McGill scholar’s computer seized by US authorities

A doctoral student whose research focuses on the Shiites of Lebanon had his computer confiscated by the US authorities as he travelled in May 2010 from Montreal to his home in Brooklyn, New York.

Under the new rules, the US authorities are permitted to seize computer and other digital equipment of visitors at any port of entry.

Listen to his story in his own words where he explains how he was detained as he travelled to the US with his mother on the Mothers’ Day.

Note that as of July 2011, more than a year after the event in May 2010, McGill University has no reports listed on its website of the ill-treatment of its student by the US government.

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Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.

Laptop Seizure, Search at Border Challenged by Student’s Suit

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. judge is weighing whether to halt a lawsuit filed by a graduate student whose laptop was seized by customs agents as he crossed the border from Canada and found to contain pictures of rallies by Hamas and Hezbollah.

U.S. District Judge Robert Korman in Brooklyn, New York, yesterday put off ruling on whether to allow the case to go forward. Pascal Abidor, a 27-year-old U.S.-French dual citizen, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeks to force border guards to show a “reasonable suspicion” before searching laptop computers and other devices.

Abidor brought the case against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, Janet Napolitano, in September, saying such seizures violated the constitutional rights to free speech and to protection against improper searches.

“There are lots of burdens people are subject to in order to protect their own security and the security of others,” Korman said at a hearing yesterday. He said people can choose to travel without sensitive information if they fear it will fall into the wrong hands, just as they did 20 years ago before personal computers became commonplace.

“Not everyone has the choice to leave behind confidential information,” said Catherine Crump, a lawyer for the ACLU, citing attorneys and journalists.

More than 6,500 people, around half of them U.S. citizens, had electronic devices searched in a 20-month period starting in October 2008, according to Abidor’s complaint. In an eight-month period, 220 electronic devices were held, lawyers for Abidor said.

Broad Policies

Broad policies grant border guards access to information even if it enjoys medical, legal or journalistic privilege, and those policies don’t set limits on how long authorities can keep electronic devices, the lawyers said.

The U.S. said only one in 90,000 people coming into the country is searched, a necessary practice to detect drugs, child pornography and money laundering. The Supreme Court in 2004 found that the belongings of people entering the U.S. can be searched without “reasonable suspicion, probable cause or warrant,” lawyers for the U.S. wrote in court filings. Electronics such as laptop computers and mobile phones fall under that rule, the U.S. said.

Abidor, an Islamic studies graduate student at McGill University in Montreal, was taken aside by U.S. officials on a train on his way home to Brooklyn in May 2010. Customs agents searching his laptop found images of rallies by Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S State Department.

Doctoral Thesis

The pictures were downloaded from the Internet as part of his research into Shiites in Lebanon, the topic of his doctoral thesis, Abidor said he told the agents. He said he was patted down, handcuffed, taken off the train and held in a cell for three hours before being released without charge.

Abidor said he didn’t get his laptop, with the sole copy of his graduate work, for 11 days. When he did, there was evidence that his files, including research, personal photos and chats with his girlfriend, had been searched, he said.

The lawsuit was also brought on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association, some of whose 7,000 members have been subject to searches and seizures, according to court papers.

The case is Abidor v. Napolitano, 10-cv-04059, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).

The sorry state of affairs in Pakistan

Watch the Al-Jazeera video below, which that shows that even the Archbishop of Lahore is reluctant to opine about how religious minorities in Pakistan are being abused by the legal system.

One by one, they’ll all fall

This is a new age a new era where the super powers are crumbling under their own weight. The network of client states governed by dictators to serve as proxies for the world’s super powers is fast crumbling.

The past six months have been the most empowering for the world’s disenfranchised. Wikileaks and the Palestinian Papers have revealed a mountain of evidence of global deceit against the poor and powerless.

The fire that started in Tunisia is now touching the heart of Arab’s consciousness. Egypt is about to wake up and rise against the dictator whose cursed shadow had rusted every dawn in the past three decades. There will be light and their will be freedom in Egypt. It may not happen tomorrow or next month, but it will happen soon.

The Mubarak regime has been trying to shut down people’s voices and even the Internet. See the graph below that shows how searches for the Facebook declined from within Egypt after the Mubarak regime pulled the plug on the Internet.

However, such tactics are not going to work. In the words of Faiz:

شہر کی فصیل پر دیو کا جو سایہ تھا
خاک ہو گیا آخر
رات کا لبادہ بھی چاک ہو گیا آخر
پاک ہو گیا آخر
اژدہام انسان سے فرد کی نوا آئی
ذات کی صدا آئی
راہ شوق میں جیسے راہ رو کا خون لپکے
اک نیا جنوں لپکے
آدمی ہنسے دیکھو
شہر پھر بسے دیکھو

Iranian government hangs political opponents

From BBC:

Iranian authorities have hanged two men convicted of taking part in protests following the disputed presidential election in 2009.

Iranian prosecutors said Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Hajaghaei had taken photos and footage of the protests and distributed them on the internet.

They were also found guilty of chanting slogans promoting the exiled People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI).

A PMOI leader in France, Maryam Rajavi, described the executions as barbaric.

The People's Mujahideen of Iran is an exiled opposition group which has campaigned against clerical rule in Iran and, before that, the Iranian monarchy.

It is seen by Tehran as a terrorist cell in the pocket of Western security services but is also on Washington's list of proscribed organisations because of its history of violent attacks.

After the presidential election in 2009, the internet - and specifically social networking sites - became a crucial means of mobilising hundreds of thousands of Iranians who disputed the results to protest.

Hundreds of people were arrested after the protests and although most have been released, more than 80 people have been jailed for up to 15 years, and at least four other people convicted of involvement in the demonstrations are reported to be on death row.

Watch Lesley Hazleton speak about Quran

There are millions who talk about Quran. There are perhaps only a few who understand it. I have, since my early childhood, seen no one else explain Quran with such humility and respect.

Lesley Hazleton identifies herself as an agnostic Jew. Her understanding of the Quran appears superior to me than most Muslim clerics I have interacted with in the past three decades.

Watch the video below, you won't regret it.