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Vol. 74/No. 26      July 12, 2010

 
High court ruling limits
free speech, association
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
In a decision against freedom of speech and association, a U.S. Supreme Court June 21 upheld a federal law banning assistance to groups the government claims are “terrorist.” The ruling, which passed in a 6-3 vote, argued that “national security” outweighs First Amendment rights.

The case involves the Humanitarian Law Project, five other domestic organizations, and two U.S. citizens who sought to work with members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The PKK is a group that took up arms in the 1980s and calls for autonomy for Kurds in Turkey. The LTTE, which fought for decades for Tamil independence from Sri Lanka, was defeated by government troops in 2009.

The PKK and LTTE are among 45 groups on the State Department’s List of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Once a group is placed on this list it is illegal for anyone living in the United States to provide it with “material support or resources,” including not just weapons or money but also “service,” “training,” “personnel,” and “expert advice or assistance.”

The plaintiffs argued that the law prevented them from activities such as political advocacy for Kurdish or Tamil rights and training members of the groups in how to appeal to international bodies for aid.

A federal judge in Los Angeles had previously ruled that the law’s use of ill-defined terms like “training” and “service” rendered it unconstitutionally vague. A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The Supreme Court reversed this ruling.

The material-support statute was part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, passed under the William Clinton administration in 1996. It was later amended and expanded as part of the Patriot Act in 2001 and 2004. The statute has been used about 150 times since Sept. 11, 2001, resulting in 75 convictions.

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the plaintiffs “may speak and write freely about the PKK and LTTE” but not “under the direction of, or in coordination with” these groups. “The material-support statute,” he argued, “criminalizes not terrorist attacks themselves, but aid that makes the attacks more likely to occur.”

Then solicitor general Elena Kagan argued the government’s case for maintaining this law before the Supreme Court. Two months later she was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the high court.  
 
 
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