in the ass.

[geek tragedy]

48. Respectfully, it is people who agree with you who are

being vicious and insulting towards other DU'ers in this thread.

I would urge you to note that Stewart herself has admitted that her behavior was wrongful.

I would also remind you that what she did was not covered by attorney-client privilege and was a direct and willful breach of her ethical duty as an officer of the court.

She was convicted for intentionally breaking the rules of detention for the prisoner, not for representing his legal interests..

Had she behaved ethically and honestly, she would never have been prosecuted.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. What I'm finding interesting is that nobody says what she is supposed

to have told the alleged followers.

"Your boss says to go bomb something"?

[geek tragedy]

51. She told them that he was withdrawing his support of a cease-fire.

You're smart--you know what it means when a terrorist leader tells his followers that he no longer supports a cease-fire they've been observing.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

54. And the consequences have been...

...?????

[geek tragedy]

56. Hard to tell. There's been terrorism in Egyptian tourist areas

since then, but there's no way to tell if it was because of the message or not. It was a few years afterwards, so very possibly not.

Had their been a terrorist attack traceable to that communication, she very likely would have been charged with murder under an accomplice theory.

However, it bears stressing that something can be a crime without anyone dying from it.

[ShortnFiery]

57. We Know your M.O. geek tragedy

I was exactly like you ... law and order and hang em' high type in my early 20s. Since then I have seen the issues as MUCH MORE COMPLEX.

You are failing to hold the TRUE International Terrorists accountable. And simply stated, you are behaving like a hypocrite. If it wasn't for the 1984 logic of Bush World fear-mongering we would NOT have had Guantanamo or Secret Prisons to begin with. All this "so called" (you really do trust the PsyOps disinformation as FACT far too much) terrorist enabler is actually one brave old woman who had the Courage, like her Navy LT Commander counterpart (who BTW was passed over for promotion) to DARE to defend what ONLY our "Dear Leaders" insist are the EVIL-Doers, the unclean, the untouchables.

Consider for a moment that many of these men were swept up in this detention are are as INNOCENT as the THEN, savage Black Man who was charged with raping Mae Ella. :grr:

These lawyers who are BRAVE enough and LOVE THIS COUNTRY so much that they want fair representation for ALL ... like America is Supposed to Stand For ... are HEROES in my eyes. They are the only decent people who know that they hold back the BushWorld Lynch Mobs.



I don't know if is that you are young or that you just merely ADORE Authority and the rule of black and white LAW, but all those who wish for this elderly woman with cancer to be punished while the TRULY evil rulers of our country continue to torture people in secret prisons ... well that is just sick and not at all what I would expect from my fellow freedom and liberty loving Americans.

NO JUSTICE HERE! :grr:

Is it fascism yet? Heil Guantanamo, Torture, Secret Detainments and world wide secret prisons to spirit off "the terrorists." Little do many Authoritarian and Rule of Law (or else!) people don't realize is that soon YOU TOO could be spirited off in the dead of night never to be heard from again. :scared: Just take ONE MOMENT to think about it ... BushWorld is Orwell's 1984. :scared:

[geek tragedy]

58. Good luck. eom

[ShortnFiery]

60. No, my dear man or woman, you are the one who needs LUCK

if you hold to this philosophy. I have friends in countries overseas and if things get too bad, I will not hesitate to move my family there.

But if you don't have a back up plan, then may God Bless you and keep you and yours safe. :hi:

The rest of us must fight the "law and order" or else people. Those who love authority may be the future BushWorld SS and/or Gestapo. We must never lose faith and stand up to them at every opportunity. Never let those who wish for retribution above all else beat you down. :patriot:

If The Democrats are blessed enough to win The House then we MUST investigate and work like hell to have our representatives rescind the "Torture and Secret Detainments Bill." :thumbsup:

[Lurking Dem]

59. You do realize

the man she was defending was convicted during the Clinton era, right.

[ShortnFiery]

61. I'm not talking about HER specifically ... I'm addressing the Lynch Mob

mentality. However, there are NUMEROUS other men being held in Guantanamo and Secret Prisons who are INNOCENT.

How does that make you feel? How do you feel as an American that we torture innocent people? As Americans, we should NOT wish torture on any other human, but torturing INNOCENTS?

How does torturing INNOCENT PEOPLE make you feel as an American?

Bush wants them to attack us again. Can't you see this?

BushWorld is doing everything possible to MAKE the entire World Community LOATH America. :(

[Lurking Dem]

62. Wow.

And here I thought we were discussing the OP.

My mistake.

