Convicted for words, not deeds

Verdict on Massachusetts Muslim marks further erosion of fundamental U.S. rights
BY PATRICK TRACEY
Salon.com
Dec. 21, 2011

BOSTON — Call it "the week that was" when it comes to shredding the Constitution. First the Senate passes a rider to the defense bill that would make it legal for the military to arrest American citizens anywhere in the world, including U.S. soil, at the whim of the executive branch -- this or any future executive branch.

Then comes the conviction yesterday of a Massachusetts man for viewing and translating jihadi videos online. The eight-week trial featured starkly contrasting portrayals of the bearded Muslim, Tarek Mehanna, a Sudbury, Mass., fundamentalist who traveled to Yemen and has made no secret of his contempt for U.S. foreign policy.

His Boston legal team haloed him as a kind and loving man, if an angry and opinionated intellectual type. They argued he was being persecuted for his disapproval of U.S. foreign policy. The government countered with the belief that Mehanna was just the sort of hater who'd take glee in seeing Americans getting gunned down in bloody shopping malls.

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