House Approves “Nonprofit Killer” Bill, Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since PATRIOT Act

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We’re broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, but we’re looking at a bill that was passed in the House of Representatives Thursday. It was approved. It would empower the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it deems to have provided material support to a terrorist organization, without any evidence needed. If the bill becomes law, it could apply to a range of nonprofits, including unions, membership organizations, foundations and media organizations. A broad coalition of civil society groups have opposed the so-called nonprofit killer. H.R. 9495 passed the House 219 to 184, with 15 Democrats supporting the Republican majority. Earlier versions of the bill received broad bipartisan support, but following Donald Trump’s election, most Democrats withdrew their support.

For more, we go to East Lansing, Michigan, where we’re joined by Darryl Li. He’s an anthropologist, lawyer and legal scholar teaching at the University of Chicago. His analysis of the so-called nonprofit killer bill was published on Spencer Ackerman’s blog forever-wars.com. It’s headlined “The Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since the PATRIOT Act.”

OK, Darryl, why? Why is this so significant? Again, it was passed in the House. It now makes its way to the Senate.

DARRYL LI: Thank you for having me on, Amy.

As you mentioned, this bill is essentially a civil rights disaster, that would allow the government, under any administration — I want to be clear that this bill is terrible no matter who is president — but it would allow the government to shut down nonprofits on the smear of being terrorist-supporting organizations.

Now, obviously, the government, after decades of authoritarian “war on terror” policies, already has ample legal tools at its disposal to go after nonprofits, essentially, for any reason that it wishes. What this bill would do in addition, the thing that it would add and the thing that makes it so dangerous, and actually the most dangerous domestic terrorism law in a generation, is that it would essentially smuggle in through the back door a domestic terrorist group list for the first time. This is something that the United States, to this day, still doesn’t have. We have many, many lists of so-called foreign terrorist organizations, that are overwhelmingly Muslim and/or based in the Global South.

This law requires an accusation with no evidence, but a tie-in. It’s an accusation that nonprofits are supporting a group on one of the existing international terrorism lists. This is important to understand, because it explains why so many people on the right in Congress are comfortable signing on, because the bill is essentially discriminatory by design. Right-wingers and white supremacists in Congress can support this bill, with the assurance that their allies, right-wing extremist groups, are highly, highly unlikely to ever be targeted by this bill, because there isn’t going to — it’s much less likely that they will be smeared with an accusation of being tied to an international terrorist organization that’s already on one of the government lists. So, that’s why this particular coalition —

AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible]

DARRYL LI: — has come together. And it will — oh, go on.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about the origins of the bill, why Democrats supported the bill, and what it means now that it’s going to the Senate, how organizations are organizing around it.

DARRYL LI: Right. So, since October 7th, we’ve seen a whole bunch of outlandish anti-Palestinian pieces of legislation that have been designed to crush any protest or dissent around Palestine in the United States, while Congress, of course, continues to supply untold billions of dollars in weapons to Israel for its ongoing genocide in Gaza. This particular piece of legislation is the one that has gotten closest to becoming law. And initially, it did have significant bipartisan support, because, of course, anti-Palestinian racism is one of the great bipartisan unifiers in Congress.

With the efforts of civil society groups to ring the alarm and educate members of Congress about the dangers of this bill, not only for Palestine advocacy, but broadly, for any number of causes, and, of course, with the election of Donald Trump, more and more Democrats have awoken to the danger. So, right now the important thing, now that the bill has passed the House, is to ensure that it does not go anywhere in the Senate. So, it’s extremely important for people to keep up the pressure on the Democratic members of Congress, and especially those in the Senate, to block this bill in the remainder of this session and, of course, if it comes up in a future legislative session.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, next session — now, this already came up just a week or two ago, and now it has passed in the House. The Democrats control the Senate, but the Republicans will soon control the Senate.

DARRYL LI: That’s right, they will. But my understanding is that they’ll still need 60 votes to pass, so I don’t think the Republicans will have 60 senators, so there is still a chance that the bill can be blocked. But again, we can’t take it for granted. It requires all hands on deck and as much pressure as possible on the Senate Democrats to ensure that this bill doesn’t go anywhere.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, Darryl, it’s interesting that I’m talking to you here in Baku, Azerbaijan, because there have been scores of journalists, civil society, climate justice activists arrested in the lead-up to the COP. And for those who write about what’s happening in this authoritarian petrostate, they talk about the targeting of nonprofit groups. And that’s the beginning of going after these people who end up in jail. A number have said they’ve been brutalized in jail. Your final thoughts, Darryl?

DARRYL LI: Yeah, so, one thing that’s important for people to understand is that the Supreme Court has already said that material support for terrorism can include speech acts. It can include so-called coordinated advocacy. So it goes far beyond funding. And this is something that I think, for media organizations, in particular, should really be sort of raising the alarms in terms of the dangers of this bill for their work, in particular.

AMY GOODMAN: Darryl Li, we want to thank you so much for being with us, anthropologist, lawyer, legal scholar teaching at the University of Chicago. We’ll link to your article, “The Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since the PATRIOT Act.”

Coming up, we’ll look at Trump’s new pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi. Back in 20 seconds.

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AMY GOODMAN: This breaking news: Britain has just said it would comply, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant came to Britain, in arresting him.