Andy’s Law Sponsor in Tennessee Calls for Action in Wake of Jihadi Attack

During the past legislative session, Representative Judd Matheny and Senator Bill Ketron of Tennessee authored important state-level counterterrorism legislation known as “Andy’s Law.”

Andy’s Law, which has also passed in Arkansas, Kansas and Louisiana, strengthens state-level terrorism and material support for terrorism statutes, arming state and local law enforcement with vital legal tools as they become the tip of the spear in the war against Jihad. Andy’s Law also creates a civil legal cause of action, empowering victims of terrorism to seek damages from individuals and organizations that provide material support to those who commit acts of terrorism.

Andy’s Law was inspired by the federal government’s reluctance to call acts of terrorism what they are and refusal to prosecute those who commit such acts under federal terrorism statutes. This was portrayed vividly in the movie, “Losing Our Sons.”

As this is being written, Andy’s Law has passed the House of Representatives in North Carolina and awaits action in the Senate Judiciary Committee I this week.

Representative Matheny of Tennessee issued a press release this week alerting Tennesseans to Andy’s Law. The text of that press release appears below:

7/18/15

For immediate release

From the Office of Tennessee State Representative Judd Matheny

https://www.legislature.state.tn.us/house/members/h47.html

For business hours interview request (8am-5pm, M-F cst) please call 615-741-7448.

For an off hours interview request, please text 615-390-8314.

Enough is Enough

I extend my sincerest condolences to the families of our servicemen whose lives were taken in a horrific act of planned terrorism. Having served both in the military and as a law enforcement officer in Tennessee, I have a deep and abiding gratitude and respect for anyone who chooses to serve in uniform.

Acts of terrorism are intended to make us feel powerless to respond. Tennessee has again witnessed the reality that our state is not immune from these acts of cowardice.

We first learned this lesson in 2009 when Carlos Bledsoe, a Tennessee State University student from Memphis, shot and killed Pvt. Andrew Long at the Little Rock, Arkansas Army recruiting center. With further investigation, we learned that between his days as a student and the day he became a murderer, Carlos began attending meetings at the Nashville Islamic Center, changed his name to Abdulhakim Mohammed, and spent several months in Yemen, a known terrorist training location.

It is now clear that Carlos Bledsoe’s murderous actions were not a random act or as often excused, that of a “lone wolf”. In response to those findings and to possibly stop future Carlos Bledsoes, Senator Bill Ketron and I led the General Assembly in passing a law in 2011, enhancing the criminal punishment for acts of terrorism, including jihadi terrorism, by both the perpetrators and the supporters of the violence.

Earlier this year, we realized that more needed to be done. We passed another law, known familiarly as “Andy’s Law”, named for Pvt. Andrew Long, the soldier Carlos Bledsoe murdered. This new law addresses the very situation we are now facing in Chattanooga. While the jihadist responsible for the murders is dead and cannot be prosecuted, under this new law, all individuals and all organizations who recruited, assisted, incited, or in any way supported Mohammed Youssef Abdulazeez in his jihad, are subject to vastly more severe civil and criminal penalties on the state level.

Now is the time to put “Andy’s Law” into action to prosecute the planned and calculated violence in Chattanooga.

Jihadi terrorism is neither a random act nor a result of “lone wolf” perpetrators. We must use every option that we now have and those that we will devise in the future to protect ourselves from the simmering violence that is brewing in Tennessee’s communities.

Most of our state’s top leadership have skirted around the issues of security from terrorism in Tennessee. We can no longer ignore the security implications hidden in legal immigration issues, federal threats to free speech, refugee resettlement issues, indirect support of the Obama administration’s blind eye to burgeoning illegal immigrant traffic, and attempts to pass state laws equalizing rights and state benefits for illegal inhabitants in Tennessee to those of legal inhabitants.