EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq

by Susan Lindauer

  Lindauer: “We would have a legal challenge in international court—

  Youseff: “Hmph hmph.”

  Lindauer: “that the Iraqi people have a God-given right— we call it an inalienable right—to choose their own Government and… that it would be a violation of International law for anything to impose a Government on the Iraqi people from outside. We would go to the International Court and file an appeal demanding that the Court enforce the rights of the Iraqi people to form political parties of their own choice and to hold elections, so the United States and Britain cannot, under international law, interfere with the domestic process of the Iraqi Government. That’s the point.”

  Youseff: “Now—”

  Lindauer: “I don’t know where you’re coming from. Even if you don’t agree with it entirely, just think about it. Because the next part of it is very important. We would sue. We would say one, we demand that the Court enforce the natural rights of the Iraqi people to choose their own Government and to form political parties, and do whatever the hell they want. No outside force can choose a Government for the Iraqi people. There can be no ‘puppet government’ of Iraq.”

  Youseff: “Hmph hmph.”

  Lindauer: “And secondly, only a Government chosen by the Iraqi people can spend Iraqi oil money. Only a Government chosen…”

  Youseff: “That sounds reasonable.”

  Lindauer: “—by the Iraqi people. Okay.”

  Youseff: “Now, where are you and Muthanna and the lawyer in this process right now?”

  Lindauer: “Muthanna is in Baghdad. He’s supposed to be identifying an attorney, or a team. Because it has to have an Iraqi face. It has to be the Iraqi people asserting their own integrity.”

  Youseff: “Yes.”

  Lindauer: “We have to help them, but we have to get out of the way, too. You know what I mean? We can’t do this for them. We need to empower them, and provide financial resources. In order to succeed, there has to be something. Now it doesn’t have to be a lot of money. I mean probably a tragically small amount of money is going to help them enormously.”

  Youseff: “Well, for a good cause, I don’t think that there will be a problem.”

  Lindauer: “And then there would be an international component that the Iraqis will organize from the inside. They would receive technical assistance in presenting their case to The Hague, filing briefs, doing the international attorney law work.”

  Youseff: “Are there guarantees this would work?”

  Lindauer: “There are no guarantees in international law.”

  Youseff: “Of course.”

  Lindauer: “But you know, the thing is, you have to try… You can’t just let the

  United States get away with this. As much as possible, we need to use the precedents of international law that the United States has used for itself.”

  Youseff: “Sounds reasonable.”

  Youseff: “It seems from what you’re telling me that nothing is really finalized. This is something in the works.”

  Lindauer: “It can only be finalized if the Iraqi people want it to be finalized.”

  Youseff: “Well, of course.”

  Several months later I would get arrested for what I told Youseff that night, and charged with “Organizing Resistance to the United States.”283 And so, vigorously I dispute the notion that Pro-War Republicans supported democracy at the start of the Occupation. Ultimately, activists around the world compelled leaders in Washington and London to accept true democratic reforms—But only because we dragged them to it. In truth, they bitterly resented us for forcing it on them.

  There would only be two meetings between me and Youseff— the first on June 23, almost three weeks after I contacted British Ambassador Greenstock. The second took place on July 17.

  My birthday. I thought that was a nice touch.284

  Close to the end of our first meeting, Youseff began to drop hints of his knowledge about my intelligence work on Lockerbie. However it was only at the start of our second (and final) meeting on July 17 that Youseff revealed he’d been thoroughly debriefed on my intelligence background.

  The whole tone of the conversation changed immediately.285

  Youseff: “I must tell you they like you so far very much.”

  Lindauer: “Oh good.”

  Youseff: “I have to ask you very seriously…”

  Lindauer: “Okay.”

  Youseff: “Are you ready to work with us?”

  Lindauer: “Oh yes! Yes. That’s why I brought all of this. So you could see my

  commitment is real.”

  Youseff: “Excellent, excellent. And so far, we are very happy that ah, you are coming over to our side. That’s why I’ve asked you a very straight, very honest question.”

