Définition juridique américaine de l’activité terroriste

The U.S. legal definition of terrorist activity is presented as a formal test for identifying unlawful acts and forms of assistance, but also as part of a political system that applies the label and imposes consequences. Its list ranges from attacks on transport and hostage-taking to assassination, weapons use, and threats or conspiracies; it also reaches people who knowingly help prepare, support, or finance terrorist activity. Noam Chomsky’s wider argument is that such definitions lose their force when governments apply them selectively: if the same criteria were used consistently, state actions could not simply be excluded from the category.

Scope and qualifying acts

The definition begins with a threshold requirement: the activity must be unlawful under the law where it occurs, or would be unlawful under federal or state law if committed in the United States. The text thus links the category to illegality rather than treating political purpose alone as sufficient. It then specifies conduct that can qualify, including hijacking or sabotaging a means of transport such as an aircraft, ship, or vehicle.

Kidnapping or detention is included when it is accompanied by a threat to kill, injure, or continue holding the person, and is intended to compel a third party or government organization to act or refrain from acting. The demanded action or inaction must be an express or implied condition for the person’s release. The definition also covers violent attacks on internationally protected persons, as well as infringements of their liberty.

Assassination is listed as a qualifying act in its own right. The definition further includes the use of biological or chemical agents, nuclear weapons or devices, and explosives or firearms when used with the intent to endanger people directly or indirectly or to cause substantial property damage. The stated exception for explosives or firearms is their use to obtain money for personal purposes. Threats, attempts, and conspiracies to carry out the listed acts are included too, extending the definition beyond completed violence to specified steps toward it.

Material assistance and participation

The definition does not stop at the person who carries out an attack. To engage in terrorist activity can also mean knowingly, or in circumstances where a person should reasonably know, providing material support to an individual, organization, or government conducting such activity. The text makes this assistance relevant whether someone acts alone or as a member of an organization.

Covered support includes preparing or planning a terrorist act and gathering information about potential targets. It also includes providing practical assistance such as a safe house, transportation, communications, money, false documents, weapons, explosives, or training to someone known, or reasonably believed, to have committed or to be planning a terrorist act. The definition therefore treats logistical and informational aid as part of the activity, not merely as conduct separate from it.

Fundraising is specifically included: collecting money or anything else of value to finance a terrorist act or organization can itself fall within the definition. So can encouraging a person to join a terrorist organization or government, or to engage in terrorist activity. Taken together, these provisions make the legal category encompass acts, attempted acts, planning, assistance, financing, and recruitment, subject to the definition’s conditions concerning illegality and knowledge.

Official definitions and political application

Chomsky compares the statutory language with the official U.S. definition of terrorism, which describes the calculated use or threat of violence to achieve political, religious, or ideological aims through intimidation, coercion, or the creation of fear. He accepts that the attacks on the United States discussed in the book meet that definition and calls them a horrific terrorist crime. His argument is not that the definition is inapplicable to those attacks, but that it should not be reserved for violence by adversaries.

He places that point against the official doctrine of low-intensity warfare, describing it as the coercive use of force against civilian populations to achieve political, religious, or other objectives. In his account, this doctrine closely resembles official definitions of terrorism, and terrorism in that literal sense is a component of state action, not only a weapon of the weak. The distinction between a state’s coercive violence and terrorism, he argues, often depends on convention and political power rather than on a consistently applied definition.

The book illustrates the political instability of these labels through the changing treatment of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The United States condemned it as a terrorist force in 1998, citing attacks on Serbian police and civilians; after U.S. and British policy shifted toward military action against Serbia, the same fighters became freedom fighters. Following the war, they and allied groups were again described as terrorists, criminals, or thugs. Chomsky uses this reversal to show how political classification can change while the conduct and stated aims remain substantially similar.

Designation and consequences

The definition operates within a system for designating foreign terrorist organizations. The book lists consequences and intended effects of designation: it can deter donations and contributions, increase public vigilance and awareness, communicate U.S. concerns to other governments, and stigmatize and isolate designated organizations internationally. The legal definition therefore has implications beyond deciding whether particular conduct fits a category; it helps shape how organizations can be supported, perceived, and treated.

Chomsky connects this institutional reach to a broader critique of counterterrorism rhetoric. He argues that calling a policy a war on terrorism is propaganda if the campaign does not actually target terrorism according to the government’s own definitions. A consistent application, he contends, would also raise questions about the conduct of the United States and its clients. The definition’s significance in the book lies both in its detailed legal criteria and in the challenge it poses: whether those criteria govern all actors, or whether their practical meaning changes with the identity of the person or government being judged.