Federal judge upholds First Amendment, denies CAIR's attempts to legally intimidate, impoverish investigators who exposed its entrenched terror ties. (WASHINGTON) Feb. 15, 2010 -- A federal judge dismissed the Council on American-Islamic Relations' latest legal maneuver to re-file a lawsuit against the father-and-son team that investigated and documented the group's far-reaching links to terrorist networks. Defense attorneys hailed the decision as a victory for the First Amendment in thwarting CAIR's alleged plan to "chill" free speech critical of the organization through an avalanch of court cases and legal costs. After numerous briefings and counter-briefings that proved very costly to the defense of Air Force special aganet P. David Gaubatz and his son Chris Gaubatz, who infiltrated CAIR as an intern and recovered thousands of damning documents, the organization's latest lawsuit intend to start the process all over again. "But the new lawsuit didn't have anything substantively new," said Daniel Horowitz, one of the three lawyers for the defense. "And yet, that's their whole goal. They know they can't win the case, but they can chill the First Amendment by making it so expensive to speak against them that no one can challenge Saudi-funded CAIR. In the end, they can just keep getting more and more money from overseas and burn out opposition with lawsuits." Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia “denied as moot" CAIR's request to re-file the case. According to the judge's decision, CAIR now has until March 1 to re-file "an appropriate motion for leave to amend." "In terms of the First Amendment, it's a powerful ruling," Horowitz continued, "because it recognizes that by chilling free speech, you undermine it, even if you lose the case in the end. CAIR was trying to exploit that to the max, and the judge said no." To interview attorneys Martin Garbus and Dan Horowitz or publisher Joseph Farah or obtain a review copy of Muslim Mafia, contact Maria Sliwa at (973) 272-2861 or (212) 202-4453 ormedia@wnd.com. Posing as a young Muslim convert, in 2008 Chris Gaubatz served a six-month CAIR internship. Though told to shred certain documents, he instead retained them, providing key evidence for the book Muslim Mafia, published last fall by WND Books. CAIR originally accused Chris Gaubatz of obtaining its property under false pretenses. But Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.com CEO and publisher of Muslim Mafia, however, asserted the material was legally obtained by Gaubatz, who had been asked by CAIR officials "to shred documents he believed might be criminal evidence … and involve matters of national security." Furthermore, Horowitz argues, the documents were returned—and subpoenaed by the FBI to go before a federal grand jury. Most tellingly, CAIR never disputed the book's claim that the self-described Muslim civil-rights group is a front in a conspiracy by the Egypt-based mother organization of leading worldwide terrorist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, to pave the way for Saudi-style Islamic law in the U.S. Horowitz noted to WND that normally, if a party believes a book is deliberately false, it will sue for defamation. In yet another blow, Horowitz argued that CAIR has no claim because it does not legally exist. The group changed its name to the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network almost immediately after it was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history. "Now CAIR will have to either try to explain to the court why it used a fake name to start the case, and show it was honest mistake," Horowitz continued, "or they will have to try to argue that the new lawsuit is somehow different from the old lawsuit, which I don't think it is." To interview attorneys Martin Garbus and Dan Horowitz or publisher Joseph Farah or obtain a review copy of Muslim Mafia, contact Maria Sliwa at (973) 272-2861 or (212) 202-4453 ormedia@wnd.com. Some key smoking-gun revelations detailed in Muslim Mafia include:
A Free Press For A Free People 
Monday, 15 February 2010
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