Earlier this morning, a military helicopter flew so low over the nearby Saudi madrassa that my house shook.

Dang! I wish that happened more often.

The nice thing about having military helicopters flying over the madrassas is that the latter can't sue the military because of sovereign immunity.

Not so in the case of private citizens, who are finding themselves the victims of well-funded lawsuits simply for asking basic questions about Saudi madrassas in their neighborhoods. Writing for Pajamas Media, Martin Solomon has a comprehensive report about a terrible situation in Boston, in which neighbors (beginning with a local Muslim who was outraged to see hate-filled anti-Semitic propganda in "both the religious lesson and the Arabic newsletters inside the mosque") began to ask questions and organize themselves. This is America where cities have such rights, right?

Not really:

...there is and was enough known about the financing and characters involved at the highest levels of the Islamic Society of Boston that a reasonable man acting prudently would be compelled to look closer at this group, their connections, and their financing.

And that's just what was done. And when those reasonable people found themselves disturbed by what they had found and began speaking out about it, they found themselves silenced by a lawsuit, their personal lives violated by subpoenas and their private emails exposed to the world.

I wrote a number of posts about the Saudi madrassa, which upset the neighbors for a variety of reasons and attracted national attention (especially because of the presence there of Al Qaeda associate Mazen Mokhtar). What bothered me the most was the way local officials bent over backwards to accommodate the madrassa and granted its request for special exceptions despite a history of non-compliance with local zoning ordinances, yet a local Christian church which did the same thing had its request turned down.

I can't remember the last time I read about a church suing neighbors for asking questions and opposing their plans. These lawsuits are an attempt at intimidation, and they remind me of the lawsuit filed by the flying imams. (When I first wrote about them, they hadn't sued the witnesses.)

Damn! This post was rudely interrupted by a power failure! Because of my battery backup I was able save what I had written in a word file, but I lost my train of thought. (I was getting ready to drive to a WiFi spot, but fortunately the power was restored within an hour.)

Oh, yeah, I was going to say something about my experience with a lawsuit against United Airlines in which I ended up having to fly across the country as a witness. But it's really not relevant.

Or is it?

The answer may be in the skies.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I would have said that I envy the military helicopter pilots, but I suppose that what's satire for me might be considered slander by suicide-sympathizing Saudi Salafists.