MPAC Shows Yet Again It Would Rather Impede Anti-Terror Efforts Than To Help Them

From Jihad Watch:

MPAC shows yet again that it would rather impede anti-terror efforts than help them


In July 2005, I wrote this about MPAC's "National Anti-Terrorism Campaign": "the concern here seems to be less on rooting out jihadists from within American Muslim communities than on protecting Muslims from uncomfortable attention from law enforcement."



And here we are again. "MPAC's One-Way Street on Cooperation," from IPT News, September 30:



By denouncing an investigation aimed at uncovering a possible U.S. support network for terrorist organizations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) shows again it would prefer to impede law enforcement than help it.

Last Friday, FBI agents carried out raids in Chicago and Minneapolis to discover evidence of support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), both designated terrorist organizations. Speaking about the raids, Steve Warfield, an FBI spokesman in Minneapolis said:



"the warrants are seeking evidence in support of an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism."

MPAC, however, joined other organizations in criticizing the searches as "fishing expeditions." In its press release, MPAC argued:



"squelching healthy and necessary discourse on public policy concerns sends one loud and clear message: The U.S. government has no regard for nonviolent work. Unless there is clear and convincing evidence that these activists were planning terrorist operations, then the justification of the raids is absurd."

Such arguments reveal that MPAC either doesn't understand what activity is proscribed under U.S. law, or simply doesn't care. The government doesn't need to show that these so-called "anti-war activists" were "planning terrorist operations," in order to prosecute them. It is a crime for any person to provide "material support or resources" to a designated FTO. Proscribed support includes:



"any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instrument or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials)."

There is more.

Posted by Robert on September 30, 2010 1:39 PM