Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project; Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder

The Supreme Court has agreed to take its first look at the often controversial USA PATRIOT Act, deciding whether portions of the law that make it a crime to provide "material support or resources" to designated terrorist groups are unconstitutional.

The Humanitarian Law Project filed a lawsuit, arguing that five groups and two U.S. citizens were threatened with 15 years in prison for seeking to provide support for lawful, nonviolent activities on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Turkey.

U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins found these portions of the act were too vague on matters involving training, expert advice or assistance, personnel and service to foreign terrorist organizations.

In December 2007, a unanimous three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling that the ban on "material support or resources" could be used to prosecute those who train members of such groups about peaceful resolution of ongoing disputes or lobbying the United Nations for disaster relief.

In order to survive a vagueness challenge, the 9th Circuit said a statute "must be sufficiently clear to put a person of ordinary intelligence on notice that his or her contemplated conduct is unlawful."

The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to review the case.

"Many of those prosecutions potentially prevented substantial harm to the nation," Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote in asking the justices to take the case.

On Sept. 30, the Supreme Court granted certiorari. The justices will likely schedule oral arguments for sometime in early 2010.

Question presented: Issue: Whether 18 U.S.C. 2339B(a)(1), which prohibits the knowing provision of “any *** service, *** training, [or] expert advice or assistance,” to a designated foreign terrorist organization, is unconstitutionally vague; Whether the criminal prohibitions in 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)(1) on the provision of “expert advice or assistance” “derived from scientific [or] technical … knowledge” and “personnel” are unconstitutional with respect to speech that furthers only lawful, nonviolent activities of proscribed organizations.