Part of 1996 Anti-Terror Law Overturned (9th Circuit: Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!)

foxnews.com ^ | 12/04/03 | AP

[a_Turk]

My person factors in all sorts of granules and details, but you cannot expect my nation to support your nation if your courts favor folks who kill and maim us by the thousands.. That would be us supporting those killers.

I'll do like a lot of the people who post here and ask: "Where is the outrage? Is this ok by the American people? Must be their moon god makes them do it."

:^D

[thoughtomator]

One issue specific to the LTTE that I am aware of is that the LTTE has (and as far as I am aware, continues) forced villagers in the area under its control to work for them, and kidnapping them. A person thus forced to work for the LTTE against his will still qualifies under the law as having provided "material support". This is one glaring example of why the law as enacted doesn't pass muster.

The proper solution to people on US soil who help our enemies is the use of longstanding laws against treason and sedition. Why we needed this new law when the existing law was sufficient, if only it were enforced, I cannot explain.

[thoughtomator]

The courts don't favor killers. They disfavor a bad law. I know that Turks are smart enough to figure out the difference.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Here's a gem from the opinion: "The Court recognized that a person who is a merely a member of an organization does not necessarily share in the community of intent of the organization."

We can all run out and join al-Qaeda tomorrow and be free and clear as long as we plead ignorance. If you get picked up, just say, "I didn't know al-Qaeda was into anything criminal against America. I thought it was just fun training for a paintball tournament."

[thoughtomator]

How many Catholics support child molestation? And how long do you think it would take for Hillary Clinton to label the Roman Catholic Church a "foreign terrorist organization"?

Passion is good, but you should think this one through.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Yeah, the law as written doesn't provide for context or definition of "personnel" and "training", either. I want to be able to hit terrorists and their supporters, but I don't want to have to declare all Iraqi citizens to be terrorist supporters because they voted for Saddam 100% in the last "election" (or because they did not overthrow Saddam in the last 28 years).

[thoughtomator]

Let's say you were a teacher, and you put up a basic chemistry lesson on the internet as a personal hobby... then let's say, some terrorist uses your lesson as part of teaching someone how to build a bomb... see where this is going?

Bottom line of this decision is this: Intent matters.

[a_Turk]

How many catholix are child molesters?

You realize that the only real way to make the chatholic top echelan clergy fix theirselves is through the threat of losing their taxpayers?

One very important way to defeat terrorism is by seeing to it that folks are severely discouraged from having anything to do with those organizations.

Your court has come out in favor of the PKK, and with full scale ignorance regarding the organization. If you read the transcript of the ruling you'd know...

[a_Turk]

>> yet Turkey rebuffed the first invocation of Article V.

Not so. Quite the opposite. Check your facts.

>> The US Turkey alliance was toast the day Turkey refused to allow passage for US troops into Iraq.

Go back a little. Maybe it was toast when the PKK was campaigning and fundraising unfettered in the USA while they were blowin up schools and department stores in Turkey. Maybe it was toast when your congress blocked arms sales to us while we were at the height of our terror war.

This ruling is pro terror. Stop defending it.

[Senormechanico]

Washington state west of the Cascade mountians is right behind California in its liberal bleating. I hope it falls into the ocean right along with CA. I've got my boat ready.

SM

[a_Turk]

This man knows what the ruling means. Imagine his shame having to be on talks with his ally, while his nation rules in favor of those who would blow the schoolkids of his ally to smitherines.



Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, center, speaks to the media before a meeting with Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, in Gonul's office in Ankara on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003. Gen. Pace held talks with top Turkish military officers on terrorism, cooperation in Iraq (news - web sites), and other issues. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

Meanwhile you are being steered by the likes of this fundamentalist:



Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, speaks at a news conference in Athens in this Wednesday, May 31, 2000 file photo. Christodoulos on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 described Turks as 'barbarians' unworthy of membership of the European Union (news - web sites). (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

Make up your cotton picking minds. Either you are with us, or you're with the bearded lady there..

[Thud]

thoughtomator is right. I'm a California attorney. This statute has problems.

