WASHINGTON — In the first test of its kind since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Supreme Court will consider today whether a federal law that bars support to designated terrorist groups violates First Amendment rights of free speech and association.
The crux of the case, which pits First Amendment values against government anti-terrorist efforts, is whether the law that traces to 1996 and was amended by the 2001 USA Patriot Act is so poorly defined that it criminalizes pure speech.
Among those challenging the "material support" prohibition are the Humanitarian Law Project and its president, longtime civil rights advocate Ralph Fertig, who was a Freedom Rider trying to integrate the South in the 1960s and is a professor of social work at the University of Southern California.
The challengers argue that the law barring not only financial support to designated groups but also "training" and "expert advice and assistance" impinges humanitarian and peace-building efforts.
The Humanitarian Law Project says it wants to support non-violent activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a militant separatist organization in Turkey known as the PKK, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist group in Sri Lanka. The secretary of State's designation of those groups as "foreign terrorist organizations," dating to 1997, is not in dispute in the case, which was filed in 1998 and gained relevance in the post-Sept. 11 atmosphere.
"I want to help the Kurdish people develop non-violent means of resolving their conflicts and have their case be heard by the world's community," Fertig, 79, said in an interview. He said his lawyers have advised him to stop his efforts, which included showing Kurds how to bring human-rights complaints to the United Nations, because they could come under the rubric of "training" prohibited by the law.
Former president Jimmy Carter, founder of the Carter Center at Emory University, one of many groups that have entered the case, said in a statement Tuesday, "Our work to end violence sometimes requires interacting directly with groups that have engaged in it. Unfortunately, efforts like ours … are hindered by the extremely vague 'material support' law that leaves us guessing whether our work to encourage peace could actually be considered illegal."
U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan says the law's terms "rest on simple distinctions that are readily understood by people of ordinary intelligence." In her brief, Kagan contends that any support the Humanitarian Law Project or other organization gives to a terrorist group allows the group to put more of its own resources into violent activities.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, ruled that sections of the law making it a crime — subject to 15 years in prison — to provide "service," "training" and "expert advice or assistance" fail to make clear what is prohibited and are unconstitutionally vague. The appeals court said congressional amendments intended to clarify the law in 2004 were not sufficient.
In the Justice Department's appeal, Kagan said that since 2001, 150 people have been charged with violations of the material-support ban; about 75 have been convicted. She says "several of those prosecutions" have been under the disputed provisions.
The case has drawn an array of outside groups on both sides. Among those backing Fertig and other challengers are individuals "blacklisted" during the McCarthy era. They argue that the contested law recalls government attempts in the 1940s and '50s during the "Red Scare" to root out anyone associated with communism.
Siding with the Justice Department are groups that include retired military officers and the Anti-Defamation League. A brief from four retired military officers, including major general John Altenburg, says they have "firsthand knowledge of the grave threat to national security posed by foreign terrorist organizations." The brief urges the high court not to "second-guess" Congress.
The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors groups such as the PKK, contends that once resources of any kind "are put into the hands of foreign terrorist organizations, how those resources are used is out of the control of even a high-minded, well-intentioned benefactor."
1 comment:
I think that laws like the Patriot Act are just one example of how the United States federal government has increased its scope and scale of power in recent years and is gradually gaining an orwellian and intrusive level of control on people's everyday lives. People need to be able to say what they want, regardless of how controversial or inflammatory it may be. These are our constituional rights.
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