Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, collecting money for humanitarian aid in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, before the US government accused it of providing “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization. The organization was shut down by the US government, and its assets were frozen by the US and European Union.

The case against Holy Land Foundation relied heavily upon Israeli intelligence and disputed documents which claimed the organization was funding Hamas. A mistrial was declared on most of the charges against the Texas-based foundation and five of its former leaders. One juror who spoke to the LA Times said the case had “so many gaps” that prosecution was “a waste of time”.

David Cole is a professor of law at Georgetown University, the co-author of Less Safe, Less Free: Why America is Losing the War on Terror. He joins us from Capitol Hill. Welcome to Democracy Now!, David.

DAVID COLE: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Explain exactly what happened in this case. Begin from the beginning. When was the Holy Land Foundation shut down?

DAVID COLE: Well, it was nearly six years ago, in December 2001. All their assets were frozen. All of their records were seized. The entity was shut down without a hearing, without a trial, without even a statement of reasons. And when the group sought to challenge that designation and that freezing in court, the court refused to allow the Holy Land Foundation to introduce evidence in its own defense and relied on secret evidence that the government presented to it behind closed doors, so that the foundation couldn’t respond, and rejected its arguments that this whole process violated due process by depriving it of its property without any meaningful opportunity to defend itself.

AMY GOODMAN: What exactly have you come to understand now at this point was the evidence, the secret evidence? Both US and Israeli?

DAVID COLE: Well, it was US and Israeli, and it was gathered, as you suggested, over a course of fifteen years. But what’s most remarkable is that even though they subjected this group to fifteen years of surveillance, they found not one piece of evidence that showed that this group was funding Hamas itself during the period since 1995, when Hamas — when it was illegal to fund Hamas…

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The bigoted actions of our government at its best folks. Muslim charity? We can’t have that now can we?