  [A note to readers: This was an inside spook approach. Honest and straightforward does not begin to describe it. Quite the contrary, our conversation was loaded with double-entendres. It helps to remember that this is a perverse game with lots of diagonal cuts. However, this was my playground. I knew my way around the yard.]

  Youseff and I had exchanged pleasantries for about five minutes in our second meeting, when he played a crucial card on the table:

  Youseff: “We must know when you began your relationship with the ah, the Arab Intelligence agencies. It’s very important, because like I said, the people who are now over there, the Americans are talking to them. We don’t know who’s who.”

  Hold the fort! Real people don’t talk like that! Right there Yousseff “aka” Adam outed himself as a spook. He could never go back on that. Everything changed in that moment. Youssef continued to ask for the names of my Iraqi contacts. And immediately I began to look for a chance to call him out as American Intelligence. It was important to put him on notice that I’d broken his cover. Only then could we have a real conversation.

  So how would I do that? For one thing, from our first bright eyed morning walk in Takoma Park, Yousseff told me he knows Muthanna. That gave me a wedge. Our conversation was rolling fast now. For all the sweet talk at the beginning, it looked to me like a hostile approach. Unless proven otherwise, this was not an intelligence faction that I would ever support. Later, my friend, Parke Godfrey, would testify in Court that I told him about the meeting, and laid 50-50 odds that Youseff was an FBI agent.286

  And yet— what if “Adam,” as he called himself was part of a State Department faction that recognized mistakes in the Occupation, and hoped to accomplish something positive to undo that damage? What if his team turned out to be hopeful, instead?

  Though it seems unlikely to outsiders, frequently that’s what Intelligence factions have to do. Policymakers make a mess. Spooks go in to clean it up. I’d done that myself on several occasions, involving Libya and Iraq. If that was the case, I might want in.

  So as this conversation rolled on, I kept juggling. How hard did I want to slam the door? How could I keep that door open a crack? And yet I had to be clear that I was drawing a line. I could not support the Occupation as it existed. If my commentary appears harsh, it should be understood that Yousseff’s group required candor, whoever they were, before they put me, an Anti-War activist, on the ground in a war zone, in Iraq of all places.

  They needed to know my politics. And I needed to tell them. Neither one of us could compromise in such a situation. Brutal honesty mattered.

  So how could I finesse it?

  Lindauer: “What if we, uh, put a good list and a bad list? (Laughs)”

  Youseff: “Okay.”

  Lindauer: “Muthanna has done something that I’m very upset about.”

  Youseff: “Hmph hmph.”

  Lindauer: “Ah, Muthanna does not know about you.”

  Youseff: (Unintelligible mumbling).

  Lindauer: “Categorically.” [In other words, Youseff lied about how he learned of my work.]

  Youseff: “You have not told anybody, anything about…” [Read that, yeah, I lied, but you haven’t exposed us for approaching you? That would
be death to the whole effort, if we tried to do something later in Iraq.]

  Lindauer: “Categorically.” [Youseff lied, but I hadn’t told Muthanna, who just returned from Baghdad, that a U.S. agent used his name to approach me.]

  Lindauer: “Ah, but it, it shocked me, ah, that Muthanna was over in Iraq, and he was having daily meetings—Daily meetings! with the Occupation forces. He was trying to set up a consulting job with the Occupation forces.”

  [That’s what I thought Youseff wanted to explore with me.]

  Youseff: “Hmph.”

  Lindauer: “He thinks he’s helping the Iraqis.”

  Youseff: “This is what he told you?”

  Lindauer: “This is what he told me.”

  We began to discuss Iraqis I worked with in the past, and whether I could work with them again. The question remained whether I would want to.

  Youseff: “And when you went to the Embassy, did you feel comfortable?”

  Lindauer: “Oh, I have always had very, very good relations with Iraq.”

  Youseff: “Always, from the beginning?”

  Lindauer: “Very good relations.”

