The United States Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996. This Act, under 8 USCS § 1189, gave the Secretary of State authority to designate an organization as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Moreover, 18 USCS § 2339B criminalizes activities of knowingly providing “material support” or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. Two U.S. citizens and six domestic nonprofit organizations challenged the constitutionality of this provision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project 1 . The federal district court held the provisions unconstitutionally vague and enjoined the government from enforcing the same. This Act was in fact amended at a later stage to add that a violation requires knowledge of the foreign group’s designation as a terrorist organization or its commission of terrorist acts. 18 USCS § 2339A(b)(1) defines the term “material support or resources” to mean “any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.”
Plaintiffs argued that the provisions violated the First Amendment even when support is solely to promote the lawful and non-violent activities/purposes of a designated organization. Plaintiffs claimed that they could not provide support, for fear of prosecution, for the humanitarian and political activities of two organizations in the form of monetary contributions, other tangible aid, legal training and political advocacy. Plaintiff contended that the definition is impermissibly vague because the statute fails to notify a person of ordinary intelligence as to what conduct constitutes “material support or resources” and that some of the terms in it could be interpreted to criminalize protected speech and expression.
The Supreme Court of the United States in a 6-3 decision held that the law did not violate First and Fifth Amendment rights. The court added that the provision does not criminalize mere association, but instead prohibits the act of knowingly giving material support to designated foreign terrorist groups. On the vagueness issue, the court found that Plaintiff’s claims of vagueness lack merit and that most of the activities in which plaintiffs seek to engage readily fall within the scope of the terms under “material support.” The court came to the conclusion that these terms readily and naturally cover Plaintiff’s conduct, without any vagueness.
1 Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 2010 U.S. LEXIS 5252 (U.S. June 21, 2010)
Sources:
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Center for Constitutional Rights
Cornell Law Analysis
