Busted are the peacemakers ...
The Christian Bible says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." The U.S. Supreme Court, however, says that certain kinds of peace-seeking constitute material aid to terrorists. And under current law, that can carry as much as a 15-year prison sentence.
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A nonprofit organization called the Humanitarian Law Project challenged the law but was defeated in a recent 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court. The group has long sought to mediate international conflicts, including by instructing insurgent and terrorist groups to abandon violence and pursue human rights grievances in the U.N.
Two groups it has had contact with, the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, are on the U.S. State Department's list of proscribed terrorist groups. Both organizations claim to be fighting for national self-determination, and both are known to commit terroristic acts to advance that goal. The Humanitarian Law Project wanted to establish that its efforts did not violate federal law against giving "material aid" to such groups.
But the court's majority ruled that even humanitarian groups seeking nothing more than to teach conflict resolution and promote nonviolence meet the criteria for federal prosecution. The Justice Department argued that this activity would violate the law's ban on providing "personnel," "service" and "expert advice or assistance" to terrorist groups.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "even seemingly benign support bolsters the terrorist activities of that organization."
Most Americans understand the necessity of the federal law forbidding material support to terrorists. You can't donate money to any of the 45 groups on the government's terrorist list, supply them with arms or help them blow up buildings. This provision of the Patriot Act has resulted in about 75 convictions. No doubt, America is safer for it.
But here we are, less than a decade after the World Trade Center
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