Earlier this month, DeSantis signed HB 1471, a bill giving the governor and his cabinet the power to designate any group they deem as engaging in “terrorist activity” as a terrorist organization, with the authority to dissolve those groups and prosecute anyone who has provided them material support. The law does not require the governor to disclose the basis for their designation, though it does set some parameters around why a group might be recommended for the designation. It also targets educational institutions by prohibiting them from promoting any such organization and, under certain circumstances, requires universities to expel students who express support for these groups.
In context, the bill is squarely aimed at the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the leading Muslim civil rights organization in the United States. The bill was a legislative follow-up to an executive order signed by DeSantis earlier this year, designating CAIR as a “foreign terrorist organization” in the state of Florida.
The Florida government’s reasoning leans on CAIR being named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation’s terror financing trial from 2007, which concerned the financing of Palestinian charity organisations in Gaza. Notably, the United States federal government funded those same charities until the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At trial, prosecutors did not attempt to argue that the funds were used for something other than humanitarian aid, but instead that Palestinian charity organizations had ties to Hamas, the de facto governing body in Gaza.
Since then, federal courts have found that while those charities were ruled to have ties to Hamas, the prosecutors violated the rights of the American Islamic organizations in the case. CAIR has long objected to how they and the hundreds of other groups and individuals named as unindicted co-conspirators in the case pointed to statements from prosecutors that the designation was nothing more than a “legal tactic.”
The move in Florida is also part of a longstanding push by Republicans to designate Muslim civil rights groups as terrorist organizations, with Rep. Randy Find, R-Fla., introducing a bill in Congress that would do so last year. The bill was even titled the “Designate CAIR as a Terrorist Organization Act.”
Fine is best known for his virulent Islamophobia, saying of Muslims at a recent congressional hearing, “I don’t know how you make peace with those who seek your destruction. I think you destroy them first.” He’s previously said Gaza should be nuked like Hiroshima, mocked a photo of a dead Palestinian child and even told one Florida Muslim in an Instagram message to “Go blow yourself up!”
“These types of laws are so dangerous, because enabling the executive power to have an unchecked power to name someone a terrorist organization, before anyone have been subject to a criminal prosecution or conviction, is something so against our constitutional protections.”
In court, CAIR has already won a preliminary injunction preventing the executive order from going into effect. Its case is now headed to the 11th Circuit. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a similar executive order earlier this year.
Wilfredo Ruiz, a spokesman for CAIR Florida, told Salon that he sees the move from Florida Republicans as a blatant violation of the First Amendment, saying that the group is being targeted for advocating for a pro-Palestinian stance. He said, however, that this type of law shouldn’t be applied to any group based on a designation by the governor’s office, because it is an unprecedented state-level power grab that bypasses the court.
“Imagine a small group of women, pro-abortion, that has a yearly budget of $20,000. What do they do? Are they able to hire an attorney to represent them when DeSantis names them a terrorist organization?” Ruiz said. “That is why these types of laws are so dangerous, because enabling the executive power to have an unchecked power to name someone a terrorist organization, before anyone have been subject to a criminal prosecution or conviction, this is something that is so against our constitutional protections right now it would be unthinkable.”
Shirin Sinnar, a professor of law at Stanford University, told Salon that this sort of state-level terrorist designation is not only unprecedented but on shaky legal footing, in part because issues of national security are typically handled at the national level.
“So it is unprecedented for a state to claim the authority to designate terrorist organizations. States do have various terrorism laws, but to the extent that any refer to foreign terrorist organizations, it’s generally been piggybacking on the federal designations, and even those are very few,” Sinnar said. “So this is different, because claiming the authority of state officials to determine who is a terrorist and then impose consequences is really new, and I think, really dangerous.”
It’s unprecedented, Sinnar explained, because the state-level designation, while distinct, goes beyond the federal law governing the designation of terrorist organizations, which have been restrained by the First Amendment. Even if the Florida model simply mirrored the federal model, that itself would still be legally suspect, because federal law would preempt state law in this context.
“You don’t want localities or states getting into the business of designating their enemies or their political adversaries or the people they disagree with as terrorists. That’s just not a good thing,” Sinnar said. “The terrorism designations pack a lot of power, and they are highly problematic even in the form that we have them right now, which is at the federal level. Extending it to states and cities would just be disastrous.”
Sinnar said she hopes that courts would recognize this out of a sense to avoid conflicting laws but also because of the stakes for free speech and association, adding “I do worry a lot about these laws, because even if they don’t ultimately get sustained in court, they are doing a lot of damage in the meantime.”
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Sinnar also described a provision of the new Florida law banning the enforcement of foreign or religious laws as strange because Sharia law, a name for Islamic religious law with many variations, is not being enforced in Florida. Furthermore, CAIR does not advocate for the implementation of Sharia in the U.S., nor any other religious or foreign systems of law.
“Singling out Sharia law feels like it’s just an attempt to kind of fearmonger against Muslims and Islamic religious practices,” Sinnar said.
Texas and Arkansas have also passed laws banning Sharia specifically, and bills have been introduced to do the same in 44 states and in Congress.
As for the future of the law in Florida, Ruiz said he and his colleagues are confident that they will prevail in court, saying that he believes judges will object to a provision in the law that would allow the state government to keep their reasoning for the designation a secret.
“The governor has no authority in law at all to do executive orders naming organizations as terrorist organizations. This is not North Korea, Russia or Cuba,” Ruiz said. “We don’t see any first instance court or appeals court finding any kind of angle to legitimize this kind of action from the executive.”
DeSantis’s office did not respond to Salon’s request for comment.
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