(MintPress) – What is a terrorist? The answer to that question could mean the difference between prosecution and a life of freedom. The definition is warping into one that does not constitute an act of violence, but a predisposition to an ideology that could, potentially, be manifested into an act of violence.
So, what does this mean? Who is “predisposed” and who isn’t? What does it take, in the eyes of the government, to turn one into a terrorist, especially in the wake of vague definition outlined in the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Charlotte Silver of Al Jazeera English points to the case of Tareq Abufayyad, a Palestinian man, as an example of this new wave of confusion and uncertainty regarding the definition of a terrorist. Abufayyad was detained at the San Francisco airport when traveling to the United States to visit his family.
After confiscating his laptop, which include speeches given in opposition against the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, he was told to leave the country or face immigration court in the United States.
An FBI investigator later argued to an immigration judge that Abufayyad was targeted because he was college educated and from Gaza — because of this, it was determined he was predisposed to hold a sympathetic view toward Hamas.
That, apparently, is all it takes.
Under the (NDAA), anyone who has communicated with someone who has ties to terrorist organizations could be held to that standard.
Chris Hedges, who filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration for provisions in the NDAA that would have potentially allowed journalists who spoke with people alleging to have ties to terrorism, to be detained without due process.
Hedges points to Section 1021 (b)(2) in his argument:
“This section permits the military to detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, who ‘substantially support’ — an undefined legal term — al-Qaeda, the Taliban or ‘associated forces,’ again a term that is legally undefined,” Hedges wrote in a recent article published in TruthDig. “Those detained can be imprisoned indefinitely by the military and denied due process until ‘the end of the hostilities.’”
The constitutionality of that provision of NDAA has been batted around the judicial circuit, with a federal judge ruling it unconstitutional in June. In September, the Southern District Court of New York agreed. However, this was appealed by the Obama Administration, which is showing no signs of clarifying the concerns related to this provision.
While this was heard by Second Circuit Court judges this week, clarity regarding the situation is not likely to come until spring, when the Supreme Court takes up Clapper v. Amnesty International USA.