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On Wednesday, November 7, federal agents seized assets of many businesses
that were allegedly supporting bin Laden through "money laundering. They
also froze the assets of many other business organizations. The story was
widely covered by TV and the newspapers with nary a whimper or expression
of alarm by the media lap dogs. An example of the reporting is the AP
article, "Agents raid U.S. firms linked to bin Laden" at
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011108-18818088.htm . Those of us
involved and acquainted with thousands of other government asset seizures
over the last 20 years know that the situation may not be exactly as the
media describes it.
I watched with disgust the story on Fox News TV channel as it showed a raid
on a Somali grocery store in Seattle that included a Barakat money transfer
service (a description is online at
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/46053_somali09.shtml ). Two tractor
trailer rigs were filled with the contents of the store; the groceries, his
business records, everything. They cleaned it out wall to wall. The owner
is instantly out of business. The Somali friends and relatives that
desperately need the funds back home in Somali that were being send
regularly by those that live here in the US, are out of luck.
Whether the owners of these small time businesses are guilty of anything we
can never know, for we do know that nothing the government tells us can be
trusted. But one thing is for certain: these people and the thousands of
others that are depending on them are being punished without the benefit of
a trial and conviction.
The government's technical argument that the seizing of a person's means of
support is not punishment makes no sense to the owner who can no longer put
food on the table for his family.
Leon Felkins
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