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Speech on freedom of expression
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Speech
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The appellant, Salim abdul Aziz Rahman, the founder of the group called the Global Islamic Jihad, was convicted under the USA Patriot Act of 2003 for “furthering the aims of known terrorism organizations by advocating the violence of the United States government that is called for by those organizations.” He was tried and convicted by the Federal District Court, and has challenged the constitutionality of this Act on the grounds that it violates his First Amendment right of Freedom of Speech as protected by the United States Constitution.
The United States Patriot Act of 2003 makes it a crime to “further the aims of known terrorist organizations by advocating the violence against the United States government that is called for by those organizations.” This act was formulated and put into effect after the acts of terrorism in September of 2001.
The record shows that a man identified as the appellant, distributed to the inhabitants of his predominantly Middle-Eastern New York City neighborhood, pamphlets stating “the American government is controlled by Zionist agents and is using it’s arrogant power to murder believers around the world.” These pamphlets also contained the sentence “The penalty for murder is death.” These pamphlets were printed and distributed by his organization, Global Islamic Jihad.
At a rally of his organization in April of 2002, Mr. Rahman burned a flag (though protected by Texas v Johnson, 491 US 397, ‘O’Brien 626’), and presented a speech where he called for “death to any country that supports Zionist aggression against true believers” as well as cataloging “American crimes against humanity.”
In a speech on the day of his arrest in this same Middle-Eastern neighborhood, the appellant catalogued “America’s crimes against humanity and the believers,” as well as declaring “We must not sit by idle. We must stand up with all of our strength with our brothers and sisters who struggle against the Zionists and against those who help them with money and weapons. The treacherous Jews and Crusaders must go down. Jihad knows no boundaries and no limitations on its means.”
Through legal FBI wiretaps, it was found that Mr. Rahman was in direct contact with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political group both in the United States and abroad. Previously an Egyptian terrorist group whom publicly renounced violence, this group now claims to advocate a “peaceful transition to a worldwide Islamic state.”
However, this group often conveys ideas by known terrorist organizations that it calls “brothers in the great cause.
terrorist acts of a more homegrown variety. Stern interviews American terrorists here in the United
Pement, Eric. “Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam: Part Two.” Cornerstone. 1997, vol. 26, issue 112, p. 32-36, 38. < http://answering-islam.org.uk/NoI/>.
Through the passing of the USA PATRIOT Act, the government can now search a “suspected” terrorist’s property without their knowledge and even without a warrant. Although this could be a well-needed exception to warrants, as it is the same way drug dealers and organized crime offenders have been investigated, identifying a “suspected” terrorist is not nearly as easy as an active criminal. As shown by the events of September 11, the terrorists that hijacked the planes were part of a “sleeper cell” which stays dormant until tipped off by somebody above them in the organization....
Morrison, Patt. “Terrorists or Saviors?” LA Times 16 June 1991: n. pag. LA Times. Web. 18 May 2011. .
For a second, the U.S. stood still. Looking up at the towers, one can only imagine the calm before the storm in the moment when thousands of pounds of steel went hurdling into its once smooth, glassy frame. People ran around screaming and rubble fell as the massive metal structure folded in on itself like an accordion. Wounded and limping from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, America carried on, not without anger and fear against a group of innocent Americans, Muslim Americans. Nietzsche’s error of imaginary cause is present in the treatment of Muslim Americans since 9/11 through prejudice in the media, disregard of Muslim civil liberties, racial profiling, violence, disrespect, and the lack of truthful public information about Islam. In this case, the imaginary cause against Muslims is terrorism. The wound has healed in the heart of the U.S. but the aching throb of terrorism continues to distress citizens every day.
“Many people who were detained on suspicion of their connection to al Qaeda or other anti-American terrorists groups were innocent.” (Belanger, Newton 2). The patriot act weakens the right from protection of unreasonable searches the searches may be racist based on the person’s image. The people who were suspects of terrorism were accused of wrong doing. They had their civil rights taken away and they turned out to be innocent. It is not fair for people getting accused because they look a certain way....
In 2001, the United States fell victim to a multitude of tragedies. The most unforgettable, of course, being the terrorist attack on September 11th. Following the threat, Congress knew something had to be done to strengthen security controls. On October 23, 2001, Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican Representative, introduced provisions to a previously sponsored House bill. By the next day, the act passed in the House with a vote ratio of three hundred and fifty-seven to sixty-six. The following day, the Senate took a vote on the bill, passing it by ninety-eight to one. Finally, on October 26, 2001, the USA Patriot Act was signed into law. The bill was intended to strengthen federal anti-terrorism investigations. But is the USA Patriot Act working to the full potential that it was originally intended? This is something that we are now going to explore. We will look deeper into, not only what the bill is, but also it’s journey to getting to the final draft and how it got passed. We will also explore the proponents and opponents of the act, and what they have to say about it. Finally, I will shed some light on who exactly is being effected now that this act is in place, and if they have been given a little too much power.
