Abstract
Zeinab Taleb-Jedi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran, traveled to Iraq to assist and advocate for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), a leftist group seeking the overthrow of the Iranian government. However, the group also had been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. When Taleb-Jedi returned to the United States in 2006, she was charged with violating section 2339B of the U.S. Code by providing “material support” for the terrorist group. Similarly, Tarek Mehanna was charged with providing material support for terrorism after he provided Arabic to English translations of al-Qaeda recruiting documents. More recently, when the widow of the Orlando nightclub shooter was arrested in early 2017 she too was charged with providing material support to her husband and to ISIS, or the Islamic State. These examples show the expanding—and expansive—use of American law criminalizing material support for terrorism. Yet, given the strong protection both American society and U.S. courts have given to First Amendment free speech rights, what should occur when, as in the cases of Mehanna and Taleb-Jedi, ostensible material support for terror groups comes in the form of words and speech assisting terrorist groups?
This Article examines material support prosecutions before and after Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (Holder). The Holder decision stands as the Supreme Court’s principal interpretation of individual First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights in terrorism prosecutions.
Recommended Citation
Benjamin Bricker,
Material Support for Terror and Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: An Empirical Examination.,
42
S. Ill. U. L.J.
1
(2017).
Available at:
https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/siulj/vol42/iss1/1