Patriot Act Used In 16-Year-Old Deportation Case

[IndianaGreen]

Patriot Act Used In 16-Year-Old Deportation Case
Administration Revives 1987 Effort
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page A03

The Bush administration has decided to pursue a 16-year-old effort to deport two Palestinian activists who as students distributed magazines and raised funds for a group the government now considers a terrorist organization, despite several court rulings that the deportations are unconstitutional because the men were not involved in terrorist activity.

The case, which has long had a high profile among Palestinian Americans, could pose a new judicial test of a controversial provision in the Patriot Act, passed in 2001. The provision prohibits supplying material support for organizations the government deems "terrorist," even without evidence of a link to specific terrorist acts.

At the time of their initial arrests in 1987, the activists, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, were allegedly affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist group that has advocated an independent Palestinian state and has been involved in various acts of terrorism.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49517-2003Sep22.html

[eyesroll]

1. So now the Patriot Act is ex-post-facto?

Why does this surprise me at all?

[htuttle]

2. Ex-post-facto? Hell, they don't even need a reason

No judge, no jury, no process except for whatever mood John Ashcroft happens to be in that day.

Heck, they've been picking people up for what they think they will do in the future, much less things they'd done in the past.

[izzie]

3. Well have you ever seen what a 16 year old can do to his bedroom?

Ashcroft must be on the look out for that destructuon

[Enraged_Ape]

4. Well, hell, the Patriot Act's not Constitutional anyway...

so why should they care whether it's ex-post-facto or not?