Court upholds ban on terror-group aid

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal law that forbids providing training and advice to terrorist organizations even regarding entirely peaceful and legal activities, saying it does not violate the free-speech rights of those who want to help.

The court ruled 6 to 3 that Congress and the executive branch had legitimate reasons for barring “material support” to foreign organizations deemed to be terrorists in the USA PATRIOT Act.

Those challenging the law “simply disagree with the considered judgment of Congress and the executive that providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization - even seemingly benign support - bolsters the terrorist activities of that organization,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.

“That judgment, however, is entitled to significant weight, and we have persuasive evidence before us to sustain it.”

Roberts also said material support intended even for benign purposes can help a terrorist group in other ways. It is easy to see how money is “fungible,” Roberts wrote; funds used for humanitarian aid to the groups could free up money that could be used for violent ends.

He was joined by the court’s conservatives - Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. - as well as its most liberal member, retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Justice Stephen Breyer took the relatively unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench, saying the court had abandoned its role of protecting individual liberties under the First Amendment because of national security threats Congress did not adequately justify.

“In such cases, our decisions must reflect the Constitution’s grant of foreign affairs and defense powers to the president and to Congress but without denying our own special judicial obligation to protect the constitutional rights of individuals,” Breyer said.

“That means that national security does not always win.”

He was joined in the dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

The Obama administration said the law has been used about 150 times since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks. But it has rarely been used for the kind of speech involved in this case.

The aid groups that challenged the law had trained a Kurdish group in Turkey on how to take human-rights complaints to the United Nations and assisted them in peace negotiations. They suspended the activities when the U.S. designated the Kurdish organization, known as the PKK, a terrorist group in 1997. The groups wanted to give similar help to a group in Sri Lanka, but it also was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1997.

Nearly four dozen organizations are on the State Department list, including al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Basque separatists in Spain and Maoist rebels in Peru.

No serious dispute exists in the U.S. over the designation for groups such as al-Qaida, Abu Nidal and the Shining Path. But some others have legitimate political arms and extensive social missions as well as associations with violence through paramilitary or insurgent means. Hamas, for example, won a majority of Palestinian support in democratic elections.

Once the State Department places a group on the list, it is illegal for Americans or others in the country to provide “material support or resources” to the group. The law also bars travel to the U.S. by representatives or members of the group and freezes any assets that it has in U.S. jurisdictions.

The humanitarian groups, including the California based Humanitarian Law Project; Ralph Fertig, a civil rights lawyer; and Nagalingam Jeyalingam, a physician, want to offer assistance to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

The government says the PKK has been involved in a violent insurgency that has claimed 22,000 lives. The Tamil Tigers waged a civil war for more than 30 years before their defeat last year.

The cases are Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 08-1498, and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, 09-89.

Also Monday, justices ruled that a federal judge went too far when he banned the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds after claims that the plants might harm the environment.

In a 7-1 vote Monday, the court reversed a federal appeals court ruling that had prohibited Monsanto Co. from selling alfalfa seeds because they are resistant to the popular weed killer Roundup.

The U.S. Agriculture Department must now decide whether to allow the genetically-modified seeds to be planted. It had earlier approved the seeds, but courts in California and Oregon said the USDA did not look hard enough at whether the seeds would eventually share their genes with other crops.

“This Supreme Court ruling is important for every American farmer, not just alfalfa growers,” said David F. Snively, Monsanto’s senior vice president and general counsel. “All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA, and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation.”

Opponents of the genetically-engineered seeds also claimed victory.

“The ban on the crop will remain in place until a full and adequate EIS [environmental impact statement] is prepared by USDA and they officially deregulate the crop,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety.

The case is Monsanto v. Geerston Seed Farms, 09-475.

In an unrelated case, the justices ruled 5-4 that arbitrators in many cases can decide whether an arbitration agreement is so one-sided that it shouldn’t be enforced, rejecting contentions that judges should always be the ones to make that determination.

The ruling, which overturned a lower court decision, is a victory for a unit of Rent-A-Center Inc. in a fight with a black employee who says he was the victim of racial discrimination.

The case is Rent-A-Center West v. Jackson, 09-497.

Information for this article was contributed by Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, by Mark Sherman, Matthew Lee and Jesse J. Holland of The Associated Press, and by Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News.