Judge Backs U.S. on Warrantless Assets Seizure

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1020-2002Aug9.html

4th Ammendment - GONE.
Heabeus Corpus ("show me the corpse") - GONE.
Due process - GONE.

The era of Constitutional government in America is over. Washington is out of control, and law enforcement across the country are goose-stepping in time with King George.

Your non-violent protests have accomplished only one thing: to hide your cowardice and apathy while keeping you out of harm's way.

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A federal judge in Washington has handed the Bush administration a victory in the war on terrorism, ruling that the Treasury Department acted reasonably and legally when it seized the assets of the nation's largest Muslim charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, last December.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled Thursday that voluminous government evidence supports U.S. officials' two main contentions in the case: that the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation (HLF) is not only a front for Hamas, which sponsors suicide bombings of Israeli civilians, but is itself a terrorist group.

"The seven-volume, 3,130-page administrative record in this case provides substantial support for [Treasury's] determination that HLF acts for or on behalf of Hamas," Kessler wrote in her 58-page decision. Kessler also denied a request by the charity that the government allow it to reopen.

Lawyers for the group, which had about $5 million seized when its Richardson, Tex., offices were raided and padlocked in December, said Kessler was wrong not to hold a hearing that would have allowed Holy Land to respond to Treasury's charges.

"If the government is going to seize an organization's assets, take all their property, block all their funds and designate them as an international terrorist group, well, is that organization ever entitled to a meaningful opportunity to contest the charge?" asked John Boyd, a New Mexico attorney for Holy Land. "We think they should have that right."

Boyd said the charity would appeal Kessler's ruling in part on the basis that its constitutional rights to free speech and religious activity were infringed.

Kessler did raise questions about the fact that agents had not secured a search warrant before raiding the group's offices. Officials asserted that they did not need a warrant, contending that their search was inherently legal based on their underlying power to seize the assets.

Kessler wrote that the government's rationale was "unpersuasive." But she also suggested that questions such as which legal rationale officials cited in performing the search are less important than the case's national security implications.

"The government and the public have a strong interest in curbing the escalating violence in the Middle East and its effects on the security of the United States, and the world as a whole," she wrote. "The injury to the government and the public interest weigh against granting the preliminary injunction" sought by Holy Land.
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