Fox didn't lie, it's just being clueless. The press and media are incapable of accurately reporting any subject involving expertise, sports excepted. Think of them as being as knowledgeable and diligent about legal matters as they are about military matters for a better understanding of how Fox got it wrong.

[freekitty]

I have an idea. Why don't we move the 9th court out to Alcatraz Island and they can practice all the law they want in the middle of ocean and it won't mean a you know what thing?

[marktwain]

Just remember that this law was passed by the Clintonistas, for all the wrong reasons. The libs now see that it can be applied against "them" so they finally see that it was unconstitutional to begin with.

[mrsmith]

They're idiots. The ruling is idiocy.

"...we construe 18 U.S.C. § 2339B to require proof that a person charged with violating the statute had knowledge of the organization’s designation or knowledge of the unlawful activities that caused it to be so designated."

Notice should be sent to the organization, and it should be required to tell any supporters; but publishing the designation in the Register was sufficient notice- that's how these people found out!

"Since the Secretary designated the PKK as a foreign terrorist organization, Humanitarian Law Project has been deterred from assisting Kurds living in Turkey."
No, they've only been deterred from helping the PKK.
A very common, childish even, logical fallacy is involved here.

Can congress outlaw the donation of anything for any reason to a foreign ( I repeat foreign) terrorist ( or non-terrorist!) organization?

Of course it can.

[a_Turk]

I find it difficult to understand how "humanitarian" projects by terrorist organizations are not sinister.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Either you are with us, or you're with the bearded lady there..

If you'd really like for me to choose, I'll pick the Christian "bearded lady" over the Islamic Turkish "barabarian swines" any day of the week. That is if you insist that Conservative Christian Americans have to make that choice. Luckily for you, most Americans don't give a crap about your old world pissing contests.

[a_Turk]

>> That is if you insist that Conservative Christian Americans have to make that choice.

Make the choice. Now.

[siwrcw03]

I choose to stand with Turkey. I remember the heavy and heated debate that went on in Turkey and the strife it would have caused. I was very disappointed in the result, but understand it.
Everyone needs to remember that the Turks were with us in Korea, so they have shed blood in a War that was not theirs.
They are willing to help us in Iraq, but, as someone stated earlier, these 1000000 year old pissing contests have REALLY got to end. It's these blood vendetta's that ruin the world.
Hell, we were attacked by the Japanese, beat the Germans [twice] and now share lots of common ground with them. People need to learn to let it go. What happened 100 or 100000 of years ago just isn't relevant.

oIw
Rick

[thoughtomator]

If you do not give the organization due process, then by extension an individual charged with a violation of the law has also been denied due process and association rights.

For example: The government declares the (hypothetical) Sudan Relief Troupe to be a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Meanwhile, FTO continues to do door-to-door fundraising. FTO members knock on a door, wiggle a coffee can with a coin slot in it, and plead to Homeowner for help for starving children in Sudan. Homeowner knows nothing about the situation, but thinks himself the kind of guy who would pitch in a little bit for said alleged starving children.

Little does Homeowner know that the FTO is on the banned organization list, as this particular FTO doesn't make the evening news! By putting his spare change into the coffee can, Homeowner has now provided "material support" to a FTO.

If the law had stood as is, Homeowner could be convicted of violating the statute. Nobody at any time has to give any evidence to show that Homeowner was aware of the true nature of the organization. What's more, evidence to the contrary would be inadmissible in court as irrelevant.

Since the actual crime these people should be charged with, if the government's policy is that the accused is an accomplice to murder, is that of being an accomplice to murder, that that is the charge that should be proven.

The burden of proof in such a case (and the penalty, as well - why go easy on people you are accusing of helping to murder?) is much higher. One needs to prove that the person had the intent to assist in murder, rather than simply having an association with an alleged murderer (who, by the way, has not been given due process, either). If you give money in response to "help us feed the starving children", it is significantly different than giving money in response to "help us slaughter the infidel".

So what is being outlawed is the very ability to associate - you are a potential criminal unless you are absolutely sure that every person you have ever known is clean, and nothing you have ever done in any context will be put to use by a terrorist. Notice the consistent difference - intent - between innocent and guilty behavior. Congress may not outlaw the former, as the 1st and 5th Amendments prohibit it.