President Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo had encouraging words for nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and around the world, as he recognized that U.S. charitable giving rules have made charitable donations difficult for Muslims and committed himself to working with American Muslims to resolve the problem. The Charity Security Network and Muslim Advocates each responded with statements pledging cooperation in developing new rules that protect and promote legitimate charitable programs and their donors, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) proposed an amendment to the State Secrets Protection Act (S. 417) on May 21, 2009 when the bill was scheduled for consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was one of several amendments offered, but the committee took no action. However, Kyl's proposal, rejected by the Senate in 2007, would amend the prohibition on providing "material support" to terrorists to include aid to members of their families or those "otherwise associated" with them, subject to a broadly defined intent standard. The proposal contravenes accepted standards of nondiscrimination in humanitarian aid developed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and would criminalize aid based on a subjective and undefined intent standard.

On May 27, 2009, U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis handed out sentences for five Arab Americans associated with Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) who had been convicted in November 2008 on charges ranging from supporting a terrorist organization to money laundering and tax fraud.  Two of the men, Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi were each sentenced to 65 years in a federal prison and the others each received between 15 and 20 years.  Two of the defendants filed appeals within hours of the sentencing, and the others are expected to appeal shortly.

Commentary by Kay Guinane: FBI planning a bigger role in terrorism fight

A May 28 story in the Los Angeles Times, reports that the Obama administration is in the process of overhauling  U.S. counterterrorism strategy by shifting primary responsibility to law enforcement rather than intelligence agencies and the military. This could lead to fairer treatment of charities accused of terrorism by the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which operates under the same principles of secrecy and absolute power as the CIA when it comes to shutting down charities.