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News :: Right Wing |
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Conservative Busted By FBI For Faking Green Connection To 'Terrorism' |
Current rating: 0 |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
08 Sep 2002
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In the interests of full disclosure, more background on a case that is getting limited coverage in the dominant media. |
Reports in this week's CU Cityview and in today's (Sept. 7, 2002) News-Gazette indicate that a local man, 21-year old Max Weissberg of Champaign, was indicted this week on a federal charge of sending a threatening communication. What is left unclear is the apparent motivation for Weissberg's alleged threat. Weissberg appeared in federal court in Urbana on Friday, August 30, following his arrest on August 26. He was released on bond, ordered to have no access to the Internet and then was allowed to travel to Oregon to attend college, pending further court action on his case.
The incident that led to Weissberg's arrest, and a FBI raid on his mother's Mahomet home where a computer was seized that was used in the commission of the e-mail threat, began when the editors of the CU Cityview received a threatening e-mail in the supposed name of 'terrorists' in opposition to the Cityview's recent decision to suspend Carl Estabrook's column until after this November's election. Estabrook is running on the Green Party ticket for the Congress seat currently held by Republican Tim Johnson.
The threat mentioned blowing up busses and implied that, unless Estabrook's column was immediately restored to the Cityview, such action would be taken by the fictional group in support of the Green Party's campaign at some unspecified date and location. The clear implication behind the threat was that 'terrorists' were working in support of Estabrook's campaign.
The FBI was then called in by the Cityview editors to investigate this threatening communication. The FBI tracked the source of the message to the computer in Mahomet, which was seized after a warrant was issued authorizing a raid on the house of Weissberg's mother.
Left unmentioned by both the News-Gazette and the Cityview articles on the arrest was Weissberg's apparent motivation. He has been a regular writer of letters to the editor in the Cityview, hotly disagreeing with Estabrook's stance on the Middle East, in particular the situation that exists in the struggle for a Palestinian state and the current Israeli government's brutal suppression of this desire. It seems that Weissberg, like pResident Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, has a myopic view of why opposition exists to brutal policies of oppression and hoped to connect all resistance to such policies to a vast international 'terrorist' conspiracy.
Weissberg apparently chose to imply that the 'terrorist' group who he sent the threatening message in the name of was of Arab or other Middle Eastern origin in the hopes that the faked threat would draw an FBI crackdown on local Muslims, in addition to smearing the Estabrook campiagn by associating it with 'terrorism'. The message was sent in name of the non-existent "Mohammed Arkady, Al-Aman Martyrs Brigade."
This incident follows other recent attempts to smear local activists by associating them with unpalatable groups or messages. University of Illinois Law Professor Francis Boyle, a well-known international law expert and supporter of a Palestinian homeland, was the subject of a fake e-mail campaign earlier this summer. This was apparently done as part of a wider campaign of disinformation against supporters of the Palestinian cause that is said to have been traced to Israeli computer hackers. The Urbana-Champaign IMC site, like much of the rest of the IMC network, has been bombarded by supposed pro-Palestinian posts that have a distinctive white supremacist message in an apparent attempt to smear opponents of Israeli policy by falsely associating supporters of Palestine with neo-Nazi ideas and viewpoints.
The next court date for Weissberg was not mentioned in other coverage of this incident. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, if convicted of the charge. |
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Thanks For The Rest Of The Story |
by Meg Miner
blue2 (nospam) net66.com (verified) |
Current rating: 0
08 Sep 2002
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Thanks for adding to the printed version of the story. Please post again if you find out more on the case. |
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Question |
by michael-john voss
voss1 (nospam) uiuc.edu (unverified) |
Current rating: 3
15 Sep 2002
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interesting report. is there public documentation for this case, [ie, arrest record] as well as the Boyle case.
just interested in finding out more.
will c-u publish the email sent to them? |
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What May Be Available |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Sep 2002
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I assume that the federal court may have the arrest records available, unless this sort of stuff falls under the draconian terrorism statutes enacted in the wake of 911.
The Boyle case, along with other associated "false flag" e-mailing this summer, was documented in several posts on the IMC network (but strangely enough, not here.) I know that the reports originated in the dominant media, so you might try Google or some other search to find them.
If someone does a story, then IMC will publish it. I have other pressing matters, but I know that we'll be updating the story for publication in the next Public i. As always at IMC, our readers are invited to do their own reporting, so if you'd like to follow the leads given here, you are welcome to post a follow-up. |
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What May Be Available |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Sep 2002
|
I assume that the federal court may have the arrest records available, unless this sort of stuff falls under the draconian terrorism statutes enacted in the wake of 911.
The Boyle case, along with other associated "false flag" e-mailing this summer, was documented in several posts on the IMC network (but strangely enough, not here.) I know that the reports originated in the dominant media, so you might try Google or some other search to find them.
If someone does a story, then IMC will publish it. I have other pressing matters, but I know that we'll be updating the story for publication in the next Public i. As always at IMC, our readers are invited to do their own reporting, so if you'd like to follow the leads given here, you are welcome to post a follow-up. |
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Re: Conservative Busted By FBI For Faking Green Connection To 'Terrorism' |
by asdf
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
05 May 2005
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yup, desperation because they know that we are not going away and that we will continue to gain momentum, especially in light of the fact that the truth of 9-11 is finally coming to the surface, with David Ray Griffin's findings. |
