When does free speech cross the line into breaking U.S. anti-terrorism laws?
Charlotte Kates, co-founder of the pro-Hamas organization Samidoun, has become the focus of an ongoing legal debate: When does free speech cross the line into breaking federal anti-terror laws?
Charlotte Kates, a New Jersey native and Rutgers Law School graduate who co-founded the pro-Hamas organization Samidoun, has become the focus of an ongoing legal debate: When does free speech cross the line into breaking federal anti-terrorism laws?
Over the last year, Kates, who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, said she met with mid-level leaders of at least two U.S.-designated terrorist organizations at a public conference in South Africa. She also joined members of the groups in online seminars in which they urged the audience to support Hamas and Hezbollah.
“The Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese resistance are not engaging in terrorism,” Kates told NBC News. “They’re engaging in a national liberation struggle.”
U.S. Treasury officials sanctioned her organization two weeks ago and declared it a “sham charity,” alleging that it was funneling money to a second, lesser-known U.S.-designated terrorist organization. At the same time, the Canadian government declared Samidoun a terrorist entity. Germany banned the organization last November, and Israel designated it a terrorist organization in 2021.
Republican members of Congress and several Jewish groups have petitioned the Justice Department, the FBI and other federal agencies to crack down on protest groups that openly praise terrorist organizations. Kates’ open support of terrorist organizations puts her in the middle of a growing legal dispute: When does free speech cross the line into breaking federal anti-terrorism laws?
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