SAMI AL-HUSSAYEN

My name is Sami Al-Hussayen.  I am from Saudi Arabia .  I used to study computer science as a graduate student at the University of Idaho .  I lived in student housing with my wife Maha, and my three children, aged 16 months to 14 years.

If the government had wanted to see me, their agents could have come and knocked on the door.  But instead they sent more than 120 FBI and INS agents in a huge C17 military cargo plane.  They staged a dawn raid on our campus.  They arrested me, and rounded up 20 of my friends who were also foreign students.  They said they would deport my friends if they didn't answer all their questions.

I was taken away and held for months in solitary confinement.  They accused me of being the webmaster of web sites which they said promoted terrorism.  I was the moderator for an email discussion group for Muslims, and they didn't like some of the things that were being said in that group.  I thought in this country the First Amendment protected this sort of activity, but they said I gave "material support to terrorists" and have charged me under the USA PATRIOT Act. 

I faced over 100 years in prison if they found me guilty of all charges.  It turned out as many as 20 government agencies were following me around, and thousands of my phone calls and emails were intercepted by the government.  After all of that, and after I spent more than a year in jail, they could not prove I supported terrorism.  The jury for my trial at the US district court in Idaho unanimously agreed I was only exercising my First Amendment rights!