`Human shields' activists facing fines from U.S.

[kayell]

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6529653.htm

DOZENS FROM BAY AREA WORRY ABOUT PENALTIES FROM IRAQ TRIPS
By Dana Hull
Mercury News

After traveling on a bus through Italy and Turkey, Ryan Clancy arrived in Baghdad in mid-February with other opponents of the buildup to the U.S.-led war.

He spent weeks as a ``human shield'' at a grain silo that he thought would be bombed by U.S. forces, and left Iraq in early March when he started to run low on cash.

A week ago, his cell phone rang. It was the Treasury Department, calling to inform him that he had violated U.S. sanctions against Iraq and could face a $10,000 fine.

``They woke me up at 9 in the morning, and I thought it was one of my friends playing a joke on me,'' said Clancy, who owns a record store in Milwaukee and is rarely awake at that time of the morning. ``They said, `Good morning, you owe us $10,000.' I asked them several times to put it in writing because I was groggy.''

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a related situation is the suit by asscroft against voices in the wilderness. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=106&topic_id=1441