[Ppnews] 'Justice' Dept Prepares for Ominous Expansion of "Anti-Terrorism" Law Targeting Activists

[Political Prisoner News]

Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion 
of "Anti-Terrorism" Law Targeting Activists

Saturday 11 December 2010
<http://www.truth-out.org/justice-department-prepares-expansion-laws-targeting-activists?print>
by: Michael Deutsch, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
http://www.truth-out.org/justice-department-prepares-expansion-laws-targeting-activists

In late September, the FBI carried out a series 
of raids of homes and antiwar offices of public 
activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following 
the raids, the Obama Justice Department 
subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in 
Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several 
antiwar and community organizations. In carrying 
out these repressive actions, the Justice 
Department was taking its lead from the Supreme 
Court's 6-3 opinion last June in Holder v. the 
Humanitarian Law Project, which decided that 
nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy 
"coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a 
foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as "terrorist" was a crime.

The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make 
it clear that the federal prosecutors are intent 
on accusing public nonviolent political 
organizers, many of whom are affiliated with 
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), of 
providing "material support" through their public 
advocacy for the Popular Front for the Liberation 
of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed 
Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Secretary of State 
has determined that both the PLFP and the FARC 
"threaten US national security, foreign policy or 
economic interests," a finding not reviewable by 
the courts, and listed both groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

In 1996, Congress made it a crime - then 
punishable by 10 years, which was later increased 
to 15 years - to anyone in the US who provides 
"material support or resources to a foreign 
terrorist organization or attempts or conspires 
to do so." The present statute defines "material support or resources" as:

... any property, tangible or intangible, or 
service, including currency or monetary 
instruments or financial services, lodging, 
training, expert advice or assistance, safe 
houses, false documentation or identification, 
communications equipment, facilities, weapons, 
lethal substances, explosives, personnel and 
transportation except medicine or religious materials.

In the Humanitarian Law Project case, human 
rights workers wanted to teach members of the 
Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish 
state, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam 
(LTTE), which sought an independent state in Sri 
Lanka, how to use humanitarian and international 
law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain 
relief from the United Nations and other 
international bodies for human rights abuses by 
the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both 
organizations were designated as FTOs by the 
Secretary of State in a closed hearing, in which 
the evidence is heard secretly.

Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the 
Humanitarian Law Project's speech and training, 
the majority of the Supreme Court nonetheless 
interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime. 
Finding a whole new exception to the First 
Amendment, the Court decided that any support, 
even if it involves nonviolent efforts towards 
peace, is illegal under the law since it "frees 
up other resources within the organization that 
may be put to violent ends," and also helps lend 
"legitimacy" to foreign terrorist groups. Writing 
for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite 
the lack of any evidence, further opined that the 
FTO could use the human rights law to 
"intimidate, harass or destruct" its adversaries, 
and that even peace talks themselves could be 
used as a cover to re-arm for further attacks. 
Thus, the Court's opinion criminalizes efforts by 
independent groups to work for peace if they in 
any way cooperate or coordinate with designated FTOs.

The Court distinguishes what it refers to as 
"independent advocacy," which it finds is not 
prohibited by the statute, from "advocacy 
performed in coordination with, or at the 
direction of, a foreign terrorist organization," 
which is, for the first time, found to be a crime 
under the statute. The exact line demarcating 
where independent advocacy becomes impermissible 
coordination is left open and vague.

Seizing on this overbroad definition of "material 
support," the US government is now moving in on 
political groups and activists who are clearly 
exercising fundamental First Amendment rights by 
vocally opposing the government's branding of 
foreign liberation movements as terrorist and 
supporting their struggles against US-backed 
repressive regimes and illegal occupations.

Under the new definition of "material support," 
the efforts of President Jimmy Carter to monitor 
the elections in Lebanon and coordinate with the 
political parties there, including the designated 
FTO Hezbollah, could well be prosecuted as a 
crime. Similarly, the publication of op-ed 
articles by FTO spokesmen from Hamas or other 
designated groups by The New York Times or The 
Washington Post, or the filing of amicus briefs 
by human rights attorneys arguing against a 
group's terrorist designation or the statute 
itself could also now be prosecuted. Of course, 
the first targets of this draconian expansion of 
the material support law will not be a former 
president or the establishment media, but members 
of a Marxist organization who are vocal opponents 
of the governments of Israel and Colombia and the 
US policies supporting these repressive governments.

In his foreword to Nelson Mandela's recent 
autobiography "Conversations with Myself," 
President Obama wrote that "Mandela's sacrifice 
was so great that it called upon people 
everywhere to do what they could on behalf of 
human progress. 
 The first time I became 
politically active was during my college years, 
when I joined a campaign on behalf of divestment, 
and the effort to end apartheid in South Africa." 
At the time of Mr. Obama's First Amendment 
advocacy, Mr. Mandela and his organization the 
African National Congress (ANC) were denounced as 
terrorist by the US government. If the "material 
support" law had been in effect back then, Mr. 
Obama would have been subject to potential 
criminal prosecution. It is ironic - and the 
height of hypocrisy - that this same man who 
speaks with such reverence for Mr. Mandela and 
recalls his own support for the struggle against 
apartheid now allows the Justice Department under 
his command to criminalize similar First 
Amendment advocacy against Israeli apartheid and 
repressive foreign governments.




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