[ShortnFiery]

63. You're forgiven - we all make mistakes

However, I won't push for a prison sentence ... I'm sort of bleeding-heart that way. :P

[sui generis]

64. wasn't a certain chaplain convicted of smuggling Korans into Gitmo?

wonder why he isn't swinging from a long rope, or more to the point, why there aren't more righteous punishment-ho DU'ers calling for his execution?

[Lurking Dem]

65. First of all

I said in another post which got deleted that she should not have been charged with terrorism but with depraved indifference.

Secondly, who here is calling for this woman's execution? Who?

She signed an agreement with her client. She broke that agreement and admitted to breaking it. The Clinton appointed judge cited her many good works by providing legal services to the indigent and to people like Abdel-Rahman who found it difficult to get counsel. And he gave her a light sentence.

How the fuck that makes me a "righteous punishment ho" is beyond me.

[sui generis]

67. rofl

sorry, I was being hyperbolic and I meant punishment-ho like gung-ho, not like do tha nasty ho.

:rofl:

I think the "punishment" could have been more constructive and taken in more context than the absurd statement made by the absurd prosecutor, which was "this is one of the great victories in the war on terror".

Was not trying to personally assault you, but can appreciate the passion in your reply.

[Lurking Dem]

69. Thank you.

I AM a punishment ho, truth be told, but this isn't the board for that. :P

[Jim Stark]

99. huh? no need to smuggle them

they are GIVEN Korans and furthermore the guards at Gitmo handle them in surgical gloves so not to offend them.

[NoSheep]

94. Amen. Great post.

[ShortnFiery]

53. Never before have I felt such deep sorrow ...

Yes, if a few more "Good Americans" don't wake the FUCK-UP to this manufactured fear-mongering, we are, as we bluntly say in The Army, "In a world of shit!"

Dammit, dear people! Wake-up from these delusional fears of a terrorist under ever bed and become the humane and liberty loving people that originally made America the Greatest Country in the World.

What the hell's the matter here save for FEAR ITSELF. :grr: :(

We are being ruled by a clutch of sociopathic thugs. The figurehead is so half-witted he is the brunt of many jokes around the world. We must rid ourselves of these evil warmongers!

[Name removed]

55. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sui generis]

91. hey hey hey!

you know who finally put me on the Big Ig. Wow, yeah, I now have that person's M.O. too.

but anyway, holey moley! jeebus that was annoying. I wonder if people who are so willing to railroad "terrorists" are really all that unhappy themselves with the loss of habeas. I wonder why they post here; deep in The Hive, far far away from their own kind in The Pleasure Pits of Misogynistic Punishment. Why do I now see that it's possible a self-proclaimed progressive lit Jean D'Arc's pyre?

Sigh. It shouldn't be this hard to be a progressive.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2564593&mesg_id=2568249

[OutNow]

71. Next Time You Need a Lawyer - That's The Point

Way back in the 1970s I and 4 of my friends were busted for protesting the FBI's illegal practices of spying on people in the peace movement and civil rights struggle. We were handing out leaflets at an appearance of the head of the FBI at a college campus. Among the reasons given for our arrest is that we might have links to terrorists (does this sound familiar yet?). The "link" was that we knew the father of one of the people in the SLA Patty Hearst deal. We never knew the actual terrorist (if you consider the SLA a terrorist organization - I'll leave that discussion for another time) and never came with a million miles of doing anything you might classify as terrorism, unless you consider handing out leaflets at a meeting where the head of the FBI was speaking as a terrorist act.

A very courageous lawyer took our case pro bono and fought for 4 years, after we were convicted twice and lost our appeal at the Superior Court level. Our conviction was finally overturned by the state Supreme Court, in a strongly worded opinion that was very critical of the FBI and the local cops. Our lawyer, and another lawyer who was actually a prosecutor for the county but had urged that our charges should be dropped, had been "warned" that they should not get involved with terrorists because, well you know........ career, etc. etc.

This is what I think about when I saw Lynn Stewart's sentence. The next time you or I (and don't think it can't happen to you too) need a lawyer to fight injustice, every lawyer will consider that taking a controversial case, defending a "terrorist" can impact both their career; and their freedom.

This is one more step toward fascism.

[geek tragedy]

72. So, unethical and illegal behavior by defense lawyers should

go unpunished?

[OutNow]

75. Defense Lawyer Punishment

I think an appropriate punishment for Lynne Stewart would be a censure by the Bar Association and a short disbarment, maybe 2 years. Several prominent lawyers testified at the trial that they had all done things that Stewart was charged with and never been charged with a crime.

