Writer raided for doing research

[Lauren Hynde]

in LiVEJOURNAL


Here's a deeply creepy manifestation of the Patriot Act: A writer of "mainstream women's fiction" was working on an adventure novel set in Cambodia and involving terrorists. For research, she was buying books online, checking them out from the library, and looking at Cambodia-related websites.

Her home was raided and her writing material confiscated (including her computers, her files, her contracts, and even her music CDs). She still hasn't gotten most of her stuff back.

I got this information from the November 2004 issue of Romance Writers Report, the monthly magazine of Romance Writers of America. I can't find the article online to link you to, but it's worth reading, so I'll put it under the cut.

...

This is an excerpt from a roundup of brief news articles called "Jungle Beat" by Stephanie Bond, in the November 2004 issue of Romance Writers Report.

Patriot Act Hits Close To Home

In the previous Jungle Beat, I reported the narrow defeat of the Freedom to Read Amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State (CJS) Appropriations Bill. The amendment would have barred the Justice Department from using money appropriated under the CJS bill to search bookstore and library records under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. If you think that as women's fiction writers, we're immune from scrutiny under the Patriot Act, think again. Last fall, the home of a multi-published author for an RWA-recognized print publisher was raided and her writing materials confiscated. The writer, an RWA and PAN [Published Authors Network] member who asked to be referred to as Dilyn, agreed to be interviewed for this column to alert RWA members of potential risks when conducting research.

SB: What type of story were you researching?

Dilyn: Mainstream women's fiction adventure. It was set in Cambodia, all about the theft of antiquities. In my research I learned about the atrocities that still go on there even today, much of it coming from one of the Al Qaeda-linked groups. I actually went back through my book and deleted those specific terrorist references after 9/11 and changed the terrorists to a rogue band of thieves because of 9/11 and terrorist sensitivity.

SB: What types of books did you buy/check out of the library?

Dilyn: I bought and checked out books on Cambodia -- its history, its present struggles, its antiquities and anything I could get my hands on concerning the terrorism going on there ... landmines, in particular. And those were the kinds of Web sites I surfed, too.

SB: Did you share your reasons for checking out the books with your librarian?

Dilyn: No. My library is huge and highly impersonal. I did the library book search online and simply went there to check them out. I also kept those books checked out for well over a year during the writing of my book. Plus, I purchased all my research books online -- about six. As far as my Web surfing, I went dozens of places. Many were for non-terrorist aspects of my book, but a few were for gathering specific terrorist information. To be honest, I was surprised to find the Al Qaeda linked to Cambodia. I was only going after the landmine atrocities because they played a huge part in my story.

SB: Did you have any reason to suspect you were being targeted for a raid, any advance notice?

Dilyn: No. Not a clue. Although, for a while prior to the raid, I thought I was being stalked. Mail was missing from my box, I caught someone searching my trash, I saw a prowler in my yard and actually called the police. One of my neighbors saw someone watching from across the street -- she wasn't sure if it was my home or hers. She called the police, too -- turns out they were taking surveillance photos.

SB: When did the raid take place, how long did it last, and what items were confiscated? What agency conducted the raid?

Dilyn: The raid took place last fall, pre-dawn, and it lasted three hours. They banged at my front door first, damaged it coming in, displayed weapons and threatened to kill my dogs. After that, imagine everything you've ever seen on TV, only worse. There were six male agents. One was in the "bad cop" mode the entire time, trying to intimidate me, yelling at me, threatening me. When I had to use the restroom, he sent an agent along to the bathroom with me. It was a multi-agency raid: Postal Inspectors (for the Web site/e-mail end of it), the FBI, and three officers who would only identify themselves as Federal Police. They took so much -- computers, photocopier, files, books, discs, computer programs, CDs of the music by which I write, contracts, absolutely everything I had connected to the writing world. They took pictures off my walls, my office television, pens, a case of paper, postage stamps ... even now, after all these months, I still go to get something only to discover it missing.

SB: Have you had any success in retrieving items that were taken?

Dilyn: They brought my computers back within a couple of months -- bugged. I have this great computer guy who couldn't wait to get inside to take a look, and sure enough, they had a program in there to monitor me. I got my discs back, too, all ruined. They still have everything else.

SB: Is it your opinion that the raid was triggered based solely on your book-buying and library habits?

Dilyn: The search warrant was specific to items pertaining to my writing and research, plus the agents absolutely were looking for certain books by title -- titles of books I had in my possession that were actually included in the warrant. So I know without a doubt that those aspects of our research habits are being monitored. My "Scene of the Crime" series from Writer's Digest weren't on the warrant but man, oh man, were they excited to find those! I believe, however, that my Internet research had a large part in this, too.

