Felonious speeches: 'material support' for terrorism.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings - Brief article

Is RUDY GIULIANI an accomplice to terrorism? In a December New York Times op-ed piece, Georgetown law professor David Cole noted that the former New York mayor arguably violated the federal ban on providing "material support" to terrorist groups when he spoke at a conference in Paris the previous month. So did his fellow speakers, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and former national security adviser Frances Townsend.

The gathering was sponsored by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an Iranian opposition group that the State Department considers a "foreign terrorist organization." Cole, who represented the Humanitarian Law Project in its unsuccessful First Amendment challenge to the material support ban, noted that the government says the law applies even to speech advocating legal, nonviolent...