Whats a terrorist, whats a freedom fighter?
By March 1999, federal agents were hot on the case of Sami Al-Arian, the University of South Florida professor suspected of supporting Palestinian terrorist groups. His Islamic institute had been shut down and the FBI was tapping his phone. The same month, Tampa toasted another man often accused of terrorist ties – Gerry Adams, head of the political wing of the notorious Irish Republican Army. On March 14, he gave a speech at the University of Tampa that raised $50,000 for his Sinn Fein organization. He also was guest of honor at a fundraiser in a Tampa pub co-owned by a federal prosecutor – the same prosecutor whose division would later try Al-Arian on terrorism charges. There was nothing illegal or improper about Adams’ Tampa appearances. The State Department had given him a visa so he could tour America in support of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, aimed at ending 30 years of conflict between the IRA and British forces in Northern Ireland. Yet the contrasting attitudes toward
