Do foreign nationals enjoy the same free-speech protections as citizens? Can particular immigrant groups be singled out for removal to advance U.S. policy objectives? When does advocacy for a political cause -- Palestinian statehood, say -- lapse into material support for terrorists with similar goals but more sinister methods?
The government architects of the case point to it as providing a framework, years ahead of its time, for the strategy of seeking to identify and remove possible terrorists and their supporters in America before they can strike.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday July 01, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 64 words Type of Material: Correction
The L.A. 8 -- A time chart that accompanied an article in Wednesday's Section A about a long-running terrorism case known as that of the L.A. 8 made reference to a "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine fundraiser." Whether money raised at the 1986 event went to the Popular Front organization is a matter of dispute and the central issue in the case.
"Our job is to protect the American people against things that may happen in the future," said William B. Odencrantz, who came to the L.A. 8 case early on as a supervising lawyer for what was then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "We're not concerned with convicting people after they blow up buildings. What we want to do is keep them from being in a situation where they can blow up a building in the first place.
"And so that's the kind of story we've been trying to sell for 18 years with respect to this particular incident."
Critics of the case view it, conversely, as an early model of an anti-terrorism strategy they regard as a campaign of stereotype and overreach. They argue that to place fundraising for Palestinian refugee camps -- and, for that matter, dancing the dabka -- on par with the dark works of international terrorists not only diverts government resources from the hunt for "real terrorists," but undercuts basic constitutional protections.
For the accused, the case has kept them ensnared for nearly two decades. Released from detention while the litigation played out, they have built seemingly innocuous lives in Southern California, raising children, buying homes, starting businesses. Yet they have done so with a gnawing, daily awareness that their purchase on the landscape remains precarious, with the government unwavering in its determination to see them removed.
"At first," recalled Maria Obeid, wife of one of the eight, "it was: 'Can we have kids? Let's not have kids because we don't know what is going to happen. Let's not buy a house, because something might happen. Let's not get this job, because something might happen.'
"I mean, everything that you want to do is stopped. And it's not just us, it's everybody, and it's psychological torture."