SB: Did your publisher get involved at all in your defense?

Dilyn: I informed my publisher immediately, and they've been great -- extremely supportive -- but they're not involved in my defense. I had to hire a criminal defense attorney who specializes in federal warrants and issues of search and seizure.

For the first several months I was a basket case. I jumped if the dogs barked, cried if someone knocked at the door. But somewhere along the line I realized that I did nothing wrong. I don't want to make this a debate over the Patriot Act, but its broad scope violated my rights. I have the right to do research as I see fit as long as it's legal, and to buy or check out the books I want. In the future I will do nothing that I haven't done in the past. Quite simply, I'm not changing. Sure, I'm aware that I am being monitored, more so now than before. But let them monitor me. If, however, you want to fly low on the radar, don't buy your books online. It's tougher with the library issue because your library check-out habits are monitored. Not every title, mind you, but the FBI, and now Homeland Security, does watch some "flagged" books. Perhaps instead of checking out a book you think could be a flagged book, read it at the library. Make notes or photocopies of the information you need to keep. As for the Internet -- that's a big question mark because there are definitely websites set up for the sole purpose of entrapment. Others are simply being monitored. Obviously I stumbled into one or the other -- maybe both. If you want token that kind of tracking off your personal computer and keep the Feds away from your personal e-mail address (the government does use several different e-mail tracking programs -- apparently my e-mail was being tracked by one called Carnivore), use a public library computer, or try a university library.

***

Surprised?

 

[minsue]

Surprised?

Nope

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Not surprised at all, but it makes you wonder how this woman could have to endure this after no one thought it odd that the terrorists in the flight schools didn't want to learn how to land a plane..........or how about the people that find out how to make pipe bombs, download and sell child porn, get blue prints to government buildings....etc.......is common sense obsolete these days?

 

[Edward Teach]

in LiVEJOURNAL


Here's a deeply creepy manifestation of the Patriot Act: A writer of "mainstream women's fiction" was working on an adventure novel set in Cambodia and involving terrorists. For research, she was buying books online, checking them out from the library, and looking at Cambodia-related websites.

Her home was raided and her writing material confiscated (including her computers, her files, her contracts, and even her music CDs). She still hasn't gotten most of her stuff back.



Surprised?

Yes. I'm surprised that it hasn't happened more.

I will also be surprised if we at Literotica don't hear from those guys within a couple of years too.

 

[TheEarl]

Surprised?

Hell yes. Thank God I'm English.

The Earl

 

[maggot420]

Wow...in the land of the free eh?
That's horrifying. My sympathies go out to that poor woman.
Is it 1984 yet?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Wow...in the land of the free eh?
That's horrifying. My sympathies go out to that poor woman.
Is it 1984 yet?

So Orwell was off by exactly 20 years.

That's not bad, huh?

--Zoot

 

[Guest]

George W Bush
Dick Cheney
Donald Ramsfeld
Colin Powel
Terroist attack
Mudered
Assassinated
Deaths
Decapitation
America
Bombed
Nuclear
Explosion
Home-land
defence
The White House
Wall Street
Pentagon

Now this thread will be monitored by FBI agents Google whacking terror suspects.

PS.
maggot420 is in love with me.

 

[pop_54]

Re: Re: Writer raided for doing research

Hell yes. Thank God I'm English.

The Earl

It's happening here as well mate, only they slap a public interest ban on it being reported.

 

[Pure]

Thanks for the posting Lauren. US citizens haven't yet much faced the extraordinary powers of the Patriot Acts I and II.

Except for Padilla, who's disappeared, almost, for two years. No charge.

The other case was an Islamic American webdesigner who designed some sites for a couple Islamic organizations on the 'watch' list, and found himself arrested for aiding terrorists. I don't have the details handy.

But Dilyn may be the first WASP to fall victim. (I'm making certain assumptions, here).

 

[carsonshepherd]

George W Bush
Dick Cheney
Donald Ramsfeld
Colin Powel
Terroist attack
Mudered
Assassinated
Deaths
Decapitation
America
Bombed
Nuclear
Explosion
Home-land
defence
The White House
Wall Street
Pentagon

Now this thread will be monitored by FBI agents Google whacking terror suspects.

In all seriousness. Allah is another one.

Remember how poor Pete Townshend (the Who) got busted and put on a sex offenders list because he was doing research on child sexual abuse for his autobiog? the authorities seized all his materials. Thank God he was vidicated but he remains on a list of sex offenders.

Sick.

 

[rgraham666]

Same thing happened to a game designer about 13 years ago.

He had published a cyberpunk game.

