incitement to seditious conspiracy?

[chesner]

Apropos of the thread earlier today pointing to the tension between expressive 
freedoms and certain terrorism-related issues, a grand jury in the Eastern 
District of Virginia today indicted a Virginia man, Ali al-Timimi, on charges 
described by CNN as "counseling people to engage in a conspiracy to levy war 
against the United States, to aid the Taliban, and to use firearms in violent 
crimes." (That language does not purport to be a quote from the indictment, by 
the way, and it is quite possible that this mischaracterizes the actual 
charge.)

This case arises out of the "Virginia Paintball" prosecution that concluded a 
few months ago with the conviction of several defendants for conspiring to 
levy war against the United States, among other things.  The fact pattern in 
that case boiled down to the following: a group of men attending the same 
mosque began meeting privately to discuss jihad; some in the group had 
military training, and began to impart that training to the others through 
regular paintball games; some in the group traveled to Pakistan and received 
training from a militant group (these camps aren't just in Afghanistan); after 
9/11, at least some of the men began discussions about making their way to 
Afghanistan to fight against U.S. forces there.  The link to the new 
defendant, al-Timimi, is that al-Timimi is said to have urged the men to put 
their beliefs into action.

If this is the basis for the al-Timimi indictment, it seems to represent a 
classic incitement case (perhaps framed as participation in the conspiracy via 
the encouragement he provided - not unlike the seditious conspiracy conviction 
of the "Blind Sheikh" in the 1990s).  If this is correct (again, I haven't 
seen the indictment), it will be quite interesting to see how Brandenburg 
performs in this climate.

CNN's story is at: 
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/23/lecturer.indicted/index.html

Bobby Chesney