Harvard University Counterterrorism Law Questions

Question 1 

Imagine that you are a judge charged with selecting which body of law and policy should govern targeting in counterterrorism operations: that found in traditional international law or that advocated by the United States. Your answer should address the following:

a. What are the traditional international law understandings regarding the law of targeting?

b. What is the U.S. position regarding the law and policy of targeting?

c. Which body of law and policy would you select and why? Are there elements of the body of law that you did not select that you nonetheless believe are sensible, consistent with important norms, or necessary given the changing nature of terrorism?

Question 2 

a. What are the two components of U.S. counterterror strategy since September 11, 2001, that have (or had) the highest potential to reduce the number of terrorists, reduce the effectiveness of terrorism, or defeat terrorist groups militarily?

b. What are the two components of U.S. counterterror strategy since September 11, 2001, that have (or had) the greatest potential to increase the number of terrorists, the effectiveness of terrorist groups, or the appeal of terrorism?

Question 3 

The F.B.I. arrested Sam Tabor and wants to charge him with providing Material Support for Terrorism. The FBI alleges that Tabor is a computer science student at a university. He designed a computer program that worked on Twitter, enabling people to identify, copy, and save official ISIS media content before that content could be flagged and removed by Twitter. Without Tabor’s program, the transfer of official ISIS material from one account to another must be done manually, by copying each file individually. This process can take an extensive amount of time and cannot be completed before Twitter flags and removes it. Tabor’s program eliminated the need to perform these tasks manually and allowed users to evade Twitter’s attempts to remove ISIS content. Tabor created the program and then published it online on his personal website. Tabor maintains that his program can be used with any content, not just ISIS content, and that many people have used it for other purposes. People have used the program to find, copy, and disseminate content about their favorite football teams, musicians, or movies. Tabor did not personally copy, save, or post any official ISIS content (a fact that the FBI does not contest). The FBI alleges that Tabor published a series of tweets about his radical ideology that shows that he created the program to benefit ISIS. The FBI alleges that Tabor argued in favor of ISIS’s violent practices, justifying them as necessary steps to reform US foreign policy. The FBI also alleges that he praised Americans who traveled to Syria to fight with ISIS. The FBI states that Tabor’s tweets included links to news stories in his tweets, but that he did not link to official ISIS content. The government wants to prosecute Tabor for Material Support. Analyze this possibility. Your answer should address the following issues in order.

a. (i) What are the elements of the Material Support statutes? How do the statutes differ from each other? (ii) Which statute would you choose in this case? Why?

b. Consider the Supreme Court’s ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. How does that case affect a possible prosecution of Tabor?

c. Would you recommend charging Tabor with Material Support for Terrorism on the facts given? Why or why not?