Not good.

CNN: Bill aims to strip certain Americans of their citizenship

This is not good.  This is seriously not good.  A new bill introduced in Congress this week, the Terrorist Expatriation Act, moves to strip Americans of their citizenship if they have been "found to have provided material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization -- as designated by the secretary of state -- or participated in actions against the United States."  This comes off the heels of the suspected attempted Times Square bomber, who received American citizenship last year.  While Sen. Joe Lieberman states that this is simply updating the 1940 Immigration and Nationality Act to reflect current circumstances, it really goes farther than that.

Having studied refugee issues for a couple of years now, it allows for an interesting precedent for this issue.  In current U.S. refugee law, any person applying for refugee status that has provided material support to a terrorist organization will be denied refugee status and deported.  However, this law does not take into account whether that material support was willing or not.  There have been numerous cases where people applying for refugee status in the US were forced to provide things to terrorist organizations (usually through extortion, death threats, etc.), yet still fell under the 'material support' clause.

Another issue is the list of organizations that the United States deems terrorist.  This includes the CPN (M) [Communist Party of Nepal- Maoist], who actually seated a prime minister and are a part of the constitution-writing process.  Having studied Nepal for the past semester in depth [read- ad nauseam], a few things are apparent in this (in my opinion) wrongful designation.  First, the Maoists have not done much worse than the government did during the People's War.  Second, Maoists have not done much worse (arguably, they have done better) than all of the right-wing dictatorships in Latin America during the 1980s, which the United States supported.  Yet, because they have 'communist' in their name and have engaged in armed conflict, automatically they are deemed to be terrorists.

Connecting this to the issue of the proposed bill, the issue is that this has the potential to seriously impact Americans working abroad, among other issues.  One of the largest issues is that it prevents aid, development, and other workers from assisting in many legitimate areas (particularly in government), because one of the prominent and legitimate political parties is deemed a terrorist organization by the United States government.  One of my largest concerns about going to Nepal is working on some project that seeks reconciliation among Nepalis, and then getting into trouble back in the US because some of the participants were Maoists.  Apart from my own potential legal troubles, this completely undermines any work that could be done to facilitate transition to a stable, functioning government.  And isn't that what the US always wants abroad?

Long story short, the bill as described spells out bad news.  I can agree with the sentiment of the bill, to protect the nation from treasonous citizens.  However, there needs to be some serious oversight as to what this bill contains, to ensure the protection of those citizens who may be victims of extortion or terror themselves, as well as those working around the world to help create a safer global environment.