Winter, T. (2011), America as a Jihad State: Middle Eastern Perceptions of Modern American Theopolitics. The Muslim World, pp. 101: 394–411.
When it comes to the modern relationship that Islam shares with both Christianity and Judaism, it is not difficult to recognize mutual hostility. Islamic extremism has been gradually dominating the Western perception of Muslims—in the midst of this, the World Trade Center attacks could only exacerbate the situation. On that account, it was no surprise when these hostile attitudes were unmistakably revealed during the “Cordoba House” mosque controversy at which point in 2010, it was proposed that a mosque dubbed the Cordoba House be established near ground zero. Sure enough, the proposition was met with overwhelming opposition and rebuke (Barbaro). Most of the country objected to the mosque while many of those with more personal experiences regarding 9/11 felt deeply offended and unsettled. What is more, the event garnered picket signs, protests, and contempt from local civilians (Goodstein). Among the mosque’s prominent opponents was former house speaker Newt Gingrich. Speaking out against the proposal, he claims that the push for the Cordoba House mosque “is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites” (Gingrich). Gingrich goes on to say that calling the mosque the “Cordoba House” is a deliberate insult in that “it refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex,” and “every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans.” However, an investigation into Cordoba’s state of affairs during Muslim rule might lead one to believe that the existing hostility between these cultures has not ...
...nda. “What happened to America [on 9/11] is something natural, an expected event for a country that uses terror, arrogant policy, and suppression against the nations and the peoples ... America is the head of heresy in our modern world, and it leads an infidel democratic regime that is based upon separation of religion and state and on ruling the people by ... laws that contradict the way of Allah.... [Therefore], we have the right to kill 4 million Americans – 2 million of them children – and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons ...”
Christianity has been in America since the Colonial Era (1600’s - 1700’s), and for over three centuries has dominated and deeply engrained itself into American Society . Islam, however, has only been introduced recently, and this has caused Islamic Believers (or Muslims) residing in America to be misinterpreted. After the September 11 bombings in 2001, there was a huge hatred for Muslims as they were interpreted as a religion that promotes destruction in the name of ‘Jihad’, or as it is often mistranslated as ‘Holy war’ . Although, the meaning of ‘Jihad’ is much wider than just ‘Holy war’, it is an internal struggle, within each Muslim, “…to be a good Muslim as well as advance the cause of Islam.” The Western understanding of ‘jihad’ however has been twisted to become related to terrorism. Whereas, Christians claim to promote the qualities of hard-work, honesty and moderation, and are therefore highly thought of in American Society, not only because of their supposed all encompassing teachings, but also because of their dominance as a religion in the Western World.
The term jihadi was not always commonly recognized in the United States. It was not until the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that the word jihad became widely known. Since the terrorist attacks, the media and the U.S. government have used the word jihad to invoke frightening images of non-Americans coming to destroy American freedoms and to define Islam. Today, scholars have begun to try to define this complex word and its multitude of meanings. When viewers tune into the news, it is sometimes difficult to unravel the layers of information that is being fed to them by the media and the U.S. government.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Congress sprang into action. Within a month, U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the USA Patriot Act of 2001, giving law enforcement and intelligence agent’s broader authority to fight terrorists operating in the United States.
The unprecedented terrorist attacks at the key economic, political, and military power centers in the United States on September 11, 2001 led to immediate restrictive measures among states in the global north and the international community as a whole. The perceived unprecedented threat of international terrorism had to be confronted with nothing less than a global “war on terrorism”. As a nation, Americans were born fighting; therefore, Americans will stop at nothing to protect their rights in the nation. Citizens who condone this type of patriotism – those who condone violence inflicted upon other nations other than their own show that they are complicit with a terrorist regime. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, written by Mohsin Hamid, resonates
Human rights activist Mohsin Mohi-Ud Din clarifies the misunderstandings American citizens have about the religion of Islam in his article “Dear America: Letter From a Muslim-American” published in the Huffington Post on December 10, 2009. As a member of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Mohi-Ud Din explores the cultures of different societies and generates a mutual understanding between these societies. He employs this skill in the article as he addresses the Americans’ inaccurate view about Muslims. Mohi-Ud Din presents a compelling argument as to why the myths about Muslims need to be eradicated by approaching the topic cautiously, establishing a strong common ground, and providing some convincing evidence. However, his lack