Court throws out parts of anti-terror law as too vague

A law that makes it a crime to help groups that the US government considers terrorist is unconstitutionally vague and could punish Americans for advising organizations about nonviolent methods, a federal appeals court ruled on Dec. 10. The decision by the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA, invalidates portions of a 1996 federal anti-terrorism law and a set of amendments in 2004. The law prohibits knowingly providing material support or resources to a foreign organization on the State Department's terrorist list. Those terms are so unclear, the court said, that they might be used to prosecute and imprison those who trained members of foreign organizations on "how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve ongoing disputes," or on how to lobby the United Nations for disaster relief. Violations of the law are punishable by up to 15 years in prison. "This statute essentially allows for guilt by association," said Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. Although the court did not overturn the entire law, he said, it struck down portions that would outlaw "humanitarian aid of the sort that we would want to encourage." The ruling came in a lawsuit filed on behalf of organizations and individuals seeking to provide political and financial aid to two groups on the State Department terrorist list: the Kurdish Workers Party in Turkey and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. Kadidal said some of the plaintiffs want to train members of both organizations in peaceful conflict resolution and advocacy before the United Nations, and others, including doctors and engineers, have been trying to bring relief to areas of Sri Lanka that have been devastated by a civil war and a December 2004 tsunami. That relief requires working with the Tamil Tigers, who are effectively functioning as the government in the northern coastal area, the lawyer said. "We find it highly unlikely that a person of ordinary intelligence would know whether, when teaching someone to petition international bodies for tsunami-related aid, one is imparting a 'specific skill' or 'general knowledge,'" Judge Harry Pregerson said in the 3-0 ruling.