It is a Supreme Court showdown, pitting the First Amendment right to free speech against the government’s interest in eliminating terror groups aiming to destroy the United States. At issue is a federal law that bans any material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The law prohibits not only financial contributions, but also \u201cservice \u2026 training, expert advice or assistance \u2026 personnel.\u201d A number of humanitarian groups say the law is too vague and keeps them from assisting the legitimate efforts that some terror-designated groups actually perform \u2013 while also stifling their right to free speech. Sharon Bradford Franklin of the Constitution Project says, \u201cThey want to be able to provide training in human rights activities and peace building activities.\u201d For more than a decade, those groups have waged a legal battle to have the material support law overturned.<\/p>\n
Today, a number of Justices expressed skepticism about the ability of any individual or group to provide support to the legal efforts of a terrorist organization without benefitting the violent, illegal wing of the organization. Justice Antonin Scalia said Congress had clear intentions and that, \u201cAny assistance you provide to these organizations cannot be separated from assistance to their terrorist activities.” The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has filed a brief in support of the government\u2019s efforts to uphold the current law. Deborah Lauter, of the ADL, echoes Justice Scalia\u2019s comments, \u201cIf you’re going to be supporting humanitarian aid to these organizations you’re in effect bolstering their work to engage in terrorist activity.\u201d Lauter added, \u201cYou can\u2019t have it both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
As to arguments about whether the wording of the law itself is too vague, Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed willing to examine that issue when she noted tongue-firmly-in-cheek, “Under the definition of this statute, teaching these members to play the harmonica would be unlawful.\u201d Justice Sotomayor went on to say, \u201cThere has to be something more than merely a congressional finding that any training is bad.” It could be months before we get the Court\u2019s opinion. In the meantime, more than 150 people have been charged under the material support law in its current form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is a Supreme Court showdown, pitting the First Amendment right to free speech against the government’s interest in eliminating terror groups aiming to destroy the United States. At issue is a federal law that bans any material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The law prohibits not only financial contributions, but also \u201cservice \u2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4741,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}