The Secret Service busted him as a hacker. Damn near destroyed his company.

 

[razor_nut]

She's lucky she's not in jail. Check out the story of the webmaster of raisethefist.com

http://www.raisethefist.com/news.cgi?artical=underseige

 

[Pure]

This may be the story I had in mind:

http://www.siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?ID=news5903&Category=news&Subcategory=0

Anti-Terror Forces Arrest Idaho Student
By Paul Shukovsky

Published in: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
February 27, 2003


Investigators Suspect He Has Ties to bin Laden




Agents with a federal anti-terrorism task force yesterday arrested a University of Idaho student who they say provides a window on how al-Qaida, the group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, raises money. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a doctoral candidate studying computer security here, was a terrorist bagman, according to one federal criminal justice source. "He's in touch with people who could pick up the phone, call UBL (the law enforcement acronym for Osama bin Laden), and he would take the call."

Few in this region's small Muslim community would talk about Al-Hussayen yesterday. Some praised him as a man of peace. Nearly all feared that his arrest could mean trouble for the entire community. Al-Hussayen, who is from Saudi Arabia, had been a committed student leader at the University of Idaho, where he has studied since 1999.

He once was president of the local chapter of the Muslim Students Association and gave blood after the Sept. 11 attacks, then marched with others in a peace rally. Al-Hussayen, 35, is married and the father of two children. Indeed, the charges against Al-Hussayen involve immigration crimes with only tangential relationships to terrorism.

But investigators say the accusations do not reflect the central role that investigators believe Al-Hussayen has played in the flow of al-Qaida cash. Federal agents coordinated the 4 a.m. arrest of Al-Hussayen in this quiet college town of 18,000 people with the arrests of four Arab men around Syracuse, N.Y., and searches of a Muslim charity operation in greater Detroit.

The arrests also come in the wake of the recent arrests of a Tampa, Fla., professor from Palestinian territories and three other men accused of setting up a terror cell at the University of South Florida. These arrests represent a basic change in the way the FBI does business. The hallmark of an FBI investigation has been a slow, methodical investigation designed to arrest and convict all the participants of even the most complex criminal enterprise.

But in the past few weeks, federal criminal justice sources say, FBI headquarters has ordered field offices nationwide to arrest the targets of investigations who in the past would be kept under close surveillance to develop further intelligence and evidence. One overriding objective has sparked this change: To stop another Sept. 11 attack by disrupting suspected terrorist cells. It's an objective that has gained urgency with a war looming in Iraq and the recent heightening of the nation's terrorism alert status to orange. "Clearly, there is an emphasis on disruption" of terror cells, said Special-Agent-in-Charge Chip Burrus of the FBI's Salt Lake City field office. The Salt Lake office, which is responsible for Idaho, is conducting the investigation with the Seattle FBI office.

So Al-Hussayen spent last night in a county sheriff's jail awaiting arraignment in U.S. District Court in Boise where he will face an 11-count indictment essentially accusing him of lying to the U.S. immigration officials by not revealing his activities with the Muslim charities around Detroit and Syracuse. Had he revealed those activities, the government probably would not have given him a visa to remain in the United States. Among those activities: Operating Web sites for the Islamic Assembly of North America of Detroit that allegedly disseminated "radical Islamic ideology the purpose for which was indoctrination, recruitment of members, and the instigation of acts of violence and terrorism." The assembly's telephone went unanswered yesterday.

Operating a Web site that carried an article before Sept. 11, 2001, advocating "suicide operations" that included "bringing down an airplane on an important location that will cause the enemy great losses." Funneling tens of thousands of dollars from sources within and outside the United States to the charities IANA and Help the Needy in Syracuse. Cynthia Miller, Al-Hussayen's attorney, refused to make a substantive comment yesterday, saying that she had not had adequate time to study the case. Asked about Al-Hussayen's state of mind, she said: "Obviously, he's upset."

The investigation of Al-Hussayen began around Sept. 11, said Burrus. It began not as a criminal investigation, but an intelligence inquiry. Its objective was nothing less than to remove the veil of secrecy on al-Qaida's complex financial network. And, sources say, that the FBI used many of the means of electronic surveillance at its disposal including wiretaps and intercepts of e-mails. In August, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote a story about the use of Islamic charities as a conduit to finance terrorism.

The story revealed the presence of the investigation into what happens to charitable donations by Muslim students at Washington State University and the University of Idaho. In the course of that story, a Post-Intelligencer reporter unsuccessfully attempted to interview Al-Hussayen. Federal criminal justice sources say the Post-Intelligencer story changed the course of the investigation by alerting Al-Hussayen and his colleagues.