  Lindauer: “Um, there is another man who is absolutely reliable, who it would shock me if he was not reliable. [meaning reliable for Youseff] I would be shocked.”

  Youseff: “You said that list, who’s on that list?”

  Lindauer: “Ah, Muthanna.”

  Youseff: “Okay.”

  Lindauer: “I’m sorry to say that. I’m very sorry to say that.”

  Youseff: (unintelligible mumbling)

  Lindauer: “He can’t even. I mean, Muthanna’s struggling. But the fact that he’s struggling… To me, it’s very clear cut.”

  Youseff: “Hmph hmph.”

  Lindauer: “There’s no way that I could go over to Iraq, unless I was working, doing it literally at your request.”

  Youseff: “Absolutely.”

  Lindauer: “I could not.”

  Youseff: “And we will talk about that. Okay.”

  Lindauer: “Yeah, I could never go to Iraq and pretend that it was acceptable. I couldn’t do it.”

  Youseff: “Hmph hmph.”

  Lindauer: “I mean, you’d have to be—you’d really have to, I mean, if you asked me to do it undercover…I would do it for you.”

  Youseff: “Right.”

  Lindauer: “But I would never just…”

  Youseff: “Yeah.”

  Lindauer: “I couldn’t. I couldn’t rationalize it. I couldn’t justify it.”

  Youseff: “So we can be comfortable to say that you would not go unless we asked you to do that?”

  Lindauer: “Absolutely, absolutely.”

  Poor Muthanna would be horrified to hear himself described as a collaborator. He’s a loyal peace-maker and community builder. He dedicated his life to opposing sanctions and bringing humanitarian relief to the Iraqi people. But I had to get my point across. It was strictly a matter of necessity. I had to make my position crystal clear.

  From that point on, our conversation turned to spook talk, and it would be ludicrous to pretend anything else. Until the end of the meeting, Youseff gave mixed signals as to whether his group wanted to improve the Occupation— or not. It frustrated me enormously not to know. By contrast, I underscored my opposition to Occupation policies with every breath.

  One more exchange with Youseff illustrates the sinister aspects of the Patriot Act. In our second conversation, Youseff and I discussed my knowledge of Lockerbie, and I mentioned some papers he might like to see.

  Imagine my surprise, therefore, to come home from work about a week later to find those papers laid out on my desk, and one of my filing cabinets broken and hanging crooked. In seconds, I recognized somebody had rifled through my home office. And I had no doubt who it was.

  Now, I would have needed several hours to locate those papers, for the simple fact that my older documents are buried deep in my files. And I have a good idea where they would be. I suspect it would have taken Youseff several hours to find them, too.

  Yet there was my Lockerbie collection, neatly laid out on my desk, next to my open computer screen. And behind it, a broken filing cabinet.

  Welcome to the Patriot Act, friends. It’s a brave new world, friends.

  That’s what Secret Police do in tyrannical Arab Capitals or Banana Republics in Africa.

  There was no cause for a warrant, since I had engaged in no criminal activities. All of my actions supported democratic reforms and human rights in Iraq.

  But under the Patriot Act, the government no longer requires legal cause to enter a private home, and conduct a search without the knowledge of the occupant. Federal agents have power to come and go at will, with no obligation to inform a household afterwards. I suspect I interrupted them, because the papers got left behind in the rush to get out my back door. Youseff recognized he had no business in my home, and fled.

  Ah, the plot thickens fast. When the break in occurred, I did not know Youseff was an under-cover FBI agent, who had just executed a “warrantless search.” I concluded, quite reasonably, that Youseff was an unstable young man, pushed to the limits of reason by the War. I was frazzled, too. But I’m an unmarried woman. I don’t need unstable men breaking into my house and tearing apart my private office. Can you imagine it?

  A few days later I got even more upset when Youseff phoned to ask for the papers left behind in his rush to get out of my house!287 I was floored! He made no apology for entering my house without permission. He just wanted the papers. With some consternation, I agreed to hand them over. Seriously, if he wanted them so badly, he could have them.

