WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) today introduced S. 3848, the Terrorism Prevention Act of 2006, which makes it a crime to reward suicide bombings and increases penalties for existing terrorist offenses.
“Someone who encourages terrorism by rewarding the families of suicide bombers should be equally subject to prosecution and punishment,” said Kyl. “This bill also implements lessons learned in the Moussaoui trial, by updating the laws that allow us to prosecute terrorists while protecting classified information.”
“This legislation will provide additional tools to help protect America from terrorist attacks,” said Cornyn. “We continue to detect, disrupt and deter future terrorist attacks. This bill will help ensure that we are able to maintain that success. I encourage my colleagues to debate and pass this bill along with the other important pieces of anti-terror legislation.”
The bill specifically expands the reach of statutes punishing material support for terrorism, making it a crime to reward the family of a suicide bomber or other terrorist with the intent to facilitate terrorism, and increases penalties for existing material support offenses; improves the Classified Information Procedures Act in light of the lessons learned in the Moussaoui trial by, for example, clarifying the reach of the statute and the authority to appeal under the statute; expands the reach of the terrorist hoax statute to additional terrorist crimes, and increases penalties for hoaxes about the death of U.S. soldiers during wartime; increases penalties for terrorist murders, kidnappings, and assaults committed overseas against U.S. nationals, and increases penalties for terrorist crimes resulting in death; and improves the United States’ ability to investigate terrorist crimes by protecting the confidentiality of FISA investigations, authorizing multi-district search warrants in terrorism cases, and increasing penalties for obstruction of justice in terrorism cases.
Senator Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) is also a cosponsor of the bill.
