The LA Times reports that declassified government documents suggest the evidence used against Holy Land Foundation was fabricated by the government. According to a summary of surveillance, Holy Land's former executive director made explicit anti-Semitic comments. However, none of the quotes included in the summary were in the 13-page transcript of the conversation. Under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act, the defense attorneys are prohibited from sharing the material with their clients, and thus unable to prove that the statements were never said or misunderstood.

"Throughout the run-up to trial, the government has insisted that the defendants can learn what is contained in the [surveillance] intercepts by reading the so-called 'summaries' of those intercepts," defense attorneys said in their papers. But the recently disclosed transcript, attorneys said, shows that "not only are the summaries so inaccurate and misleading as to be useless," but that the "author of the attached summary has cynically and maliciously attributed to the defendants racist invective and inculpatory remarks the defendants never uttered."

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit upheld the Treasury Department's decision to freeze the assets of the Islamic American Relief Agency-USA (IARA), in Columbia, Missouri. In 2004 Treasury Department designated IARA as a supporter of terrorism, freezing all accounts, funds and assets of IARA in the United States. The Islamic charity was designated for ties to an affiliate of a Sudanese charity, Islamic African Relief Agency that was accused of financing al-Qaeda. The decision upheld the ruling that the group is a branch of the Sudanese agency; however IARA argued that the two groups have different leaders and bank accounts.

In 2004, federal agents raided the group's headquarters in Columbia, Mo., as part of a criminal investigation. No criminal charges have been filed against the charity or its employees. While the court found the unclassified evidence was "not overwhelming," the three-judge panel noted that its review of national security cases is "extremely deferential" to the government.

The Associated Press story can be read here along with the court's opinion.