Last July, Shiraz Syed Qazi — a 29 year-old Pakistani national attending Houston Community College on a student visa — went camping for a couple of days with a couple of friends in Willis north of Houston. While camping, Qazi engaged in some target practice with an Armalite M-15, .223 caliber semi-automatic rifle and his friends took some photographs of him doing so. A good time was apparently had by all.
In late November, Qazi was indicted and arrested in Houston on federal charges of unlawfully possessing a firearm as a non-immigrant student visa holder. Qazi was denied bail and so he has stewed in jail ever since his arrest. Earlier this week, Qazi was convicted of the crime after a bench trial and now awaits a May 17th sentencing hearing in which he faces a maximum 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. Qazi remains in jail pending his sentencing hearing.
Remarkably, from the only meaningful pleadings filed by Qazi’s public defender and the prosecution in the case (see here and here), it is undisputed that Qazi did not know that he was committing a crime by engaging in a little target practice during his camping trip. But that hasn’t stopped the feds from putting him away for a couple of months already and threatening him with a ten year prison sentence.
Welcome to the USA, 2007.

Radley Balko examines the reasons why the Department of Justice demanded the resignations of seven U.S. Attorneys across the last month. He concludes that it’s all about priorities and questions the Bush Administration’s emphasis on enforcing new forms of prohibition. And he doesn’t even mention the extraordinary abuses of prosecutorial power (see also here and here) that have occurred during the Bush Administration Justice Department’s campaign against business interests. Check Balko’s piece out.