On July 28, 2005, in Los Angeles, U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Collins
ruled that a key provision in the USA Patriot Act criminalizing the provision of "expert advice or assistance" to designated foreign terrorist groups is unconstitutional, despite an attempt by Congress to fix the problems in the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act. She also struck down two other key provisions of the bill that ban the provision of "services" and "training" to designated groups.
The case is Humanitarian Law Project v. Gonzales.
continued
As reported by
WaPo:
Even as amended, the statute fails to identify the prohibited conduct in a manner that persons of ordinary intelligence can reasonably understand.
The case centered on two groups, the Liberation Tigers, which seeks a separate homeland for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, and Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan, a political organization representing the interests of the Kurds in Turkey.
Both groups have been designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations.
However, the plaintiffs argued that there was a desperately increased need for aid following the tsunami disaster that devastated Sri Lanka last December. Without a clear definition of what aid is permissible, they said that those who provide assistance could be subject to 15-year prison terms.
According to the Center for Constituional Rights, which brought the case:
The District Court previously found that both the PKK and the LTTE engage in a wide variety of lawful, nonviolent activities, including providing relief to tsunami victims and other important humanitarian relief efforts.
The ruling only merits a "sort of" held unconstitutional, however, because
Collins . . . specified that her ruling applies only to the named plaintiffs and does not constitute a nationwide injunction.