After my post on freedom of speech in the US yesterday, I received several responses. This is from a reader from Yale Law School:
"I don't mean to paint a rosy picture because nothing about free speech is guaranteed, and it is only there to the extent that people fight for it. But your statement that "the US government has made it illegal for anyone to express support for Hamas and Hizbullah in the US" is not correct, at least not yet. Mere expressions of support are not illegal (that is not to say they won't have other consequences, like background checks, follow-up investigations, surveillance, etcetera). Only "material support" is illegal, and that can include advocacy that is "coordinated" with those organizations, as well as forms of training, provision of expertise, donations of money or goods, etcetera. It's a thin line, sure, but the supreme court has tried to maintain a theoretical distinction between "coordinated" speech and non-coordinated speech to justify criminalizing the former. Here is a good write-up:". I wrote to him my opinion: that "material" support is so vaguely and broadly defined by the courts that it is not clear whether championing the cause of either organizations constitutes material support. Suffice to say, no one has yet tested the boundaries of the law. So there is in effect a ban on expression of support. Furthermore, the US government has also in its legislation against terrorist organization equated media with terrorist organization. So Al-Manar TV and Hamas media are labeled as terrorist organization in order to justify their ban in the US. Finally, there was a case in NYC after Sep. 11 when a man was arrested for yelling words of support for Bin Laden. So the government has plenty of leeway in interpreting the meaning of material support.
"I don't mean to paint a rosy picture because nothing about free speech is guaranteed, and it is only there to the extent that people fight for it. But your statement that "the US government has made it illegal for anyone to express support for Hamas and Hizbullah in the US" is not correct, at least not yet. Mere expressions of support are not illegal (that is not to say they won't have other consequences, like background checks, follow-up investigations, surveillance, etcetera). Only "material support" is illegal, and that can include advocacy that is "coordinated" with those organizations, as well as forms of training, provision of expertise, donations of money or goods, etcetera. It's a thin line, sure, but the supreme court has tried to maintain a theoretical distinction between "coordinated" speech and non-coordinated speech to justify criminalizing the former. Here is a good write-up:". I wrote to him my opinion: that "material" support is so vaguely and broadly defined by the courts that it is not clear whether championing the cause of either organizations constitutes material support. Suffice to say, no one has yet tested the boundaries of the law. So there is in effect a ban on expression of support. Furthermore, the US government has also in its legislation against terrorist organization equated media with terrorist organization. So Al-Manar TV and Hamas media are labeled as terrorist organization in order to justify their ban in the US. Finally, there was a case in NYC after Sep. 11 when a man was arrested for yelling words of support for Bin Laden. So the government has plenty of leeway in interpreting the meaning of material support.
