The two federal material support statutes have been at the heart of the Justice Department's terrorist prosecution efforts. One provision outlaws providing material support for the commission of certain designated offenses that might be committed by terrorists, 18 U.S.C. §2339A. The other outlaws providing material support to certain designated terrorist organizations, 18 U.S.C. §2339B. They largely share a common definition of the term "material support." Since their inception in the mid-1990s, Congress has periodically expanded and sought to clarify the scope of Sections 2339A and 2339B. Section 2339A passed with little fanfare as part of a wide-ranging crime package, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Almost immediately thereafter, Congress amended Section 2339A and supplemented it with Section 2339B as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). As the House committee report explained, new Section 2339B reflected a recognition of the fungibility of financial resources and other types of material support. Allowing an individual to supply funds, goods, or services to an organization, or to any of its subgroups, that draw significant funding from the main organization's treasury, helps defray the costs to the terrorist organization of running the ostensibly legitimate activities. This in turn frees an equal sum that can then be spent on terrorist activities. In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act amended both sections, increasing the maximum term of imprisonment from 10 to 15 years (and to life imprisonment when commission of the offense resulted in death); adding "expert advice or assistance" to forms of proscribed material support or resources; and subjecting attempts and conspiracies to violate Section 2339A to the same maximum penalties as the substantive violation of the section. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 amended the definition of "material support or resources" that applies to both sections. The specific forms of support that had been used to define the term became examples of a more general definition which covers "any property, tangible or intangible, or service." Clarifying definitions of the examples "training" and "expert advice or assistance," were added, as was a clarifying explanation of the term "personnel" as used in Section 2339B. At the same time, the predicate offense list of Section 2339A was expanded to cover any of the federal crimes of terrorism. In 2009, Congress added genocide and recruiting child soldiers to Section 2339A's predicate offense list and adjusted Section 2339B's deadlines for the government's interlocutory appeals relating to classified information. In 2015, it increased the maximum penalty for violations of Section 2339B from imprisonment for not more than 15 years to imprisonment for not more than 20 years. Section 2339A outlaws support or concealing support for the crimes a terrorist has committed or may be planning to commit. More precisely, Section 2339A outlaws: (1) whoever (2) [knowingly] (3)(a) attempts to, (b) conspires to, or (c) actually (4)(a) provides material support or resources, or (b) conceals or disguises i. the nature, ii. location, iii. source, or iv. ownership of material support or resources (5) knowing or intending that they be used (a) in preparation for, (b) in carrying out, (c) in preparation for concealment of an escape from, or (d) in carrying out the concealment of an escape from (5) an offense identified as a federal crime of terrorism. "Whoever" usually means any legal entity or individual. The Dictionary Act declares that "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise … the words 'person' and 'whoever' include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals." Courts have looked to the statute in order to construe federal criminal cases. Moreover, federal law now generally holds that corporations are criminally liable for crimes committed by their officers, employees, or agents within the scope of their employment and for the benefit of the corporation, although at common law corporations could not be held criminally liable. At common law, every crime consisted of two essentials, one mental ( mens rea ) and the other physical ( actus reus ). As Justice Jackson explained, "[c]rime, as a compound concept, generally constituted only from the concurrence of an evil-meaning mind with an evil-doing hand." Thereafter, legislative bodies, Congress included, from time to time created criminal offenses which had no mental component, no mens rea . This occurred most often for regulatory, "public welfare" misconduct, misconduct that did not constitute a common law crime. These offenses ordinarily carried fines or relatively short periods of incarceration. Courts and commentators came to associate the absence of a mens rea with less severely punished offenses. The Supreme Court has stopped short of equating felony status with the intent to require a mens rea component. In Staples , however, it declared that where "dispensing with mens rea would require the defendant to have knowledge only of traditionally lawful conduct , a severe penalty is a further factor extending to suggest that Congress did not intend to eliminate a mens rea requirement. In such a case, the usual presumption that a defendant must know the facts that make his conduct illegal should apply." Section 2339A speaks to "whoever provides" material support. Unlike Section 2339B, it does not say "whoever knowingly provides" material support. Thus, on its face, it might be thought to envelop both those who knowingly provide support and those who unknowingly or inadvertently provide support. Yet, Staples suggests that the courts will reject such an interpretation in the absence of a clear congressional contrary intent. Section 2339A offenses are 15-year felonies. This seems to weigh heavily on the implied mens rea side of the ledger. The nature of the support provided might suggest a more mixed result. Some of the support, like providing lodging or training, is a form of "traditionally lawful conduct." Some, like providing false documentation, is not. The most telling indication of Congress's intent, however, appears later in the section where Congress has supplied an explicit mens rea requirement. Providing support only violates the section if it is provided "knowing or intending" that the support will be used to commit or prepare for the commission of a predicate offense. A defendant cannot unknowingly provide support or resources while at the same time "know[] or intend[] that they are to be used" for the commission of one of the predicate offenses. As general rule, a "knowing" mens rea standard requires the government to prove that the defendant had "knowledge of the facts that constituted the offense." The government need not prove that the defendant knew his conduct was unlawful. Little is said of the meaning of the word "provides" in Section 2339A or Section 2339B. When neither a statute's text, its context, nor its legislative history suggest otherwise, Congress is thought to have intended common words to have their common meaning. The word "provide" ordinarily means "to supply something for sustenance or support." Section 2339A has no explicit definition of the word "provide." At least two lower federal courts have indicated that the word "provide" in Section 2339A should be accorded its ordinary dictionary meaning. Section 2339A condemns both providing material support and concealing "the nature, location, source, or ownership" of such support. The concealing prong provision has been part of Section 2339A from the beginning and seems designed to reach the middle men or conduits between terrorists and their supporters. Expansion of the definition of material support to include services and the option of charging middle men with conspiracy or aiding and abetting may have rendered the provision redundant. In any event, concealment charges seem to have thus far been confined to those who have also been charged with providing support. Section 2339A defines "material support" to encompass "any property, tangible or intangible, or service." The term excludes medicine and religious materials, but includes: currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training (i.e., instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge), expert advice or assistance (i.e., advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge), safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (one or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation. Section 2339B alone has a more explicit description of the "personnel" covered by its proscription, which confines the term to those provided to a foreign terrorist organization to direct its activities or to work under its direction or control. The omission of a comparable provision from Section 2339A has led one court to conclude Section 2339A does not suffer the "working under the direction or control" limitation imposed on Section 2339B. Because Section 2339A requires that the support be given while knowing or intending that it will be used in preparation for or in the commission of a specific terrorist offense, the section has survived challenges arguing that it is unconstitutionally vague. Section 2339A outlaws providing or concealing support only when defendant knows or intends the support to be used in preparation for, commission of, or the escape following the commission of one or more of a list of predicate offenses. The predicate offense list consists of several specifically identified offenses, such as bombing a federal building or murdering a federal official in the performance of his duty. Section 2339A's predicate offense list ends with a cross reference to the list of federal crimes of terrorism.