Surveillance of Activists -- Reprise

I noted in an earlier post that a recently published FBI report essentially exonerates agency personnel of charges that they targeted protesters for surveillance based upon political advocacy.  This potentially disturbing (and related) story shows how federal laws limiting the provision of "material support" to terrorists and terrorist organizations may be used against domestic anti-war and other acativists.  A taste from the story:

FBI agents in Chicago took a laptop and documents from the home of a Palestinian-American anti-war activist in an attempt to silence his advocacy, an attorney said yesterday.


The FBI on Sept. 24 searched eight addresses in Minneapolis and Chicago, including the home of Hatem Abudayyeh, who is the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, attorney Jim Fennerty told the Associated Press.

“The government’s trying to quiet activists,” Fennerty said. “This case is really scary.”

More than half a dozen agents went to Abudayyeh’s home on Sept. 24 and took any documents containing the word “Palestine,” Fennerty said.