What exactly does “purposefully and materially supported” hostilities against the United States mean

Question by yars232c: What exactly does “purposefully and materially supported” hostilities against the United States mean
It’s no secret that the Bush administration deeply resents the court rulings that have recognized basic legal protections that shield detainees from abuse,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. “Congress should reject the administration’s blatant attempt to eviscerate the courts’ role in the U.S. system of checks and balances.”

The right to habeas corpus is one of the oldest and most fundamental of human rights protections. By stripping the courts of habeas jurisdiction over detainees, the U.S. would be signaling to the rest of the world that it is not bound by the rule of law in its treatment of them.

The bill has other dangerous provisions as well. The latest version of the legislation includes an extremely dangerous expansion in the bill’s definition of “unlawful enemy combatant” ? a phrase used by the administration to justify holding a combatant outside of the usual protections given to combatants by the Geneva Conventions.
It now explicitly deems persons who have “purposefully and materially supported” hostilities against the United States to be combatants, an unprecedented redefinition of “combatant” that could potentially cover a range of innocent people. Financing and support for terrorist activities are already criminal offenses in the civilian justice system. This definition would pervert any reasonable concept of what a combatant is.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=9062621&content_dir=ua_congressorg
“This provision expands the concept of combatant way beyond anything that is traditionally accepted, and it could come back to haunt Americans,” Roth said. “This definition would make every civilian cafeteria worker at a U.S. military base, and every worker in an American uniform factory, someone whom enemy forces could shoot to kill.”

Best answer:

Answer by uncle osbert
gave money to somebody that we’re pretty sure was a terrorist.

i am really nervous about defining anyone anywhere as an enemy combatant… especially with identity theft, i think it opens a door to abusing citizens rights. how certain are you that your credit card isn’t being used? how would you prove that it wasn’t you?

“enemy combatant” seems very clear to me already… we’ve changed the definition of “enemy” to “basically anybody”. who then, are the “americans”?

What do you think? Answer below!