Virginia man charged with spying on Syrian Americans

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Foreign Policy

The FBI arrested and charged Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, a resident of Leesburg, VA, for spying on Syrian-American protesters in the Washington area on behalf of the Syrian government.

The Justice Department announced the arrest and charges in a Wednesday press release, alleging that Soueid was involved "in a conspiracy to collect video and audio recordings and other information about individuals in the United States and Syria who were protesting the government of Syria and to provide these materials to Syrian intelligence agencies in order to silence, intimidate and potentially harm the protestors."

The Syrian government has vehemently denied the accusation that it is gathering information on protesting Syrian-Americans and punishing their families back in Syria. But last month, U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford told The Cable that he had evidence of multiple family members of Syrian-American protesters being rounded up and tortured by the Syrian regime.

Soueid, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested on Tuesday and will appear before a judge this afternoon. He is charged with conspiring to act and acting as an agent of the Syrian government in the United States without notifying the attorney general, as required by law; two counts of providing false statements on a firearms purchase form; and two counts of providing false statements to federal law enforcement.

Read more: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/12/virginia_man_charged_with_spying_on_syrian_americans

[Arctic Dave]

1. Oops, they forgot someone in the "terror plot" fairytale.

When are they going to incorporate the Somali Pirates in this?

[TheMadMonk]

3. This one's believable. Iraq, Iran, those were and are dodgey.

There is almost no possible doubt about that. And Afghanistan was at least as much pretext as justified. What's going on in Syria is genuine. Playing it straight, for once in a while, is the more productive path.

[Arctic Dave]

4. So this guy is doing basically what your Internet, cellphone and bank do but he

is the one "spying"?

They better warm up the paddy wagons because they need to arrest a lot of people.

[RedCloud]

2. From Sleezeburg, eh?

[AverageJoe90]

5. Good.

And maybe we can start arresting Iranian agents, too, instead of keeping them in the system as useful boogeymen.

[The Doctor.]

6. Maybe I'm just tired,

but this reeks of intention.

Not really sure right yet. Take a look later. TFP