Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
When, on the following list, does a person become guilty of a crime?
(1) Saying you are in favor of bank robbery.
(2) Cheering when someone else robs a bank.
(3) Raising money to help the poor families of bank robbers.
(4) Hanging out with bank robbers, who send you faxes and e-mails to keep you in the loop about their jobs.
(5) Raising money for the families of bank robbers, with the stated goal of encouraging more people to rob banks.
(6) Raising money to pay people directly to rob banks.
On this unofficial scale, my definition of "crime" starts to kick in somewhere just past (4). If you hang out with the bad guys long enough, people are going to start asking whether you are helping them.
As you probably realize by now, the topic is not bank robbery, but terrorism.
A federal jury in Tampa now has the question of whether Sami Al-Arian, the former professor at the University of South Florida, and his three co-defendants crossed the line in their support of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
I attended exactly one day of the trial and am not qualified to predict whether the jury will find the case proven or not proven. I admire those reporters from all organizations who have followed this case for months, even years, and tried to sort it out for the rest of us.
By all their accounts, the evidence never proved a direct tie between the money raised by Al-Arian and a specific act of terrorism. We might get as far as (5) on our unofficial scale, but not (6).
As the defense lawyers have pointed out over and over, and as U.S. District Judge James Moody has made clear to the jury, mere speech and association - even the most unpopular - is not a crime.
So while Al-Arian and his associates used a Florida public university for cover, and they hid their true belief from the public, it would have been perfectly legal for them to take out a parade permit and shout it on Main Street.
But they did more than believe. The evidence shows the defendants constantly receiving communications from the Middle East. Faxes and e-mails flew back and forth. News of the latest operations was flashed across the ocean, and celebrated.
And they did even more than that. They raised money, many thousands of dollars, in the name of Islamic charity. They wrangled back and forth for control of some of that money, and they wrangled over the status of the U.S. operation.
The prosecutors describe this as a "cycle of terror." They put it on a chart for the jury: The PIJ commits murder; its supporters celebrate the deed and raise money; the money pays for more terror.
Probably the most damning words in the case come from Al-Arian himself, in a 1995 letter (it is unclear whether it was ever sent), when he asked for money to support the families of dead killers "so that operations such as these could continue."
Still, there is no direct proof that the money raised paid for specific terrorist acts. Defense lawyers pointed out that money could be traced instead to charities and mosques - for "the blind, the needy and the hungry," as one put it.
A lot of attention has been placed on the Al-Arian case, and this verdict will make national news regardless. USF has been blasted for letting itself be played as a patsy. Every word in the local media has been scrutinized and criticized for bias.
But in the trial itself, the United States justice system has protected the rights of the defendants. Moody, the judge, has held the prosecutors to the standard that he should. This is America; you cannot be convicted merely for what you believe.
If Sami Al-Arian is acquitted, it will show that the most powerful nation in the world, barely four years after the most despicable and deadly terrorist attack ever on its own soil, was still capable of reaching such a verdict.
But if he is convicted, it will have occurred in a public trial before a jury of everyday American citizens. He will have the benefit of appeal and his case will continue. That, and not torture or secrecy or skirting the Constitution, is how we prove we are better than our enemies.