FC: John Gilmore, Steve McGeady on Mike Hawash, still in prison

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
"Weekly column on Mike Hawash: Guilty until proven innocent"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04650.html

---

To: declan () well com
cc: politech () politechbot com, mcg () mcgeady com
Subject: Re: FC: Mike Hawash: Guilty until proven innocent
In-reply-to: <5.1.1.6.0.20030414121112.016a0f28 () mail well com>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 11:23:48 -0700
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>

I'm glad to see that a nice tech guy from Texas and Oregon, who's
worked for Intel and written books, can still stir up a bit of public
interest and press coverage, when he's tossed into an American prison
for months without access to the public, family, or lawyers.

  What about the hundreds of folks still imprisoned in Guantanamo?

  What about the hundreds of folks still imprisoned from post-9/11 sweeps?

Those people aren't newsworthy.  They didn't go to the right colleges,
or work with anybody interesting or powerful.

The Bush Administration is losing just about every case on these
people too (*), but they keep appealing them higher, and so far the judges
at each level have not insisted on honoring the rights of the accused
"while awaiting further deliberations".

Congress has been totally useless at safeguarding the public -- and why
should they care what the public thinks?  They've rigged the system so that
their re-election rate is better than the Central Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party.  My own Rep (Pelosi) keeps voting for war, secure in
the knowledge that nobody can successfully run against her, despite her
district being strongly anti-war.  She knows her bread is buttered on the
side of making the Demmicans provide no alternative to the terrible
policies of the Republicrats.  It's a cozy dupoly.

What was news in Mike Hawash's case is that an honest judge had the
courage to say that they had better release the guy "in a month" or
else.  I think that judge had better order his immediate release, or
the Just-Us Department will have time to run to Mommy, get a stay from
some less-honest court, and spend another year arguing about whether
this citizen has any rights.  While he sits in prison, not accused of
any crime, merely one drop in the bucket of 500,000 political
prisoners in the United States.

        John Gilmore

(*) Actually, the Guantanamo prisoners are losing their cases.
According to the courts, the US can do anything it wants to you,
violate whatever rights your own country guaranteed you as well as any
rights that the US constitutional 'guarantees' -- as long as it does it
offshore.  Wake up, Americans, you're living in a police state.

---

Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 12:01:53 -0700
To: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>
From: "S. McGeady" <mcg () mcgeady com>
Subject: Re: FC: Mike Hawash: Guilty until proven innocent
Cc: declan () well com, politech () politechbot com
In-Reply-To: <200304141823.h3EINmAo008125 () new toad com>

John - You are entirely right in highlighting the massive and widespread 
denial of rights.  I am fortunate that my own U.S. Rep (Earl Blumenauer) is 
doing the right thing, voting against everything, but my Dem. Senator Wyden 
is not, though I think we have focused this issue for him.

I will write more later, but this is the draft of a short speech I made at 
the Portland Peace Rally on Saturday.

Thank you for taking time on this.

mcg



> Portland Peace Rally - April 12, 2003
>
> Do not believe those who say that this Nation is no longer at war.  Let no 
> one tell you that the War is over.  Whether or not a battle has been won 
> or a military action completed, even when our troops are brought home, let 
> there be no doubt that we are engaged in a War for the most basic freedoms 
> and ideals that we cherish as a Nation.
>
> The perpetrators of this War are not hiding in deserts far away.  The 
> perpetrators of this War are in plain sight, at the highest levels of our 
> government.  John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, and George Bush are waging a War 
> on every American's rights and freedoms.  John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, and 
> George Bush want to strip you of your rights of speech, assembly, and due 
> process of law.
>
> My friend Mike Hawash is a prisoner in this war.  Over 3 weeks ago, my 
> friend Mike Hawash was taken away by two dozen black-clad federal 
> agents.  He is being held in solitary confinement in Federal Prison 
> despite the fact that he is charged with no crime.  For three weeks my 
> friend Mike Hawash has woken up in a 6x9 foot prison cell, not knowing why 
> he is there, separated from his terrified wife and children.  And for 
> three weeks the Justice Department has refused to say why he is in Federal 
> Prison.
>
> For three weeks Mike Hawash has been the victim of a new kind of secret 
> imprisonment designed to frighten and coerce the Arab-American community, 
> and to frighten and coerce all of us.  And if John Ashcroft can secretly 
> imprison my friend --  a University of Texas graduate, a U.S. citizen for 
> 15 years, a 20-year U.S. resident, a husband and father of three -- then 
> Ashcroft can imprison any one of us.
>
> Because after they round up the Arab-Americans, who will they come for 
> next?  They will come for you and me!
>
> If they can hold Mike Hawash in jail without charge or trial, if they can 
> deprive him of his most basic rights and freedoms, then any one of us may 
> be the next prisoners in John Ashcroft's war on our Constitution.
>
> Consider the government's attempts to make this protest illegal.  Consider 
> the government's attempts to silence our voices.  They call us 
> un-American.  They call us un-patriotic.  But Thomas Jefferson said that 
> "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
>
> It is you who are the patriots.  It is our voices that can shout down John 
> Ashcroft's secret justice.  It is you whose voices and whose protests can 
> free men like Mike Hawash.  Mike Hawash must spend another two weeks or 
> more in prison.  But I ask every one of you, I ask everyone who cares 
> about the freedoms on which this country was founded to join Mike's 
> friends on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse on April 29.
>
> I ask each of you to tell John Ashcroft and George Bush that we will not 
> stand for their assault on our liberties.
>
> Join us on April 29 to tell John Ashcroft and George Bush to stop their 
> War on America, and Free Mike Hawash.




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