Steven Emerson on press coverage of Sami al-Arian case and impact of pre-Patriot Act "wall" on prosecutions (updated 8/24)

Steven Emerson appeared on Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" on Monday night to discuss how the "St. Petersburg Times" failed to investigate Prof. Sami al-Arian's alleged activities on behalf of Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the University of South Florida during the 1990s. O'Reilly played a FBI tape of conversations in which Jim Harper, then a reporter for the Times, advised al-Arian on how to rebut investigative stories run by the Tampa Tribune which were critical of al-Arian'a activities. Steve said, "And clearly in the case of Jim Harper, the reporter, he not only bought into Al-Arian's denials that he was a terrorist, but he actually started coaching him. And on top of that, he actually withheld reporting in the paper that would have actually been much more negative about Al-Arian's involvement in the Islamic jihad. This was a wholesale bias that was deliberately perpetrated by The St. Petersburg Times for years."

Steve also addressed the impact on the al-Arian case of the "wall" which barred the sharing of certain intelligence information prior to the passage of the USA Patriot Act in 2001: "I must tell you the wall put a damper on, and tremendously restrained and constrained and prevented people within the agencies from talking to one another within the FBI. The whole reason the investigation Al-Arian got delayed in terms of a prosecution was because they couldn't talk to one another within the FBI, period." The U.S. House and the U.S. Senate have passed different versions of a reauthorization bill, which they must reconcile prior to the end of the year, when 16 Patriot Act provisions expire.

You can see the entire interview here (big Windows Media Player file), and you can download the transcript of the interview below:

Download EmersonOReilly82205.pdf

UPDATE 8/24: "The Palestinian Islamic Jihad planned an attack inside the United States, but it might have been thwarted by federal law enforcement, an FBI agent testified Tuesday afternoon. Agent Kerry Myers said all information about the plot was classified and he could not discuss it."