The Cry of "Terrorism" Against Free Speech

In a June 2010 Supreme Court decision - Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project - the court's majority by a margin of 6-3 agreed with the government reasoning that any nonviolent speech or advocacy "coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a "terrorist" organization is a crime under American "anti-terrorism" law.

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The U.S. government now defends the mandate to prosecute anyone who may advocate on behalf of a declared "terrorist" organization. Initially the U.S. government only considered offering material support - money or anything of material use - as being a crime. But the Obama - Obama, to repeat - administration has decided to expand that definition and go after nonviolent organizations who may have a distant connection or coordination with a declared "terrorist" group. The Court's majority opinion wrote that mere coordination constitutes "material support" because advocacy by nonviolent activists may free up a terrorist organization's resources to engage in violence and thus nonviolent speech may be an indirect material support to violent action. Speech could lend "legitimacy" to a terrorist group, which constitutes "material support" the Court added. And, lastly, public speech could allow for the group to feign an end to violence only to rearm during the period.

The reasoning is dubious and patchy and the motivation is often political. The United States does not prosecute all groups equally and does not have a universal definition of "terrorism". What is terrorism is often based on the identity of the victimizers and victims. No matter how many Israeli settlers (to say nothing of occupation soldiers) kill and attack Palestinians and their property, it is not deemed to be terrorism here in the United States and not only are Americans allowed to fund-raise and donate money to illegal settlers (which should be disallowed at least on the premise that the cause aids an internationally prohibitive act which has also been declared as illegitimate by the U.S. government and contrary to American interests) including the most fanatical and terrorizing of settlers at occupied Hebron, but get a tax write-off for their donations therefore making support for Israeli settlers the recipient of taxpayer funded state subsidies.

Israel is not alone. Cuban terrorism is often met with either immunity if not great leniency. And anti-Castro terrorists have been allowed to live and even plot with freedom in Miami.

The basic criterion is this: is the terrorist group or state aligned with American declared goals or do they have powerful benefactors which would make a crackdown against them political toxic? If yes then the United States will turn the proverbial blind eye, if not prepare for heavy hand of the state. America considers Israel an ally and Cuba an enemy. And Israeli settlers have affluent friends which make heavy donations to American politicians and deliver votes in key states. Similarly, the Cuban-American community is well organization (albeit not as much as the Israel lobby) and constitutes a key voting bloc in Florida thus they get to buy political immunity and favor for their endorsed and actual terrorism. There certainly are supporters of Israel and enemies of Cuba which met the necessary condition of providing "material support" to terrorism through their advocacy. But do not wait for the U.S. government to prosecute them.

Just as American prosecution is politically motivated in its inaction, it is predictably politically motivated in its selective efforts. The Supreme Court case - as noted - was brought by Attorney General Eric Holder against the Humanitarian Law Project. HLP was then employing human rights workers to "teach members of the Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish state, how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain relief from the United Nations and other international bodies for human rights abuses by the governments of Turkey." The PKK is a genuine terrorist group. But would the United States be so concerned with going after a human rights group which is just seeking to inform individuals of their rights, which is not an offense since even terrorists have a right to due process (wait...America no longer believes that!) and merely informing some one of their rights is no more aiding terrorism than reading a criminal his Miranda rights constitute complicity in the crime, but to repeat: would it be worth it to go after a domestic human rights groups is the PKK was not attacking Turkey, an American ally?

Likewise, the United States has criminalized one pro-Palestinian group after another on the dubious charge of support for terrorism on behalf of Israel. And the FARC is also a constant target because of the alliance with the Columbian government which right-wing militias and terrorists in Columbia are not a concern.

And, finally, consider this bit of information: the State Department gets to unanimously classify an organization as a terrorist group with neither the findings as evidence nor the decision subject to court review. The government can just declare you a terrorist group and now the Court has decided that any individual who publicly speaks on behalf of a declared terrorist group is committing a crime with the entire process unaccountability and unrestrained and a reflection of authoritarianism.

Even if all of America's selective cases were based against real terrorist organizations, the United States is still politically selective in classification and prosecution which makes mute the pious rhetoric of being opposed to all terrorism.

Terrorist groups of any stripe should not be allowed to operate at fund raising arms in the United States. But simply advocating on their behalf whether human rights console or even justification of terrorism, no matter how heinous, should be a free right here in America. Promotion of violence is a different matter. But justification should be protected by the First Amendment and was until recently.

A farce against free speech!