A 9/11 lesson: Don't photograph the water

Talk about over-reaching, over-reacting fear -driven petty minded abuse of power....
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/nyregion/06hudson.html

HUDSON, N.Y. - On a cloudless autumn day three years ago, Ansar Mahmood, a pizza deliveryman for a Domino's near here, took a few hours off from work to snap pictures of the Hudson River amid the foliage, to send home to his family in Pakistan.....That moment marked the end of Mr. Mahmood's brief American dream, as he stumbled into a vortex of fear, politics and deportation proceedings.

The official-looking buildings turned out to be a water-treatment plant for the city of Hudson. The crisp afternoon fell exactly four weeks after Sept. 11....

And Mr. Mahmood - .... - was suddenly from the wrong part of the world.

Any notion that Mr. Mahmood was tied to terrorism quickly evaporated .... But he was soon charged with helping Pakistani friends whose visas had expired, an offense that led to his detention and pending deportation.

With his arrest, Mr. Mahmood became part of the wave of Arab and Muslim aliens and citizens who were detained for questioning in the two months after Sept. 11. A United States Department of Justice report estimates that 1,200 people were rounded up, but advocates for the detainees say the number was much higher. Like Mr. Mahmood, many were then prosecuted for immigration violations or past crimes.

<more>

"These Camel Jockeys should not be here with patriotic AmeriKans" stated Karl Rove and Johnny Asscrack </SARCASM>

He could have been simply shipped off to Camp X-ray.

But typical. "Arab looking guy taking pictures? Better ship him on out. HE'S A TERRAIST".

about the 'students' who were laffing it up with the WTC burning in background? They were 'arabic' looking too (israelis) and they were hurried out of the country....

n/t

Link still works.

http://www.sundayherald.com/37707

Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001
Neil Mackay | 11-02-2003
Sunday Herald

THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.
(snip)
They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.

... the Israelis were "laughing it up."

The ABC article talked about a person known only as "Maria" who claimed the men "were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange," she said.

The men later appeared on an Israeli talk show and denied that they were laughing or happy. Here is the ABC link.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/DailyNews/2020_whitevan_020621.html

What bothers me is these urban myths about Israelis laughing, cheering and/or "dancing in the streets" in the aftermath of 9/11. People who spread these rumors sometimes like to float the idea that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks.

I guess I find it disturbing that there are so many people on the right who are incapable of "connecting the 9/11 dots" (as Michael Moore will brilliantly show us later this month), and so many people on the far left who manufacture dots where none exist.

Heck the Pentagon even sent one of them thar "middle easterners" down to New York do some of that thar filming.

........A few nights later, the Al-Sabahs

(the wealthy and despotic Kuwaiti family
who came up with the Hill & Knowlton dead-baby story
and the girl who told it to Congressmen)

sponsored a film evening, but a very sobering one. “Dreams Without Sleep,” from Kuwaiti filmmaker Walid Al-Awadi, came about while he was traveling last year between Los Angeles, D.C. and New York to work on a feature film and found himself on September 11th near the World Trade Center with a camera.
True to his profession, he kept rolling as events unfolded all about him. (The newspapers later recorded suspiciously that “an unidentified Muslim photographer” was taking pictures during the calamity).
http://www.washingtonlife.com/backissues/archives/02nov/around_town.htm

So, I was in the states during the summer of 2001 working between LA, DC and NY developing a feature film about the Gulf war. On September 10, 2001 I WAS IN DC MEETING WITH THE HEAD OF MEDIA AT THE PENTAGON BECAUSE THEY WANTED ME TO HELP ME ON THIS FILM. I needed to go to NYC that night for some other meetings, so I went to Dulles airport and, due to weather, was delayed at the airport from 4:00pm till 9:30pm when I got the last flight going to NY.
I arrived so late in NY that I went right to my hotel. I arose at 8:00am and left the hotel and went down to Canal St. I obviously realized that something big happened. I had my video camera with me and began filming, with no reason as to why, just that I needed to do it.
http://www.dreamswithoutsleep.com/story.htm

More at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x11994#12046

I have lived in 3 overseas countries for anywhere from a year to three years, and I kept my visas current.

If the INS had followed up on the Saudis who were here illegally, they might have disrupted 9-11.

Immigrants to the US have to follow our law, the same as we have to follow theirs when we're abroad.

Not that hard to understand really . . .

This reminds me of the guy who gets upset for speeding when "all the other drivers are speeding too."

....he was not on an expired visa.
<<And Mr. Mahmood - who had hit the ultimate jackpot for a young Pakistani when he won a green card through a lottery - was suddenly from the wrong part of the world.

Any notion that Mr. Mahmood was tied to terrorism quickly evaporated into the fluorescent ether of the Hudson police station. But he was soon charged with helping Pakistani friends whose visas had expired, an offense that led to his detention and pending deportation.>>

Furthermore - while I applaud your law abiding behavior I imagine that your circumstances are quite different. Do you think the punishment here fits the crime?

I assume that when he was "charged" with helping other Pakistanis get visas, what he was doing was not legal.

The word "charged" implies "charged with a crime," so, yes, if he breaks immigration law, ship his ass back to where he came from.

There're plenty of people who are willing to come here and NOT BREAK THE LAW.

*****

However, I don't support holding people without cause and elimination of "habeus corpus" etc. And if he didn't break the law, then he shouldn't have been expelled, of course.

Anyone can be charged with a crime-- that does not automatically mean that that person is actually guilty.

...so what does that prove?

...what became of this story.

Now I know!

along the riverbank in Hudson, there is a huge field of cannibas that grows wild -- it is very well known in the area and is an easy mark for local law enforcement (though the weed is impotent).
I'm not sure if there is any connection between this incident and that horticultural fact but it is worth pointing out: I first learned of its existance from a friend who was studying law enforcement at the local community college.

Tut-tut

Possibly the most spectacular view in the entire region is from the southern exposure of Olana, Frederic Church's gorgeous mansion that overlooks the Hudson River valley...

Olana...


...and the view.

I'm very familiar with this case. Ansar Mahmood delivered a pizza to my house on Academy Hill in Hudson, NY, and was captivated by the magnificent view. He then proceeded to get out of his car and shoot some scenic photos near the city water reservoir, at which time he was apprehended. A group of local citizens ( and our community newspaper) has been very supportive of Ansar, and has managed to get a number of significant politicians to write letters to the INS on his behalf.

Hopefully he will be released soon- but there are about 1200 other Muslims being detained in the US....

nice!

right at the foot of Warren St.

BTW, Olana is rumored to have been the site of 1970's porn musical 'Alice in Wonderland' featuring a few other 'spectacular views'.

Tut-tut