The Worst Supreme Court Decision of the Term

[Jefferson23]

Joanne Mariner is a human rights lawyer based in New York and Paris

What was the worst ruling of the Supreme Court term that just ended? Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the corporate campaign spending decision that President Obama criticized in January, could make a strong claim to that title, but defenders of the First Amendment would point to the Court's ruling two weeks ago in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.

The Humanitarian Law Project case involved peace and human rights activists who sought an injunction that would allow them to advise and train militant groups to use lawful means to achieve political ends. Specifically, the plaintiffs wanted to train Kurdish nationalists in Turkey on how to use international law to resolve disputes peacefully, and how to petition 'representative bodies such as the United Nations" for relief. They also wanted to engage in political advocacy on behalf of the Kurds in Turkey and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

Both of the groups with which the plaintiffs sought to communicate had been deemed 'foreign terrorist organizations" under US law. Because of this designation, the plaintiffs' proposed speech was arguably barred by a federal law that criminalizes the provision of 'material support" to terrorist organizations, including support in the form of training, expert advice, personnel, and services.

The Court acknowledged that the case involved content-based restrictions on speech, normally an area in which the First Amendment requires the judiciary to enforce stringent protections against government overreaching. Yet in a 6-3 decision, the Court's conservative majority, joined by departing Justice John Paul Stevens, rejected the plaintiffs' claims. The Court found that the government's compelling interest in preventing terrorism outweighed the plaintiffs' free speech rights.

in full: http://www.counterpunch.org/

[Lost4words]

1. December 12, 2000

and virtually everything after,

[BrklynLiberal]

2. It surely went even more downhill after that......

[notesdev]

3. I worked for one of the lawyers on this case many years ago

It is really amazing what the "foreign terrorist organization" designation means, legally. It basically strips all rights from anyone who has any interaction with these groups, and there is no appeal to the designation. The bottom line on this process is that it subverts US citizens' rights to the foreign policy of the day, and does so in a complete, uncompromising, totalitarian fashion.

[Jefferson23]

5. Frightening when you consider the consequences. So you worked

for one of the lawyers some time ago? How interesting that must have been!

[notesdev]

6. Sure was

I didn't work on this case specifically - it was held very close to the vest - but I saw and heard enough about it to see how serious, and how important it was. The central question in this case is whether it is Constitutional for the rights of American citizens - specifically rights to free speech and association - can be denied with an unchallengeable, unappealable executive fiat.

[izquierdista]

4. Heads and tails of the same coin

The coin is free speech. Heads, the corporations who run things, have it. Tails, the masses of asses who make up 99+%, don't.

[hvn_nbr_2]

7. CorpoSupremes: Buying Congress is speech. Speech is not speech. nt