Advising terrorism – hybrid scrutiny, safe harbors, and freedom of speech

SSRN has published new scholarship from Peter Margulies analyzing the Supreme Court decision in Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder (HLP) upholding a statute that bars “material support” of terrorist organizations. Some commentators have labeled HLP as heralding a new McCarthyism. Margulies argues that such critics overlook the tailored quality of the decision’s hybrid scrutiny model, [...]

Criminalizing Humanitarian Engagement

This Working Paper presents HPCR’s research to date on dilemmas arising from the intersection between, on the one hand, counterterrorism laws and policies prohibiting engagement with certain non‐state entities and, on the other, humanitarian access and protection of civilians in armed conflict. This Working Paper aims to provide HPCR’s initial analysis of these dilemmas and [...]

Freedom of Speech, Support for Terrorism, and the Challenge of Global Constitutional Law

Freedom of Speech, Support for Terrorism, and the Challenge of Global Constitutional Law – Daphne Barak-Erez and David Scharia In the recent case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a criminal prohibition on advocacy carried out in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign [...]

UN report confirms gap between law and reality, torture, secret detentions and police harassment in Tunisia under Ben Ali

The United Nations just published a report on its website which describes the fact-finding mission of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism in January 2010. On the basis of the evidence he gathered, he observed a pattern of unacknowledged detention being used vis-à-vis terrorist suspects. During the [...]

FBI director defends sting operations

(AP) FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday defended his agency’s use of sting operations in snaring terrorism suspects, a technique some have complained amounts to entrapment. The FBI has come under criticism over its repeated use of stings in which agents and informants walk a suspect through a carefully choreographed plot to carry out what [...]

David cole urges to reform material support laws

According to David Cole in the NYT: “Congress should reform the laws governing material support of terrorism. It should make clear that speech advocating only lawful, nonviolent activities — as Michael Mukasey and Rudolph Giuliani did in Paris — is not a crime. The First Amendment protects even speech advocating criminal activity, unless it is [...]

European countries charge suspects with preparing for terrorist acts

NY Times: A week after coordinated raids in three cities, the British police said Monday that they had charged nine of the 12 men they arrested, in a case that seemed to be a sign that Europe’s concerns over potential terrorist attacks were spreading. Three of the 12 men were released without charges, the West [...]

Wife of convicted terrorist on trial in Germany

The wife of a German convert to Islam who was convicted of plotting a thwarted attack on U.S. targets in Germany went on trial herself Friday on charges of supporting terrorist organizations. Filiz Gelowicz, 28, is accused of supporting the Islamic Jihad Union and the German Taliban Mujahideen by helping provide 3,000 euro ($4,225) to [...]

Federal prosecutors charge 3 men with funding Somalia terrorist organization

The US District Court Eastern District of Missouri unsealed an indictment charging three men with providing material support to Somali-based Islamic terrorist organization al Shabaab. The October 21 indictment charges Mohamud Abdi Yusuf, Duane Mohamed Diriye and Abdi Mahdi Hussein with funding and providing materials to a known terrorist organization. The federal grand jury charged [...]

U.S. judge rules Bank of China can be sued in terrorism case

Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has allowed a lawsuit to proceed against one of China’s largest banks for allegedly helping finance the terrorist group Islamic Jihad. The case was brought by the parents of Daniel Wultz, a 16-year-old from South Florida who was killed as the result of [...]