Hi, Sami. How ya doin'?
To Dad… “Hi, I’m the head of a criminal organization,” said no one. Ever. You’d think. Actually, it happens quite a bit. Because there are few consequences. Do our laws need a re-think?
Funny story. In 1988, I went to a mixer event at my university with my friend, Matthew. As we entered the cavernous building, a nice co-ed… do they still call them co-eds?... sitting behind a table gestured to a stack of my-name-is stickers and thick felt-tipped markers. The guy in front of us penned, “Mahmoud, Afghani freedom fighter.” We laughed. To be fair, The Living Daylights had just come out and romanticized the CIA’s toppling of the Russian’s government in Afghanistan by installing the Taliban as new regional leaders. To this day, Matt and I still larf about this.
But this isn’t a larfing matter. In 1988, Gotti headed the Gambino family. An organization that existed to commit crime. In shorter parlance, “A Criminal Organization.” Around the 49-second mark, you hear the range of their activities, “… prostitution, loan sharking, numbers, the kid liked to wet his beak in everything…” Trust me. Go back and click the link, you’ll get a larf.
Gotti wore fancy suits. Shared soundbites with the media. His home was frequently shown on TV. It was no secret he headed Bad Guy Inc. Because, apparently, you have to do something more illegal than run an illegal enterprise for the Feds to nab you. For ref, see, Capone, Al and tax evasion. Six years after becoming the capo, the Feds eventually gotcha’d Gotti. By linking him to 13 counts of murder and racketeering.
This isn’t a true-crime podcast transcript, so why the 80s recap?
Because the U.S. and Canada just designated Samidoun a terror organization. What does that mean… exactly? Well, from an Al Jazeera story which I’m not going to bother to link: Samidoun masquerades as ‘sham charity’ to provide humanitarian aid, yet in reality it diverts funds to support [other] terrorist groups. You may remember Samidoun from a video where they burned a Canadian flag and chanted, “Death to Canada.”
Being the “co-international coordinator” of a designated terror organization is enough to get the U.S. and Canadian governments to designate each of Samidoun’s co-heads a “terrorist.” But that isn’t enough for the Feds to take actual action. A person still has to do more than be a designated terrorist and head a designated terror organization to get arrested. Still.
Like Gotti, we know who (co-) heads Samidoun. Charlotte Kates.
Charlotte is the kind of person who would walk into a mixer at a bar and scribble, “Hi, I’m Charlotte, terrorist,” in thick black felt tip on her my-name-is sticker.
Because she can. So, do our laws need an update?