[Imc-newsroom] News Headline Radio Show:

[Sascha Meinrath]

Urbana, IL:

News reports indicate that 21-year old Max Weissberg of Champaign,
Illinois, was indicted this week on a federal charge of sending a
threatening communication.  Left unmentioned by local news articles on the
arrest was Weissberg's apparent motivation. He has been a regular writer
of letters to the editor of a local weekly newspaper, the CU Cityview; and
has hotly disagreed with columnist Carl Estabrook's stance on the Middle
East -- in particular the situation that exists in the struggle for a
Palestinian state and the current Israeli government's brutal suppression
of this effort.

The incident began when the editors of the CU Cityview received a
threatening e-mail in the supposed name of 'terrorists' in opposition to
the Cityview's recent decision to suspend Estabrook's column until after
this November's election. Estabrook is running on the Green Party ticket
for the Congress seat currently held by Republican Tim Johnson.  The
threat mentioned blowing up busses and implied that, unless Estabrook's
column was immediately restored to the Cityview, such action would be
taken by the fictional group in support of the Green Party's campaign at
some unspecified date and location. The implication behind the threat was
that 'terrorists' were working in support of Estabrook's Green Party
campaign.

The FBI was called by the Cityview editors to investigate this threatening
communication and tracked the source of the message to the computer in
Mahomet, Illinois.  The FBI raided the house of Weissberg's mother and
seized a computer from the residence.  Weissberg implied that the
fictional terrorist group he created -- the "Mohammed Arkady, Al-Aman
Martyrs Brigade" -- was of Arab or other Middle Eastern origin, apparantly
hoping that the faked threat would draw an FBI crackdown on local Muslims,
in addition to smearing the Estabrook campiagn by associating it with
'terrorism'.

This incident follows other recent attempts to smear local peace activists
by associating them with unpalatable groups or messages. University of
Illinois Law Professor Francis Boyle, a well-known international law
expert and supporter of a Palestinian homeland, was the subject of a fake
e-mail campaign earlier this summer. This was apparently done as part of a
wider campaign of disinformation against supporters of the Palestinian
cause that has been traced to Israeli computer hackers. The
Urbana-Champaign IMC website has been bombarded by supposedly
pro-Palestinian posts containing white supremacist messages in an apparent
attempt to smear opponents of Israeli policy by falsely associating
supporters of Palestine with neo-Nazi ideas and viewpoints.

Weissberg appeared in federal court in Urbana on Friday, August 30,
following his arrest on August 26. He was released on bond, ordered to
have no access to the Internet and was allowed to travel to Oregon to
attend college, pending further court action on his case. Weissberg faces
up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of the
charge.

Compiled by Mike Lehman & Sascha Meinrath
Urbana-Champaign IMC
For more information see: www.ucimc.org