Nearly two years ago, the FBI raided the homes of nine antiwar, labor and international solidarity activists in Chicago, Michigan and Minnesota. The activists, along with fourteen others, were issued subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury empaneled to investigate the activists for providing “material support to terrorism.” Each activist refused to testify because they understood their activism on behalf of Palestinians, Colombians and others in the world was what the Justice Department was investigating and they have a right under the First Amendment to assemble, organize, engage in freedom of speech and dissent against the policies of the United States government.

The activists now call upon Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Gary Shapiro, to close the investigation.

Activists and journalists who brought a lawsuit against a Homeland Battlefield Act provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed in Congress and signed by President Barack Obama last December are celebrating this morning as a federal judge ruled yesterday that the provision likely violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

We’ve already been offering material support to terrorists.

If I were Obama, I’d make the decision quickly about where he wants to be tried for material support of terrorism. If Bud McKeon has his way, he’ll take away the President’s decision-making authority on whether to try Americans in civilian or military trials.

EXCLUSIVE: Emptywheel interviews Lt. Col. David Frakt, the attorney who represented teenage Gitmo detainee Mohammed Jawad. She asks how a trial in in federal court in NYC may impact charges of material support for terrorism.