Dana El-Kurd

It could have been driving people to an action, a mere presence at an action, wearing black clothes, providing money to buy fireworks.

All those could be considered material support.

But because of how the jury just writes guilty on this charge, we don't actually know what the specific...

justification they used to find this to be true right because the discharge is so is so broad and can contain a lot of things that qualify as material support including just being merely present at an action like personnel can be material support in furtherance of a federal crime of terrorism right so wearing black block at an action where no crime happens is

would not constitute terrorism, but wearing black clothes at a protest where someone does an ideologically motivated crime of terrorism could be seen as materially supporting that crime or concealing the escape of the person who committed that crime.

I want to quote from the judge's instructions to the jury regarding the First Amendment, quote, constitutionally protected speech can be properly used as evidence to prove a defendant's motive, intent, and knowledge to commit the offense or further the unlawful purpose of any jointly undertaken criminal activity.

stated another way, if a defendant's speech, expression, or associations were made with the intent to knowingly provide material support or resources to be used to prepare for or carry out a violation of federal law or to carry out the concealment of an escape from such a violation, then the First Amendment would not provide a defense to that conduct, unquote.

Mm-hmm.

So it is possible, now using this case as precedent, if you're present at a protest before someone commits a serious crime and you have a tangential link to that person, you could also face similar charges.

Yeah.

If you're in a group chat with someone and then they commit a crime, you could face similar charges.

This is not the first time the government has tried to use this sort of conspiracy against a large group of protesters.

Notably, they tried to do this in Atlanta unsuccessfully, but I think it's worth noting they were only unsuccessful on their recode charges because of procedural error, not because of actual evidence argued in court.

It's that the prosecutor in that case did not actually have justification or the legal justification to bring this charge.

So we never actually saw this get argued out in front of a jury and find the jury's verdict.

But this is a part of an ongoing strategy the prosecution has done against protesters the past few years, and in this case, successfully.

Yeah, it's also, like, as bleak as this is, and this is very bleak, this is not the final say on how any case like this will be adjudicated everywhere.

This is a case in Texas, right?

Like, this is not... Yes.

This isn't the fucking U.S.