Current federal law criminalizes material support for terrorism or foreign terro

Current federal law criminalizes material support for terrorism or foreign terrorist organizations. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2339A and 2339B. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
These material support statutes were passed in 1994 and 1996, respectively. The purpose of the statutes is to deny terrorist groups the ingredients necessary for planning and carrying out attacks. Generally speaking, the First Amendment is not an obstacle to the prosecution of terrorists for committing their acts of terror since murder, destruction of property, etc. do not enjoy constitutional protections. However, for the terrorist who dies in his or her own act of terrorism, prosecution obviously isn’t a possibility. For this reason, counterterrorism law seeks to follow the chain of command or chain of causation and prosecute secondary defendants who have aided and abetted, conspired, assisted or otherwise supported the terrorists.
These material support offenses constitute potent weapons for the government since it is possible for material support to take many forms and is capable of being tied to so many different underlying offenses. However, material support statutes have also been viewed as restricting free speech. Opponents assert that, since the statutes don’t require a specific intent to aid or further terrorist activity, someone could be found guilty by association. Additionally, opponents assert that the government’s limitation or restriction of speech is unconstitutional even where it can be agreed that the content of the speech is highly objectionable. Thus, the courts are faced with another delicate balancing of security versus liberty.