The government's prosecution, as you might guess given Bush's approval of torture, detention without charge, etc. was way overboard. They even played a video of 9/11 and the towers coming down in a blatant attempt to inflame the emotions of the jury. The trial, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11 and everything to do with eroding the rights of citizens. Maybe you've never done anything controversial like hand out leaflets. Maybe you've never been smeared as a terrorist with no facts to support the claim. Maybe you'll never need a lawyer to aggressively defend you. As for me, I've just printed out the form to send a donation to the Lynne Stewart Defense Fund. Because, as I'm sure you agree, everyone is guaranteed to a vigorous defense.

[geek tragedy]

78. Everyone is entitled to a vigorous defense. However, as a

practicing attorney, I also believe strongly that the consequences for blatantly unethical conduct by attorneys should be especially strong.

Of course people accused of terrorism should get a zealous defense--I wouldn't have it any other way. But what Lynne Stewart (and let's not forget Sattar the paralegal here) did was an attack on the idea that our courts and justice system can adequately deal with convicted terrorists.

Lawyers are citizens and officers of the court. There is nothing immoral or unethical for a lawyer to be zealous in representing the legal interests of an unpopular defendant like Rahman. But, when they cross the line and become an accomplice to a dangerous terrorist instead of an advocate, there should be severe consequences.

I'm not a fan of lawyers being tried for representing their clients (obviously), but I'm even less of a fan of lawyers who behave unethically and illegally in the service of despicable clients.

Was the 30 years overboard? Yes. It was probably an abuse of prosecutorial discretion. But, 28 months isn't out of line.

[OutNow]

82. "Accomplice to a dangerous terrorist" or hero?

If Stewart was actually an accomplice to a dangerous terrorist, as you stated, then it would be highly unlikely that the judge would grant her bail until her appeal is heard. More likely she was a lawyer who stepped over the line on adhering to the Special Administrative Measures.

I believe that every citizen, including lawyers, has to decide how long to follow "the rule of law" when the creator of the law is corrupt or dictatorial. The SAMs are such a case.

When William Kunstler protested the chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale at the Chicago 8 trial he was found in contempt and threatened with disbarment. Was Kunstler a hero or someone who should face "severe consequences"? I say HERO.

In the 1950s and 60s lawyers defending civil rights and voting rights cases were often thrown in jail along with their defendants. They were, without a doubt, in violation of the law as defined and enforced in Jim Crow courts. Heros or more lawyers that must face "severe consequences"? I say HERO.

At what point must a lawyer continue to defer to "the rule of law"? Of course we know Gandhi was first and foremost a lawyer and when the rule of law was untenable, either the apartheid rule of law in South Africa, or the British occupation rule of law in India, he became a violator of such law and was imprisoned many times. Another lawyer that should face "severe consequences"?

We now live in a country of creeping fascism. We all, lawyers included, will have to determine how long we can adhere to the rule of law as defined by the Bush crime family. Lynne Stewart is following a powerful tradition and I support her in her efforts.

[geek tragedy]

83. If she thought the SAM's were unconstitutional, she had

every opportunity to challenge them in court. Instead she chose to deceive, lie, and cheat.

And, cry me a river for a terrorist leader not being allowed to communicate with his followers. The alternative is a swift execution.

To compare preventing a terrorist leader from communicating with his followers (which was CLEARLY what Sattar was trying to facilitate) with apartheid is obscenely stupid.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

77. Stop chest-beating and tell us WHAT INFO WAS PROVIDED, please?

[The Animator]

85. This could have been a major opportunity.

If she had gone to the authorities and told them that he wanted her to smuggle messages to his followers, they could have screened them, and altered them if necessary. Imagine his followers receiving regular messages from a radical cleric that gradually began to tone down his message? This would be a psyops operation surely, but imagine the impact. If it would be possible, to convincingly portray a religious leader, through words, who, having alot of time on his hands, begins to take a long hard look at the violence he has caused. Imagine his followers, hungry for words from him, recieving a gradually less intolerant message, like overtime he is mellowing out. This would either force those followers to seek radical religious council elsewhere, or they would begin to consider a life of peace.

[ShortnFiery]

86. You forget that they PURGED most of the competent covert operators within

the CIA and The Military Intelligence IMO has NOT been all that competent with sting operations.

Thanks to the Goss CIA Purge, the influx of political cronies in many high level Intelligence Positions, they (The USA Covert Ops) seemingly can't grab their ass with both hands.

They suck! :puke:

[Name removed]

89. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dailykoff]

96. Another middle-aged Mrs Stewart is thrown in the slammer

by the heroic GOP, and the Homeland is safe once again.

[Jim Stark]

100. geek tragedy,

I agree with you 100% execept for her sentencing. It should have been longer.