Maybe some of y'all from the right will see the light when our civil liberties have been abridged to the extent that we are no longer living in a free society.

BTW, I'm as worried about a dirty bomb as the next guy.

That's why I'd like to see a program where we effecively control our borders and inspect more than the 5% or so of what comes into this country on container ships and the like.

Now that would go a long way towards helping to wage an effective war against terror.

As far as this particular case goes, I must confess to my unfamiliarity with it, so I did a little reading about it this morning.

By no means am I familiar with all of it, but as near as I can tell, this Al Arian guy - a college professor - contributed money to the political arm of an organization which is pro-Palistinian and anti-Israeli and also has a "militiant" arm as well which preaches Jihad.

He has also made some rather inflamatory statements in the past about the Arab-Israeli conflict

The case ssems to raise some serious questions about freedom of speech and one's right to support unpopular political causes.

What seems to be in doubt is whether or not he was contributing to terrorism.

I must say, though, that given the current climate of fear and anti-terrorism in this country today, the government must have had a horribly weak case if they were uanbale to convict the man of what he was chrged with.

I would also ask all of those who were so quick to condemn or defend him in this thread how much they really know about the case in the first place.