  That wasn’t all. He asked me to leave the papers in a manila envelope in a children’s park close to my house.288 Now I had to wonder if he’d been stalking me, perhaps while I walked my dachshunds, since he’d obviously studied the lay out of my neighborhood.

  Oh joy! I was convinced that if I refused to deliver those papers, he would break into my house a second time, and take them. I had no idea what else he might do, given his apparently agitated state. I had no desire to find out.

  So I did what he asked. I left a manila envelope in the park.

  That illustrates in graphic detail what abuses the Patriot Act has inspired—and how it confuses ordinary, law abiding citizens who expect federal agents to interact rationally with the public. It should set off alarms in Congress.

  First of all, it’s offensive that anyone who campaigns for democracy and human rights should be treated as a criminal. No one’s activism should be judged by federal authorities as a waiver of civil liberties under the Constitution.

  When the Patriot Act was passed, Congress insisted “only terrorists” had to fear the highly invasive surveillance rules. Indeed, the Feds strongly implied only international communications would be subject to monitoring.

  My experience makes a lie of that promise. The Feds are using the Patriot Act to hunt activists too, even those of us who champion non-violence and democracy.

  Ask yourself: What’s going to happen when the Feds come up against a law abiding American who defends her rights under the 2nd Amendment? Somebody’s going to get shot. And speaking from personal experience, I will feel no sympathy on that day when some abusive character like Bassem Youseff gets caught red-handed, stealing papers without a search warrant, and gets a bullet from somebody who has no idea why he’s there. It’s a vulgarity. It’s a gross violation of everything our country stands for. And it’s guaranteed to cause a lot more problems, because the law was so badly written in the first place.

  As for me, Youseff was damn lucky that I got home before my housemate, Alyce— an honest, law abiding woman— who happens to have a concealed weapons permit.

  Alyce carries a gun in her purse at all times to protect herself from muggers— and home invasion. If she caught Yousseff, aka “Adam” rifling through her underwear drawer, she would have shot him point blank. What if she killed this unidentified male FBI agent with no se
arch warrant? Should she face prosecution? What if he fired back, as a more expert marksman—and killed her inside her own home? Who would be to blame?

  I’ll tell you: It would be the members of Congress who approved this wretched law. The Patriot Act was a declaration of war against honest American citizens, in flagrant violation of all Constitutional protections.

  Members of Congress who voted for the Patriot Act are traitors to our country.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  About three weeks later, I got another agitated phone call from “Adam,” aka Youseff, saying that some federal agents had interrogated him, and he was scared.289 I gave him the name of a good attorney, but I couldn’t tell if Youseff was using that ploy to drop me, or if he was really in trouble. He still claimed to have “investors” who might finance my democracy project in Iraq. I had no idea if they would be as explosive and unstable as he evidently was. His behaviour frightened me.

  But how could I possibly get in trouble for giving somebody the name of a good attorney? We haven’t reached a point where that’s illegal. (Or have we?)

  Against this backdrop, the situation in Iraq was deteriorating rapidly. Somebody urgently needed to reverse the disastrous policies of the Occupation. Iraq was getting ready to blow. And I had a very good understanding what that would mean.

  If Youseff hoped to distract me from my projects, he failed miserably. I took my threat of legal action to the United Nations. In a letter faxed to French Ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabliere on July 23, 2003 (also captured by FBI wire tap), I praised the “courageous foresight (of) President Chirac in rejecting” this war.290

  I wrote: “We intend to prove that the International Courts can achieve justice for less powerful nations against the tyranny of unlawful usurpers…. forcefully and effectively, without necessitating violence.”

  “Thwarting the Courts of Law would be the greatest mistake in a military conflict already fraught with bad decisions. If the U.N. tries to prevent the Courts from guaranteeing the protections of international law to all peoples, uniformly and without prejudice, then it would become difficult to argue that violence is not the only avenue to justice. In which case, nations that send soldiers and weapons to Iraq would become primary targets.”