Faith Fippinger, a 62-year-old retired teacher, faces jail for travelling to Iraq before the war. On what grounds?
For three months she travelled around Iraq, guarding oil refineries, teaching in schools and working in hospitals.
But when she returned home there was a letter waiting for her from the US Treasury Department.
The Treasury Department?
“It was a requirement to send information as to why I was in Iraq,” she says.
“It also said the penalties for being there could be as high as a million dollars and up to 12 years in jail.”
By going to Iraq Faith Fippinger had broken the US economic embargo on Iraq, which had been in place for many years.
The letter explained that by travelling to the country and spending money there, Miss Fippinger was now liable for prosecution.
The same government that uses the Treasury Dept. for such blatantly political prosecutions tells us not to worry about the as-yet unused provisions of the PATRIOT Act?