Part of Patriot Act Is Struck Down
Ban on 'Expert Advice' to Terrorist Groups
Vague, Judge Says
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 27, 2004; Page A15
A federal judge in Los Angeles has declared unconstitutional a
provision of the USA Patriot Act that bans providing expert advice to
groups that the U.S. government has designated as terrorist
organizations. It is the first time that a court has struck down a
portion of the controversial law approved by Congress six weeks after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In a decision issued late Friday and released yesterday, U.S.
District Judge Audrey Collins said the prohibition on giving "expert
advice or assistance" to designated terrorists is so vague that it could
improperly bar even innocent contacts with the foreign terrorist groups
in question.
Collins said the section of the USA Patriot Act is so broad that
it "could be construed to include unequivocally pure speech and advocacy
protected by the First Amendment," and that it "places no limitations on
the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited."
The case was filed by the Humanitarian Law Project, an
organization that said it has tried to give "human rights" training to
the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Marxist group designated a
terrorist organization by the U.S. government because of its militant
activities in Turkey.
David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University and an
attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights who argued the case,
said in a statement yesterday that the decision "calls into question the
government's reliance on overbroad laws imposing guilt by association in
the war on terrorism.
"Our clients sought only to support lawful and nonviolent
activity, yet the Patriot Act provision draws no distinction whatsoever
between expert advice in human rights, designed to deter violence, and
expert advice on how to build a bomb," Cole added.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the
provision of the Patriot Act "made clear that Americans are threatened
as much by the person who teaches a terrorist to build a bomb as by the
one who pushes the button."
The provision was an elaboration on an earlier law, enacted in
1996, that bans giving "material support" to terrorists. The USA Patriot
Act's addition of the words barring "expert advice or assistance" was
only a "modest, incremental" change to the earlier law, Corallo said.
In addition to the Kurdish-affiliated Humanitarian Law Project,
other plaintiffs involved in the case included several groups of Tamil
Americans who say they try to support the legal activities of the
Liberation Tamil Tigers of North Eelam, a Sri Lankan group designated a
terrorist organization by Washington.
The same plaintiffs filed a previous lawsuit and won a key victory
in December, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled 2
to 1 that the 1996 anti-terrorism law's prohibition on providing
"personnel" and "training" to designated terrorist groups is
unconstitutionally vague.
The Justice Department is seeking a review of the panel's ruling
by the full appeals court, which is based in San Francisco. It is also
considering how to respond to the latest district court ruling, Corallo
said.
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