The investigation is far from over. "We are not at the end of the trail, we are at the beginning of the trail," Burrus said to a packed news conference yesterday in Moscow's 100-year-old City Council chambers. "You can't imagine the flow charts" depicting the flow of so-called charitable funds, he said. In the center box of a flow chart is Al-Hussayen, the nexus of millions of dollars flowing from Saudi Arabia to the United States and from Al-Hussayen to individuals and Islamic organizations in the United States as well as Egypt, Canada, Jordan and Pakistan, according to sources, court documents and public statements made yesterday.

Participating in the news conference yesterday was Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, who said: "When this sort of thing happens in a state like Idaho, in a community like Moscow ... where no one would ever expect activities like this would occur, then this network exists throughout the United States." It was a sentiment echoed by one federal criminal justice source, who said last summer: "We're not finding Sami cases in New York. We're finding them in the hinterlands, the Spokanes, the Springfield, Ill."

People in Moscow yesterday seemed intrigued by the invasion of anti-terror agents into the city. But Moscow's Muslims were in shock - traumatized by the arrest of a man they know and respect. No one heeded the 12:30 call to prayer at the local mosque yesterday. Al-Hussayen's counterpart in nearby Pullman at Washington State University, Muslim Student Association president Irshad Altheimer, said the charges surprised him. "It definitely caught me off guard," said Altheimer, a 25-year-old Muslim convert from Tacoma. "I know Sami well. He always meets me with a smile, and is always asking if he can help with things."

Altheimer said that Al-Hussayen, to his knowledge, did not harbor anti-U.S. or terrorist-sympathizing views. "After Sept. 11, Sami had been at the forefront of trying to get people to understand Islam," he said. And one Muslim woman who lived a few doors away from Al-Hussayen, his wife and two little kids, pronounced herself "terrified." "I am too scared. Maybe tomorrow they will come to my house."

P-I reporters Chris McGann and Sam Skolnik contributed to this report.
The Associated Press also contributed. P-I reporter Paul Shukovsky can be reached at 206-448-8072 or paulshukovsky@seattlepi.com .

 

[maggot420]

George W Bush
Dick Cheney
Donald Ramsfeld
Colin Powel
Terroist attack
Mudered
Assassinated
Deaths
Decapitation
America
Bombed
Nuclear
Explosion
Home-land
defence
The White House
Wall Street
Pentagon

Now this thread will be monitored by FBI agents Google whacking terror suspects.

PS.
maggot420 is in love with me.

I've never been accused of having high standards

 

[jozef_the_dragon]

hahaha

i see the world through tinted glasses, it aint so bad, just a passing fad, of greed and lust and abuse, fight it and loose, find your neck in a noose, this is the nation to choose, we got it all, murder fueling rape, rape promoting murder, driven by drugs and guns, a nation of thugs, be we can choose, just how we plan to loose, demorocy is free, if you believe, have faith in this system, its like life support for the dead, with black viens, acid breathe, toxic waters, this nation is great, police the world, bringing peace with a bullet, thats just what everyone needs, peaceful warfare, caring crooks, kinder criminals, i cant wait, all feeding the machine of this commercial *regeme, across the world through the barrel of a gun, spreading the fun of capitalist gain with the industry of fashioning slaves, take a look, at the benifits of genicide, it quites the competion, this nation is 'on a mission', working for commision, this nation needs noboby's permission, set to persiver, just close those peepers, and bend over a little further, reach for those toes, this wont hurt a bit....

sorry for the spelling, i was unsure, it's late, i tired, hope it is at least readible, as for understanding, i lost myself long ago, and with posts like this it really shows, enjoy, and just think about this, it will get worse before it gets bad....hehehe

 

[millennium_bard]

Not surprised at all, but it makes you wonder how this woman could have to endure this after no one thought it odd that the terrorists in the flight schools didn't want to learn how to land a plane..........or how about the people that find out how to make pipe bombs, download and sell child porn, get blue prints to government buildings....etc.......is common sense obsolete these days?

Common sense has been absent from the US government, and all governments in general for decades if not centuries.

When a man can be held for 4 years (this was BEFORE 9/11) simply because the local police don't want to admit that they arrested the wrong person, the system sucks.

When a woman can be shot and killed while sleeping in her own bed because the federal agents kicked in the door to the wrong house, and no one is prosecuted, the system sucks.

When a child can be ripped away from his family and sent to another country, not for the best interests of the child, but for political expediency, the system sucks.

