Vol. 75/No. 23      June 13, 2011

Hawo Mohammed Hassan, 64, and Amina Farah Ali, 34, originally from Somalia, are U.S. citizens who live in Rochester, Minnesota.

They were charged last year with raising money for al-Shabab, an armed Islamist group fighting the U.S.-backed government in Somalia. Both have pleaded not guilty. If convicted they face up to 15 years in prison.

The two are charged with “conspiracy” to provide material support to al-Shabab through door-to-door collections and with making false statements to the FBI.

One of the women, Ali, faces 12 additional counts of providing material support to al-Shabab for allegedly sending it $8,600 between 2008 and 2009.

The case is part of a broader probe of the Somali community in Minnesota that has resulted in charges against 19 people in the state.

The FBI claims the women sometimes made open appeals for support of “violent jihad in Somalia,” and that fund-raising was merely a ruse.

Defense attorneys argue that the two women were carrying out activity protected by the First Amendment. Federal prosecutor Jeffrey Paulsen responded that “fund-raising for a designated FTO [Foreign Terrorist Organization] is conduct, not speech.”

Government lawyers are citing the U.S. Supreme Court 2010 ruling that “even material support meant to promote peaceful conduct ‘can further terrorism in multiple ways.’”

The government’s case rests largely on wiretaps, in most cases the FBI’s summaries of translations.

The eavesdropping was massive. Defense attorney Daniel Scott, who represents Ali, wrote in a motion that agents tapped Ali’s phone for 10 months, intercepted 30,000 calls, and searched her garbage two times a week.

Scott recently wrote a memorandum asking the federal judge to stop the government from using the wiretapped conversations that were gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as FISA. Under FISA, FBI agents send a request to a secret FISA court that rubber stamps warrants for wiretapping and other spy operations.

“The government sits secure in its knowledge that it can now wiretap, video tap, search and invade the privacy of anyone in the United States for months if not years on end for basically any purpose, so long as at least a ‘significant’ purpose is to search for foreign intelligence,” wrote Scott.

Scott compared the FISA proceedings to the Star Chamber, the judicial authority established under the British monarchy in the 1400s that was not bound by common law and had no juries.

“The evidence is brought in secret, its significance is determined in secret and the verdict is arrived at in secret,” wrote Scott.
 
 
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