Does terror law protect us or stifle free speech?

Does terror law protect us or stifle free speech?

James Walsh
Minneapolis Star Tribune
October 24, 2010

To federal prosecutors, the laws against "providing material support" to terror groups are a critical weapon in an arsenal that keeps us safe from attack. To antiwar protesters, now caught up in an expanding investigation of their activities, those laws infringe on our cherished rights to free speech and free association and smack of political intimidation.

The recent raids on protesters' homes in the Twin Cities bring to light how the war on terror is being fought at home, with the help of federal law and recent court rulings.

At first glance, federal law clearly bans providing cash or weapons to terrorists. But the law also says that even advocating for a terrorist organization can be considered "providing material support."

Those carrying the picket signs say they worry about a chilling effect on our right to dissent, to protest and to lobby peacefully for change.

"The real point of the First Amendment isn't just thought. It's in association too, to join with people in advocacy to try to change opinion," said local attorney Bruce Nestor. "To what degree do we want to give government the sole power to decide the limits on debating foreign policy?"

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, recently ruled that Congress may indeed outlaw support in the form of speech without offending the First Amendment. Suppressing terrorism is that important.

Speech and thought still are protected, said John Marti, first assistant U.S. Attorney for Minnesota. Doing things that help terrorists advance their activities are not.

"We're drawing that line right there," Marti said of a law made necessary by the shifting tactics of terrorists.

For a growing number of activists in Minnesota and around the country who are now being investigated for allegedly providing that kind of support, this is not just a philosophical debate. It's a matter of freedom -- or up to 15 years behind bars.

Homes, offices searched

On Sept. 24, the FBI raided the Minneapolis homes of five antiwar activists, including three leaders of the Twin Cities peace movement, looking for records regarding travel to the Palestinian Territories, Colombia and other places, as well as their financial activities.

A warrant for one of the activists' homes sought information about efforts to support FARC, a guerrilla organization in Colombia, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hezbollah, the political and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon. All have been defined by the U.S. as terrorist organizations.

Some activists have confirmed traveling abroad. All have denied giving money or doing anything illegal.

The FBI would say only that the raids were part of what it called a probe of "activities concerning the material support of terrorism." The Minneapolis office of an antiwar organization also was raided, protest leaders said. Raids also were conducted on two homes in Chicago.

Computers, cell phones and documents were seized. FBI officials said the federal search warrants in Minneapolis were related to an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force.

No one was arrested in the raids. But 14 antiwar activists and several organizations from the Twin Cities and Chicago received subpoenas to appear before a grand jury. The subpoenas since have been canceled, after activists said they refused to testify. The investigation continues.

A continuum

Over the past two years, several local men of Somali descent have been indicted, and some convicted, for providing material support for Al-Shabab, an Islamist group fighting for control of Somalia. Some traveled to Somalia to fight, some recruited fighters, some allegedly provided money.

But people don't have to go to that extreme to run afoul of the law, which first was passed in 1996 and has been refined since, according to the Supreme Court and legal experts.

For instance, even those who provide minor assistance to a group such as Hamas, which is a defined terrorist organization, can get into trouble, said John Radsan, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law and a former federal prosecutor and lawyer for the CIA.

Why? Because that help could free other resources to make bombs or train fighters. Providing organized advocacy for such groups also can free their resources to carry out bad things, he said.

"It is a continuum, and the material support statutes sit on that continuum," Radsan said. "The law doesn't criminalize thoughts, but it doesn't wait for the explosion."

But does that mean that activists seeking to study what is happening in the Middle East should not meet with a group if that group is considered terrorist by the United States? "If it were me, I would stay clear," Radsan said. "I wouldn't be cutting a fine line."

But that is precisely what concerns Nestor and others, who maintain the law is too broad and infringes upon Americans' rights to seek change.

Defining who's a terrorist

Consider this: It is the U.S. State Department that determines what is a terrorist organization. While groups can appeal that classification, they have no right to see the information that was used to label them. People who are charged with providing material support cannot appeal the designation.

Nestor said the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela was considered a terror group by the Reagan administration. If this law had been in place then, it would have been illegal to advocate for that group in its battle against apartheid. The truth is, Nestor said, our allegiances change over the years. This decade's terrorists -- elements of the Taliban, for instance -- were freedom fighters of the 1980s.

Like the Alien & Sedition Acts of 1789, or the McCarthy hearings and Red Scare of the 1950s, this is an effort to control debate, Nestor said. This time, it's under the banner of combating terrorism.

"No one's arguing that you have a right to send weapons. But do you have a right to comment on that conflict?" he said. "Do you really want to chill Americans from having an ability to speak on all sides of a conflict? The result of this is for people to do nothing. That, to me, is the real concern."

That damn George Bush! How dare he instruct the FBI to conduct these raids?!? It's un-American and.....

Oh. Wait a minute.