When a family loses a farm that has been in their family for over a century because some exotic insect calls that piece of land home, the system sucks

When an author and local TV personality can be beaten and raped on videotape by federal officers because she criticized the BATF on the air and cited specific names and places of their atrocities, and once again, even though the assault was captured onvideotape and the offenders were easily recognizeable no one was prosecuted. the system sucks.

When an 11 year old boy, hands cuffed behind him and lying face down on the floor can be executed by a point blank shotgun blast to the back in an effort to coerce the parents to give information that they didn't have, (wrong house again) and no one is prosecuted, the sustem sucks

When an unarmed woman carrying a baby in her arms can be killed by an FBI sniper, and the sniper isn't charged, the system sucks.

I could go on, but I have to catch a plane to Georgia in 45 minutes.

 

[Lisa Denton]

George W Bush
Dick Cheney
Donald Ramsfeld
Colin Powel
Terroist attack
Mudered
Assassinated
Deaths
Decapitation
America
Bombed
Nuclear
Explosion
Home-land
defence
The White House
Wall Street
Pentagon

Now this thread will be monitored by FBI agents Google whacking terror suspects.

PS.
maggot420 is in love with me.

Terroist attack?
Mudered?
Your o.k., they probably don't look for bad spelling weirdos.

This is going to happen more and more. There is probably more to it than what I saw posted. Every law and how its interpreted can be bent, twisted, broken and skewered, CV could be arrested by the spelling police. Every law enforcement agency has hundreds of intelligent, rational, and decent personnel for each asshole.

THEY are not THEM, some of them are your neighbors, friends, the people you say hi to on the street and in the stores. Her fear of them came through loud and clear, as did her disdain. If an F.B.I. agent accompanied by 5 other agents threatens to shoot your dog you tell him "Go ahead asshole," he won't because at least 1 of those other agents could be a human being who will tell the truth.

Each and every law will be abused by an asshole enforcer at one point or another. You and I have seen it, we can post hundreds of cases of abuse of the law but can't determine how many times lives were saved and crimes stopped before they happened by decent, caring law-enforcement

As for her little rant:

(If, however, you want to fly low on the radar, don't buy your books online. It's tougher with the library issue because your library check-out habits are monitored. Not every title, mind you, but the FBI, and now Homeland Security, does watch some "flagged" books. Perhaps instead of checking out a book you think could be a flagged book, read it at the library. Make notes or photocopies of the information you need to keep. As for the Internet -- that's a big question mark because there are definitely websites set up for the sole purpose of entrapment. Others are simply being monitored. Obviously I stumbled into one or the other -- maybe both. If you want token that kind of tracking off your personal computer and keep the Feds away from your personal e-mail address (the government does use several different e-mail tracking programs -- apparently my e-mail was being tracked by one called Carnivore), use a public library computer, or try a university library)

Things like this are why she was watched, by her own admission she kept books checked out of the library for over a year, having to do with terrorism.

I hate to say it, but it sounds like she could have had WATCH ME stamped on her forehead, and from her anti-authority fear and hatred FUCK WITH ME stamped right below that.

Blast away, but be sure to cite the cases where lives were saved bombs weren't made and didn't blow up next to your loved ones on the street and in the stores.

All laws can and will be abused, this law sucks, this case sucks, this one agent sucked.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Scary.

I'm afraid to comment further.

 

[sweetnpetite]

aparently so is everyone else.

 

[BigAndTall]

aparently so is everyone else.

I'm not.

 

[sweetnpetite]

So Orwell was off by exactly 20 years.

That's not bad, huh?

--Zoot

I don't think orwell was ever writing about the future. that was a cover in order to be able to get his book published/read.

I think it was a comentary on what he saw hapening in his own time.

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I don't think orwell was ever writing about the future. that was a cover in order to be able to get his book published/read.

I think it was a comentary on what he saw hapening in his own time.

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

When I read 1984 back in high school, as well as Farenheit 451, I had no idea how strongly those stories would resonate in 2004. Too young and naive to fully appreciate them then, but their messages are all too real now.

 

[sweetnpetite]

When I read 1984 back in high school, as well as Farenheit 451, I had no idea how strongly those stories would resonate in 2004. Too young and naive to fully appreciate them then, but their messages are all too real now.

When I read them in high school, I thought that it was an exageratrion of what was already going on- a statement more than a prophesy. when I read more about orwell, and his own setting I felt even more strongly that was what he had been trying to do.

the interesting thing is, there are people on the right who will interpret the same story as 'what the liberals are trying to do to America' --what with our political correctness and so forth

 

[cantdog]

Just don't find out for yourself, don't think, you'll be fine. The only people who need to find out about terrorists are the FBI and the Homeland Security, the CIA and the rest of them. You're just a no-count citizen. Stay ignorant and believe what they tell you.