{"id":160,"date":"2011-03-23T16:19:19","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T16:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/?p=160"},"modified":"2011-03-23T16:40:16","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T16:40:16","slug":"legal-information-institute-case-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/legal-information-institute-case-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Information Institute Case Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School’s Case Summary of Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder <\/em>is now available for viewing in addition to the summary from the Center for Constitutional Rights available here.<\/p>\n

The original article can be found here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Issue<\/h2>\n

Whether\u00a018 U.S.C. 2339B(a)(1)<\/a>, which prohibits providing certain types of aid to known terrorist organizations, violates the First and Fifth Amendments by restricting political speech and including overly vague provisions?<\/p>\n

<\/a>Facts<\/h2>\n

In 1996, Congress passed the\u00a0Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act<\/a> (\u201cAEDPA\u201d).\u00a0See<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>Humanitarian Law Project v. Mukasey<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, 552 F.3d 916, 920 (9th Cir. 2009). <\/strong>The AEDPA permits the Secretary of State to designate an organization as a \u201cforeign terrorist organization.\u201d\u00a0See<\/em><\/strong> 8 U.S.C. 1189(a)<\/a>.<\/strong> The AEDPA goes on to criminalize \u201cknowingly provid[ing] material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,\u201d including the nonviolent activities of such an organization.18 U.S.C. 2339B(a)(1)<\/a>;\u00a0552 F.3d at 920<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1997, the Secretary of State designated thirty organizations, including the Kurdistan Workers Party (\u201cPKK\u201d) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (\u201cLTTE\u201d), as foreign terrorist organizations.\u00a0See<\/em><\/strong> 552 F.3d at 921<\/a>.<\/strong> While both PKK and LTTE engage in terrorist activities, they also engage in activities that help Kurds living in Turkey and Tamils living in Sri Lanka engage in self-determination.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a><\/em><\/strong> The\u00a0Humanitarian Law Project<\/a> (\u201cHLP\u201d) sued in\u00a0federal district court<\/a>, seeking a\u00a0preliminary injunction<\/a> against enforcement of the provision prohibiting providing \u201cmaterial support or resources\u201d to PKK and LTTE.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>Among other things, HLP wants to train PKK members on how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and provide legal services in negotiating peace agreements between LTTE and the Sri Lankan government.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>HLP claimed that the AEDPA violated their\u00a0First Amendment<\/a> and\u00a0Fifth Amendment<\/a>rights.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>The district court partially granted HLP\u2019s motion for a preliminary injunction, ruling that the government could not enforce the AEDPA prohibition on providing training and personnel to PKK and LTTE.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a><\/em><\/strong> at 921\u201322.<\/strong> The\u00a0Court of Appeals<\/a> affirmed, holding that the Act was unconstitutionally vague with regard to its prohibitions against providing \u201cpersonnel\u201d and \u201ctraining\u201d to foreign terrorist organizations.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a><\/em><\/strong> at 922.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2001, the\u00a0USA PATRIOT Act<\/a> amended the AEDPA\u2019s definition of \u201cmaterial support or resources\u201d to include \u201cexpert advice or assistance.\u201d\u00a0See <\/em><\/strong>552 F.3d at 922<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong>In a second round of litigation, the district court found this term to be unconstitutionally vague; the Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed and read a\u00a0scienter<\/a>requirement into \u00a7 2339B.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a><\/em><\/strong> at 922\u201323.<\/strong> Congress then passed the\u00a0Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act<\/a> (\u201cIRTPA\u201d), which included a\u00a0scienter<\/a>requirement and defined the terms \u201cmaterial support or resources,\u201d \u201ctraining,\u201d and \u201cpersonnel.\u201d\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a><\/em><\/strong> at 923.<\/strong> The district court then consolidated the two cases and ruled that the terms \u201ctraining\u201d and \u201cservice\u201d were unconstitutionally vague, as was a portion of the definition of \u201cexpert advice or assistance.\u201d\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a><\/em><\/strong>at 924.<\/strong> The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court\u2019s ruling, and the\u00a0Supreme Court<\/a> granted\u00a0certiorari<\/a>.\u00a0See\u00a0id.<\/a><\/em><\/strong> at 933.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School’s Case Summary of Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder is now available for viewing in addition to the summary from the Center for Constitutional Rights available here. The original article can be found here: Issue Whether\u00a018 U.S.C. 2339B(a)(1), which prohibits providing certain types of aid to known terrorist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2566,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36012],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2011-symposium"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adr2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}