{
  "id": "95-1050",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "95-1050",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 100539,
      "date": "2001-09-24",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T20:20:50.140941",
      "title": "Terrorism at Home and Abroad: Applicable Federal and State Criminal Laws",
      "summary": "Terrorists' attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Murrah building in Oklahoma\nCity\nand the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania have stimulated demands that the terrorists\nresponsible and those like them be brought to justice. American criminal law already proscribes\nmany of these acts of terrorism and there have been proposals to expand that coverage. This is a\nbrief overview of the state and federal laws which now prohibit terrorism in this country and abroad.\n  Since terrorism is a creature of motive in whose name almost any wrong might be committed,\nthe interests of time and space require a more limited focus. For purposes of this report, terrorism\nis conduct, committed or foregone, which instills a fear of physical injury or of property damage or\nwhich is intended to do so.\n  Although ordinarily crime is proscribed by the law of the place where it occurs, more than a few\nAmerican criminal laws apply to terrorism committed outside the United States. The power to enact\nsuch laws flows from the Constitution and is usually limited by little more than due process notice. \nReticence to offend another sovereign, however, has traditionally limited American exercise of such\nauthority to instance where there is a discernible nexus to the United States.\n  In the United States, the conduct we most often associate with terrorism -- bombings,\nassassinations, armed assaults, kidnapping, threats -- are generally outlawed by both federal and state\nlaw.\n  The federal approach builds upon individual national interests: the protection of federal\n officers,\nensuring the safety of foreign diplomatic officials, guaranteeing the safety and integrity of the mails\nand the channels of interstate and foreign commerce, and honoring our international obligations. \nConsequently international terrorism is first and foremost a matter of federal law.\n  Crime within the United States, however, has traditionally been the domain of state law. It is\ntherefore not surprising that the reach of state criminal law, concerning terrorism as well as other\nmatters, is more comprehensive than that of the federal laws which supplement it. Where federal\nlaw condemns presidential assassination, state law prohibits murdering anyone.\n  Until recently, the seemingly boundless reach of the Commerce Clause suggested state primacy\nmay have begun to erode. In a shrinking nation, few saw any activities that could not arguable be\ncharacterized as affecting commerce, the threshold for federal legislative authority. In at least two\nareas central to control of terrorism, firearms and explosives, those assumptions may now be open\nto question as a result of recent court interpretations.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
      "formats": [
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          "encoding": null,
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/95-1050",
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          "filename": "files/20010924_95-1050_b15cc1a9f2eebd87fdf5faa72736643ba7069563.pdf",
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      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "American Law",
    "Intelligence and National Security"
  ]
}