Free Republic

In a bitterly ironic counterpoint to the Supreme Court decision upholding restrictions on political speech by U.S. citizens, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit last week overturned legal provisions that prohibited providing "personnel" and "training" to foreign terrorist organizations because, the court said, such acts could be construed as forms of free expression. Carter-appointed Judge Harry Pregerson (see "Nullify the Nutty Ninth") wrote the opinion striking down parts of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which forbids giving "material support" to groups listed as terrorist organizations, and which defines "material...

<p>Separate three-judge panels of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have issued rulings limiting the enforcement of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a law President Clinton signed in 1996. In Humanitarian Law Project v. Department of Justice (links to rulings in PDF format), Judges Harry Pregerson and Sidney Thomas held that it violates the Fifth Amendment right of due process to convict someone for providing material support to organizations classified as terrorist by the State Department unless the defendant has "guilty intent."</p>