Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 09:10:45 -0500 (EST)
From: belmonte@MIT.EDU (Matthew Belmonte)
To: senator@kennedy.senate.gov (Ted Kennedy),
	john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov (John Kerry),
	CapuanoHR8@aol.com (Mike Capuano)
Subject: free Mike Hawash

I write in order to bring to your attention a case in which the Justice
Department in its zeal has overstepped the bounds of due process and habeas
corpus, depriving a United States citizen of his liberty without charging him
with any crime.  I hope that you will act to place pressure on the Justice
Department to stop using such tactics, and that you will oppose any further
legislation that may give the Justice Department new powers to expand this
climate of abuse.

On Thursday morning 20 March, Mike (Maher) Hawash, a United States citizen and
a long-time employee at Intel Corporation, was arrested by agents of the FBI
and the Joint Terrorism Task Force as he arrived at work in Hillsboro, Oregon.
Simultaneously, FBI agents in bulletproof vests and carrying M16 rifles woke
Mr Hawash's wife and three children in their home, searched it for four hours,
and presented Mrs Hawash with a grand jury subpoena.  It was subsequently
revealed that Mr Hawash was being `detained' as a material witness.

All of the court documents in this case are sealed.  Mr Hawash was held
incommunicado from his family and his attorneys for several days.  Neither he,
his attorneys, nor anyone else knows why he is being detained.

It is difficult to reconcile the principles of an open and democratic society
with a climate in which a citizen can be arrested and held in a maximum
security federal prison for an indefinite period (the New York Times recently
wrote of a man held for more than 9 months as a `material witness' before being
released without charge).  How can a man with a house, a job, and a family
in the United States be considered such a `flight risk' that he needed to be
held in a maximum security prison?  And for what possible reason is all of this
being kept secret from his friends and from the press?

Although Mr Hawash became a citizen of the United States by naturalisation,
this history shouldn't diminish his rights as a citizen.  If he can be targeted
because of his Palestinian birth and Jordanian nationality, perhaps I too could
eventually become a target: I have spent a significant amount of time living
and working outside the United States, and have been outspoken in my criticism
of many United States policies.  In this climate of secret evidence and
indefinite detention without charge, none of us can or should feel safe.

Again, I hope that you will use all means available to you to investigate the
detention of Mike Hawash and similar cases, and to rein in the Justice
Department's efforts which seem only to destroy freedom in an attempt to
preserve it.

Sincerely

Matthew Belmonte
[address]