WTF? Police arresting anyone chewing olive-shaped leaves known as khat

MassPrivateI

TX – Eighteen months ago, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper making a routine traffic stop of two men driving on a highway northeast of Houston noticed both were chewing on a wad of green leaves. His subsequent search of the car launched a yearlong investigation involving local, state and national law enforcement agencies that has so far resulted in more than a half-dozen arrests in the Houston area.  

In response, Muslim civil rights groups are questioning whether the Austin-based state agency has crossed a line by unfairly portraying the defendants as terrorists.

A chewable African plant that investigators in Texas believe may be linked to terrorism groups has quietly launched a lengthy investigation in Houston and produced multiple arrests.

Khat is grown in the Horn of Africa. State investigators say plant sales are suspected to benefit terrorist groups, but there is wide disagreement over the strength of that link. A Texas DPS’ threat overview says the “chewable narcotic plant grown in the Horn of Africa whose sale abroad is suspected to benefit Africa-based terrorist organizations such as al-Shabaab.”

That assessment, the newspaper says, is based on a congressional testimony given more than a decade ago by Steven McCraw then-FBI-assistant director, now DPS director, who briefly said that it is likely that khat proceeds “pass through the hands of suspected (Islamic militants) and other persons with possible ties to terrorist groups.”

Defense attorney Mark Correro says the Harris County prosecutor seems to believe otherwise. “Almost the very first words out of his mouth were, ‘You know your clients are terrorists, right?” A spokesman for the district attorney said the prosecutor was unavailable for an interview.

A U.S. Justice Department spokesman said he couldn’t find any khat cases that had yielded terrorism charges. Past arrests have included money laundering charges based on transfers “to Somalia or other countries where khat originates from,” Andrew Ames of the department’s National Security Division wrote in an email. But “I am not aware of a case that alleges where that money goes.”

Muslim organizations fear the prosecution may be a witch hunt.

Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Islamic council‘s Texas branch, said their “concern is always when you start hearing references to terrorisms… Our concern is that it’s not just a witch hunt.”

“Initial vague references to terrorism usually don’t pan out in court,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “But the damage is done to Muslims.”
http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Texas-arrests-over-plant-raise-terrorism-questions-5025711.php?cmpid=houtexhcat

B/S statement from Feinstein America is ‘less safe’ than 2 years ago:

Interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she believed that there are now more terrorists with the technological means to carry out a bombing in the U.S.

“I think terror is up worldwide,” said Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Here’s proof that we’re our govt. is deceiving us, Wake Up America: According to statistics from the 2004-2005 National Safety Council report and the National Vital Statistics report for 2003 states clearly that when compared to dying in a terrorist attack, Americans are more likely to die from:

 

• Heart attack 

• Cancer 

• Airplane accident 

• Car accident 

• Falling down 

• Drowning 

• Rail train accident 

• Suffocation 

• Choking on vomit 

• Killed by police officer 

• Electrocution 

• Hot weather

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/01/dianne-feinstein-america-less-safe_n_4367906.html

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