[Peace-discuss] A important decision!

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Part of 1996 Anti - Terror Law Overturned
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Filed at 8:26 a.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- In a potential blow to the Bush administration's legal 
strategy in the war on terror, a federal appeals court overturned part of a 
sweeping law the government has increasingly used to arrest or prosecute 
suspected terrorists.

The decision Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involves a 
1996 terrorism law that outlaws financial assistance or ``material support'' to 
organizations classified as terrorist by the State Department.

The San Francisco-based appeals court struck down part of the law, ruling 
that it is unconstitutional to punish people -- sometimes with life in prison -- 
for providing ``training'' or ``personnel'' to a terror group.

Increasingly, the charge of choice for prosecutors in the war on terrorism is 
that someone provided some form of material support to terror groups. The 
decision Wednesday means that for the first time, part of that strategy has been 
declared unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.

The ruling also requires the government to prove that defendants knew their 
activities, such as donating money to outlawed groups, were actually 
contributing to acts of terror.

``According to the government's interpretation... a woman who buys cookies 
from a bake sale outside of her grocery store to support displaced Kurdish 
refugees to find new homes could be held liable,'' Judge Harry Pregerson wrote in 
the 2-1 decision.

In addition, the court wrote that it is unconstitutional to criminalize 
donations of personnel or training, which fall under the ``material support'' 
section of the law, because that ``blurs the line between protected expression and 
unprotected expression.''

The court ruled in a case involving a civil liberties organization's efforts 
to lobby Congress on behalf of groups on the terrorist watch list. The court 
ruled that the Humanitarian Law Project could legally lobby Congress and 
provide other non-financial assistance to the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey.

The Bush administration had argued that donating ``personnel'' on behalf of 
the Kurdistan Workers Party violated the 1996 law and amounted to aiding 
terrorism.

The 1996 law has been used to prosecute some high-profile suspects, including 
accused British arms trafficker Hemant Lakhan, who was arrested in New Jersey 
and charged in August with providing material support in an alleged 
missile-smuggling plot.

Another case involved six Americans of Yemeni descent who were convicted 
under the law of providing ``material support'' to al-Qaida. Authorities described 
the six, who lived just blocks apart in Lackawanna, N.Y., as a sleeper cell 
awaiting orders from Osama bin Laden's network.

The first of the six, who attended an al-Qaida training camp and met bin 
Laden shortly before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, received 10 years in prison 
Wednesday, a sentence Attorney General John Ashcroft said ``sends a clear message 
that the United States will seek strong penalties for those who provide 
material support to our terrorist enemies.''

The Lackawanna case isn't governed by the 9th Circuit. Still, if it survives 
a Supreme Court appeal, Wednesday's decision in San Francisco may be a blow to 
Ashcroft's prosecution of that and other cases in the war on terror.

While the court did not strike down the ``material support'' provision 
entirely, Georgetown University Law Center professor David Cole said prosecutions 
under the provision are now suspect.

The decision, Cole said, ``declares unconstitutional one of the linchpins of 
the Ashcroft domestic anti-terrorism strategy.'' The law in question was 
adopted by Congress following the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 
Oklahoma City.

The Justice Department was not immediately prepared to say how it will 
respond. The government has weeks to decide whether to appeal before the decision 
becomes law.

``We are reviewing the decision and will have no further comment at this 
time,'' said Charles Miller, a department spokesman.

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On the Net: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov