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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Law Put to Unusual Use in Hezbollah TV Case, Some Legal Experts Say Federal prosecutors who charged a man on Thursday with providing Hezbollah television access in New York made unusual use of a law more often employed to bar financial contributions to terrorist groups, legal experts said yesterday. The broadly defined statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, is also used frequently to block the importation of goods and services that would directly support terrorist operations. The law, which went into effect in 1977, was meant to put legal teeth in international trade embargoes with other nations, but once it was amended by the Patriot Act after 9/11, the government began to use it far more frequently against particular groups and individuals. The use of the law, however, to focus on television broadcasts seemed to fall under an exemption laid out in a 1988 amendment to the act, several experts said, and it raised concerns among civil libertarians and some constitutional scholars about limiting the free marketplace of ideas. The exemption covers publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact discs, CD-ROM’s, art works and newswire feeds. “One person’s news is another’s propaganda,” said Rod Smolla, the dean of the University of Richmond Law School and a First Amendment expert. “It runs counter to all of our First Amendment traditions to ban the free flow of news and information across borders, yet at the same time all nations have historically reserved the right to ban the importation of propaganda from a hostile nation.” Professor Smolla also said that so far as he knew, this was the first use of the law to block information, as such. The defendant, Javed Iqbal, a Pakistani who, according to his lawyer, has been in this country for more than 20 years, was charged with conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, by offering to provide the Hezbollah station, Al Manar, to a confidential informant. Al Manar — the Beacon, in Arabic — was designated a global terrorist entity by the Treasury Department in March; Hezbollah itself was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997. Bail for Mr. Iqbal was set at $250,000 on Thursday by Gabriel W. Gorenstein, a federal magistrate judge, and Mr. Iqbal’s lawyer, Mustapha Ndanusa, said he hoped to post a bond on Monday. A spokeswoman for Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan whose office filed the case, declined to comment yesterday. A Justice Department official in Washington could not provide figures for the number of cases brought under the law nor say whether any others had focused on the dissemination of satellite broadcasts or information. The official did not disagree with a characterization of the use of the law in this case as unusual. Critics took a far harsher view. David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who frequently criticizes the Justice Department and is challenging several aspects of the act in federal court in California, said the case against Mr. Iqbal combined what he called tactics of the McCarthy era — punishment of speech, and guilt by association. “Mr. Iqbal is being penalized for doing nothing more than facilitating speech, and is being punished not because the speech itself is harmful, but because it is associated with Hezbollah,” he said. Prosecutors have suggested that they may file more serious charges of material support for terrorism; it is not known whether they have more damaging evidence against Mr. Iqbal that they have not disclosed. Mr. Iqbal’s lawyer seemed dismissive of the charges, nonetheless. “I’m not even sure really how to characterize the case,” he said. “I was a little bit dumbfounded just reading the complaint itself.” The investigation into the case began in February when a confidential informant told the authorities that Mr. Iqbal was selling access to Al Manar, before the station was designated as a terrorist entity, according to court papers. Yesterday, the Staten Island home where Mr. Iqbal lives with his wife and four children — with eight satellite dishes in the backyard — was quiet, and neighbors had little to say about the entrepreneur. But a lawyer for a former business associate of Mr. Iqbal was less taciturn. That lawyer, Cary Sternback, represents E2V Technology, which he said is suing Mr. Iqbal and his firm charging that they failed to pay for $30,000 worth of satellite equipment, which “mysteriously ended up attached to his satellite transmitter,” an accusation Mr. Iqbal’s lawyer denied. Mr. Sternback said, “My take on him is he’s not a terrorist, he’s an opportunist.”
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#1. To: Eoghan (#0)
Mr. Sternback said, “My take on him is he’s not a terrorist, he’s an opportunist.” Should be an interesting case - if it ever makes it to trial.
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