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Computer Student on Trial for Aid to Muslim Web Sites. Does anyone other than Bush and Ashcroft still believe in the efficacy of the PATRIOT Act? This is simply ludicrous.

Today, that graduate student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, is on trial in a heavily guarded courtroom here, accused of plotting to aid and to maintain Islamic Web sites that promote jihad.

Civil libertarians say the case poses a landmark test of what people can do or whom they can associate with in the age of terror alerts. It is one of the few times anyone has been prosecuted under language in the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, which makes it a crime to provide “expert guidance or assistance” to groups deemed terrorist.