Latest in Material Support
With all the immigration-related action of late, it was pretty easy to overlook last week’s decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals in the Matter of A-C-M. We write to say you should take note.
In a June 6th ruling, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed and remanded the case of a woman appealing an immigration judge's decision to deny her asylum application because of her provision of material support to guerillas in El Salvador. The woman was kidnapped by the guerillas and forced to cook and clean for them, as well as to undergo weapons training. The guerrillas also forced her to watch as her husband dug his own grave before being murdered.
Material support prosecutions comes in many shapes and sizes, but because of their frequency we often fail to notice when their are unusual or novel applications. A case in point (well, two cases in point) arose yesterday, when DOJ's National Security Division announced that the FBI had arrested two men—one in Michigan, the other in New York—who allegedly serve as agents of Hezbollah's foreign-operations arm. One of the men is a naturalized U.S.
In an interesting examination of the role of social media platforms and terrorism, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed two related complaints against Facebook on Thursday, May 18.
Certain segments of the American Right have long been spoiling to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization under the material support statute. And now that Donald Trump is president, talk of designating the Brotherhood is heating up. Sen.
Another group of terrorism victims has filed suit against a social media company for allegedly giving material support to a terrorist group, in this case ISIS. These cases have been proliferating of late.
The Congressional Research Service has issued a new report on "The Advocacy of Terrorism on the Internet: Freedom of Speech Issues and Material Support Statutes." The report is available below and can also be found here. Thanks to the Federation of American Scientists for initially posting the report.
With great respect for my friend Bobby, his recent post, Trump's Call for More Aggressive Material Support Prosecutions, overlooks the fact that Donald Trump’s views may well be shared by Secretary Clinton.
As Ben notes (and analyzes thoughtfully) here, Trump gave a speech today that included various proposals relating to terrorism. Here's the part that touched on DOJ and terrorism prosecutions:
Twitter won a first round yesterday on the question of whether CDA § 230 immunizes the company against civil lawsuits over its provision of service to terrorist groups. Here's the decision from Judge William Orrick of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California: