Terrorism Law, the New McCarthyism

Monday 22 February 2010
by: Stephen Rohde | The LA Daily Journal

Tomorrow, the US Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the first encounter with the free speech and association rights of American citizens in the context of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks, and in the first test of the constitutionality of a provision of the USA Patriot Act.

The "Material Support" law takes a sweeping approach to its ban on aid to terrorist groups, prohibiting the provision of cash, weapons and the like, as well as four more ambiguous categories - "training," "personnel," "expert advice or assistance" and "service." Opponents of the law say that when it comes to providing lawful legal advice or training in nonviolence, the law is nothing more than "guilt by association," reminiscent of the witch hunts of McCarthyism.

These are no paranoid fears. "Congress wants these organizations to be radioactive," Douglas N. Letter, a Justice Department lawyer, said in a 2007 appeals court argument in the case, referring to the dozens of groups that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department. Letter admitted that it would be a crime for a lawyer to file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a designated organization or "to be assisting terrorist organizations in making presentations to the U.N., to television, [or] to a newspaper."

The Humanitarian Law Project, a nonprofit group that has a long history of mediating international conflicts and promoting human rights, brought the case in 1998. Two years earlier, passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) had made it a crime to provide "material support" to groups the State Department had designated as "foreign terrorist organizations." The definition of material support included "training" and "personnel." Later versions of the law, including amendments in the USA Patriot Act, added "expert advice or assistance" and "service."

In 2007, the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the bans on training, service and certain types of expert advice were unconstitutionally vague, but upheld the bans on personnel and expert advice derived from scientific or technical knowledge. Both sides appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the consolidated cases in October. The cases are Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, No. 08-1498, and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, No. 09-89.

David D. Cole, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the challengers, is arguing that the case concerns speech protected by the First Amendment "promoting lawful, nonviolent activities," including "human rights advocacy and peacemaking."

A number of victims of McCarthy-era persecution filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to remember the lessons of history.

"I signed the brief," said Chandler Davis, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto, "because I can testify to the way in which the dubious repression of dissent disrupted lives and disrupted political discourse." Professor Davis refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954, and was dismissed from his position at the University of Michigan. Unable to find work in the United States, he moved to Canada. In 1991, the University of Michigan established an annual lecture series on academic freedom in honor of Professor Davis and others it had mistreated in the McCarthy era.

The material support law authorizes the secretary of state to designate "foreign terrorist organizations," and makes it a crime to provide certain statutorily defined "material support" for even the nonviolent and humanitarian activities of such groups. Similar to the Smith Act and federal executive orders in the 1940s and '50s, the law grants the executive branch unreviewable discretion to designate groups as "terrorist" and creates vague bans on providing "expert advice or assistance," "training," "service" or "personnel" to designated groups. It threatens, once again unconstitutionally, to interfere with the rights of free speech and association.

The AEDPA's vague ban on "assistance" and "advice" is essentially no different from the McCarthy-era attempt to root out association with and advocacy for groups unpopular with the government. Starting in the 1930s, and through the 1960s, Congress and the executive branch identified organizations - the Communist Party and groups with ties to the Communist Party - as using illegal means, including terrorism, with the aim of overthrowing the US government by force and violence. The Smith Act and the Subversive Activities Control Act made it a crime to associate with these designated groups or to speak in support of these groups. These were crimes regardless of whether or not that speech or association supported or furthered the groups' unlawful activities.

Our society now recognizes that the McCarthy era was a shameful episode in American history, characterized by widespread abuses of executive and legislative power, fueled by demagoguery and overzealous government action, ultimately encompassing "loyalty" investigations of over four million American citizens. See, e.g., Ellen Schrecker, "Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America" (1998), at x (the McCarthy era is "the most widespread and longest lasting period of political repression in American history.").

While few individuals were ultimately prosecuted under the McCarthy-era laws, thousands were persecuted. Among the latter, larger group were Amici and their relatives, none of whom intended to or actually did engage in violence against this country. Nonetheless, they were investigated, libeled, terminated from and unable to secure employment, blacklisted, prosecuted and imprisoned. One of the key lessons from this era is that when the federal government fans the flames of public passion by enacting overreaching criminal statutes, staging Congressional hearings and investigating the loyalty of millions of American citizens, it implicitly condones and sanctions retributions against individuals, such as Amici. Eventually, our society and this court understood that these consequences were unacceptable. We should not make these mistakes again.

It is against this background that this court issued the decisions that are the controlling law that governs this case. In a series of landmark First Amendment decisions, this court struck down these statutes, restored freedom of speech and halted guilt by association. This court concluded that the Congressional and executive branch excesses were unconstitutional. The court held that punishing speech without showing incitement to crime and punishing association without showing specific intent to further illegal ends penalizes innocents and chills the political freedoms at the very core of our democracy.

These principles are equally applicable today, where the federal government (once again) has designated certain organizations as proscribed and purports to make it a crime to speak for or otherwise associate with such organizations. Now, when, once again, our safety and security have been threatened, this court should reaffirm the rights to free speech and association.

Stephen Rohde, a constitutional lawyer, was co-counsel with Arnold & Porter on the amicus brief filed by victims of McCarthyism in Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder.

© 2010 Daily Journal Corporation. All rights reserved.

http://www.truthout.org/terrorism-law-new-mccarthyism57092

1,000 Architects & Engineers Call for New 9/11 Investigation

Fri Feb 19, 8:00 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 19 –
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Richard Gage, AIA, architect and founder of the non-profit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc. (AE911Truth), will announce a decisive milestone today at a press conference in San Francisco, as more than 1,000 worldwide architects and engineers now support the call for a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. After careful examination of the official explanation, along with the forensic data omitted from official reports, these professionals have concluded that a new independent investigation into these mysterious collapses is needed.

Mr. Gage will deliver the news around this major development, accompanied by signers of the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth petition. The press conference will be held concurrently in 38 cities in 6 countries. http://www.ae911truth.org/info/160

These prominent architectural and engineering professionals will discuss the organization's findings and concerns. A brief presentation of the explosive evidence they have compiled will be followed by Q & A. The presentation is an important update of "9/11: Blueprint for Truth – The Architecture of Destruction," the DVD produced by the organization, and available on their website AE911Truth.org, which analyzes the scientific forensic evidence concluding that the three skyscrapers in New York City were demolished with explosives on 9/11. The petition will be delivered today to every congressional representative by AE911Truth petition signers throughout the country. Government officials will be notified that "Misprision of Treason", US Code 18 (Sec. 2382), is a serious federal offense which requires those with evidence of treason to act.

Gage and his group base their conclusions on forensic evidence. Gage states, "The official FEMA and NIST reports provide insufficient, contradictory, and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials. Gage points out the destruction of the third high-rise, World Trade Center 7, a 47-story skyscraper which was not hit by an aircraft, yet came down in pure free-fall acceleration for more than 100 feet, a significant fact that NIST has been forced to admit, due to research conducted by AE911Truth petition signers. Other disturbing facts emerging from the forensic evidence include:

* Complete destruction of both Twin Towers in just 10 to 14 seconds at near free-fall acceleration
* Over 100 first-responder reports of explosions and flashes at onset of destruction
* Multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft at 60 mph
* Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking
* 1200-foot-dia. debris field: no "pancaked" floors seen in the debris pile
* Several tons of molten metal found in debris.
* Evidence of advanced explosive nano-thermitic composite material found in the WTC dust by an international team of scientists


AE911Truth's conclusions are shared by thousands of scientists; senior-level military, intelligence and government officials; pilots and aviation professionals; firefighters; scholars and university professors; and 9/11 survivors and their family members. The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial.

The 9/11 Truth Movement, which Time magazine in 2006 called "a mainstream political reality," continues to gain momentum. As AE911Truth's own influence grows, Gage has embarked on well over 130 speaking events, covering 20 states and 13 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. He has been interviewed by media around the world – including the BBC, CBC, NatGeo, and Fox TV.

SOURCE Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20100219/pl_usnw/DC57612_1