Abstract
In this Note, I argue that individuals who support ISIS through encouragement and participation in the recruitment process through social media fall into criminal prosecution under the statute, as they have attempted to provide material support, namely personnel, to the foreign terrorist organization. This support of ISIS through social media is not protected First Amendment speech, as the support turns into an attempt to provide personnel or finances to the group. Part I will focus on ISIS as an organization, its history, and its recruitment strategies. It will discuss ISIS's innovative use of social media for recruitment and its dangerously overwhelming success in utilizing this methodology to recruit Westerners and, more specifically, Americans. It will also address the problems facing prosecutors today in holding Americans liable for their attempts to provide material support to ISIS through social media outlets when this attempt is done independently. Part II of this Note will focus on the long-winding history and evolution of the material support statute, including its most influential and binding judicial interpretation in Humanitarian Law Project.Within this case, this Note will discuss the flaws of the Court's failure to provide a definition for "independent advocacy" in its interpretation of the statute and how independent advocacy may be distinguishable from "attempt to provide material support." Part III will address how the statute should apply and should encompass the Americans who attempt to provide material support to ISIS without being under the command and control of the organization, and how these individuals have taken a "substantial step" necessary to subject themselves to criminal prosecution for attempting to provide material support to ISIS. Prosecution of these Americans will optimistically combat the success of ISIS's recruitment from the very beginning as opposed to when it is too late.
Recommended Citation
Morgan Stacey,
Note, American, Isis, and Social Media: How the Material Support Statute Can Help Combat Against Their Collision,
30
Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y
201
(2016).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjlepp/vol30/iss1/8