The Supreme Court has upheld a federal law that bars “material support” to foreign terrorist organisations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups.
The court ruled 6-3 on Monday that the government may prohibit all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities. Material support intended even for benign purposes can help a terrorist group in other ways, Chief Justice John Roberts said in his majority opinion.
“Such support frees up other resources within the organisation that may be put to violent ends,” Mr Roberts said. Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step of reading his dissent aloud in the courtroom. Mr Breyer said he rejects the majority’s conclusion “that the Constitution permits the government to prosecute the plaintiffs criminally” for providing instruction and advice about the terror groups’ lawful political objectives. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.
The law allows medicine and religious materials to go to groups on the state department’s list of terrorist organisations. The Obama administration said the “material support” law is one of its most important terror-fighting tools. It has been used about 150 times since September 11, resulting in 75 convictions. Most of those cases involved money and other substantial support for terror groups. Only a handful dealt with the kind of speech involved in the case decided on Monday.
The aid groups involved had trained a Kurdish group in Turkey on how to bring human rights complaints to the United Nations and assisted them in peace negotiations, but suspended the activities when the US designated the Kurdish organisation, known as the PKK, a terrorist group in 1997. They also wanted to give similar help to a group in Sri Lanka, but it, too, was designated a terrorist organisation by the US in 1997.
Nearly four dozen organisations are on the state department list, including Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Basque separatists in Spain and Maoist rebels in Peru.