The Continual Evolution of the Material Support Ban
Wadie E. Said · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2015
This chapter analyzes the statutory ban on providing material support to designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) in extensive detail, from its 1996 passage in Congress to the legal battles surrounding its usage as a legal statutory tool in terrorism prosecutions since 9/11. Throughout the history of material support-based prosecutions, the government has adhered to a construct of the terrorist organization as so toxic that it taints everything with which it comes in contact. That produces, in turn, a mind-set that has seen the concept of material support go far beyond funding terrorism under the guise of humanitarian activity, which was the statute's original aim. All along, the courts have acquiesced in approving the government's expanding theories of material support to include speech and unquestioned humanitarian activity.