The Associated Press needs to get some better writers.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Handing the government a stinging defeat in its war on terror, a jury acquitted a Saudi graduate student Thursday of charges he used his computer expertise to help Muslim terrorists raise money and recruit followers.

"I hope the message is that the First Amendment is important and meaningful in this country," said David Nevin, defense attorney for Sami Omar Al-Hussayen.

The case against Al-Hussayen, a 34-year-old Ph.D. candidate in computer science student at the University of Idaho, was seen as an important test of a provision of the Patriot Act that makes it a crime to provide expert advice or assistance to terrorists.

Al-Hussayen set up and ran Web sites that prosecutors said were used to recruit terrorists, raise money and disseminate inflammatory rhetoric. They said the sites included religious edicts justifying suicide bombings and an invitation to contribute financially to the militant Palestinian organization Hamas.

...

"There was a lack of hard evidence," said juror John Steger. "There was no clear-cut evidence that said he was a terrorist, so it was all on inference."

U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said it would be a week before a decision is made on whether to retry Al-Hussayen on the eight counts on which the jury was deadlocked.

That should be "war on civil liberties." Not war on terror.

The Injustice Department failed to prove Mr. Al-Hussayen was a terrorist, or aided and assisted terrorists. It wasn't fighting terrorists, it was attempting to convict someone who isn't a terrorist.

Attorney Moss, however, might find himself naked in a shipping container, when General Asscrack learns that he failed to convict.