ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Justice Department wants Congress to expand a law used frequently since the September 11 terrorist attacks making it a crime to provide “material support” such as financing or technical expertise to terrorist organizations.
Justice Department officials also are asking Congress to make changes that they say would address recent federal court decisions that the law is unconstitutionally vague and could lead to prosecution of someone exercising free speech rights.
Since the September 11 attacks, 58 persons have been prosecuted on charges of providing material support to al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other groups considered terrorists by the United States. FBI and Justice Department officials say the law has been key in preventing further attacks by taking would-be terrorists off the streets well before a plot unfolds.
“We cannot, and will not, limit our role to simply picking up the pieces after a terrorist attack,” said Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray, chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division.
“The material support statute allows us to strike earlier and earlier,” Mr. Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.
But the law, which was broadened by the USA Patriot Act passed in October 2001, still contains loopholes that could bar successful prosecution of some terrorists, said Daniel Bryant, assistant attorney general for legal policy.
Mr. Bryant said Congress should change the definition of “material support or resources” to include virtually any “tangible or intangible” money, property or service except medicine or religious materials. The current law includes a finite list of actions that could be criminal, ranging from financial services to provision of safe houses to making false identification.
The Justice Department also wants lawmakers to expand the scope of terrorism acts covered by the law beyond those that terrorists are believed most likely to commit, such as a chemical weapons attack, to include virtually any act of violence or destruction linked to them.
Critics say the law already is murky and that it could invite prosecutors to go after people who innocently make a donation or provide a service to a group they didn’t know had terrorist ties. Two federal court rulings in California have ruled as impermissibly vague the law’s definitions of “expert advice and assistance,” “personnel” and “training.”
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said similar questions surround cases such as that of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a University of Idaho computer science graduate student on trial for using his skills to create Web sites for terrorist recruitment and to draw financing.
“Could you go after a repairman who comes by to fix the computers?” Mr. Leahy asked.
Mr. Wray responded that the law would apply only in circumstances in which a terrorist sympathizer used his expertise to repair a device he knew was being used for terrorist purposes.
Even as the Justice Department appeals the court rulings, Mr. Bryant said, Congress should move to tighten the definitions that were challenged. He also said that new provisions should be added to clarify that the material support law cannot be used to prosecute actions protected by the First Amendment.
Several senators said Congress will consider the material support law as it mulls whether to revise the USA Patriot Act, parts of which expire at the end of 2005. President Bush has been pushing Congress to reauthorize the law in its entirety and expand the powers authorized by it. Opponents say the law should be changed to better protect privacy and civil liberties.
“This is a work in progress,” said Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican. “We’ve got to get it right.”
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