A complaint announced today by the FBI alleges that through a company called HDTV Ltd. located in Brooklyn, Iqbal and others provided customers in the New York area with satellite broadcasts of al Manar, which is a television station owned and/or operated by Hezbollah.

The Department of Treasury named al Manar as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity" in March 2006, thereby making it a crime to, among other things, engage in business transactions with al Manar. In conjunction with the arrest, agents executed search warrants at both HDTV's Brooklyn office and Iqbal's Staten Island residence where, it is alleged, Iqbal maintained several satellite dishes.

Okay, so here's an interesting question. If he's paying Al Manar to distribute their signal, he's consorting with terrorists, but if he's not paying them, then he's stealing their signal and liable under FCC copyright issues? I'd be interested to see what he was doing, because I'm not seeing any way to square this with the first amendment. You can do time, place and manner restrictions, and you can't shout "Movie!" in a crowded firehouse or the like, but otherwise, speech may not be restricted.

This one looks really ugly.

The Raw Story | FBI: Brooklyn HDTV company provided users with 'Hezbollah TV'