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The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penatly Act of 1996, under certain terrorist criminal proceedings,
The Act also adds teeth to the prohibition of sponsoring terrorism by anyone in the U.S., citizen or not, through funds, equipment or other means, and prohibts any financial transactions with members of the designated terrorist sponsoring country (full economic sanctions).
This allows the government, at the conclusion of a terrorist trial to seize assets, make it illegal to aid a country recognized during the trial as sponsoring terrorism and allows foreign carriers such as aircraft of shipping to be limited as necessary for security reasons.
Most importantly, the Act allows the U.S. President, once a country has been designated a terrorist sponser, to use just about any means at his disposal to reduce or eliminate the threat up to and including military action overt or covert. It also releases funds at the descretion of U.S. anti-terrorist budgets to be given to anti-terrorist organizations domestic or foreign in order to provide for security, arrest, conviction and/or extradition.
The Act allows the U.S., upon a country being designated,
The act does, however, allow the Attorney General the right to make special exception and proceed with deportation prior to completion of sentence if it is necessary for security of the nation (for instance, communicable disease, radioactive, chemical, or biological contamination could allow the Attorny General to elect to deport instead of imprison and thus reduce the costs to the nation for treatment and care of terrorists "caught" by their own devices).
The Act also allows the Attorney General to take a prisoner immediately after completion of sentence (i.e. at the gate of the prison) for deporation, thus not allowing any opportunity to escape deportation.
And as an important feature, the Act also has special provisions for treatment of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons or residuals, both in terms of crimes involving their use, transportation, or possession.
It also implements the Plastic Explosive Convention which prohibits the manufacturing importation, exportation, shipment, transport, transfer, reciept or possession of plastic explosives that does not contain a vaild detection agent, as well as requires identification of all such plastic explosives in possession at the date of the inactment, making possession of pre-law materials illegal if not identified.
The act increases dramatically the minimum and maximum sentences for crimes relating to terrorist activities including use of or possession of prohibited materials (i.e. explosives, arson devices, NBC materials, etc.), as well as defines acts against infrastructure such as buildings, bridges, power plants, conveyance, or other real or personal property.
The act also provides for resources for security for preventive actions as well as for resources for both preventitive and post-event cleanup. The Act also directs the Secretary of State and Attorney General to report regularly on the events, persons of terrorist actions in and outside the U.S. that effect U.S. citizens, civlian or military, and especially calls out attention to law enforcement officers injored or killed in such events.
The act also increases funding for the FBI's support centers in order to aid federal and state offices to counter terrorism as well as expands the FBIs own anti-terrorism divisions. Authorizes the Department of Justice to hire more U.S. Attorneys who can focus on anti-terrorism cases; investigation, preparation and conduct of trails for conviction and sentencing as well as post conviction activities such as but not limited to parole hearings.
For purposes of anti-terrorism, the Act declares all seas surrounding the continental U.S., its islands and territories as part of the U.S. for the purposes of jurisdiction, punishment, sentencing, etc.