Aid and Comfort to the Enemy

US Law prohibits the "material support or resources" of foreign organizations designated by the State Department to be terrorist organizations.

In the case of the Attorney General v. Humanitarian Law project, The Supreme Court upheld the law in the face of arguments by Humanitarian Law that this prohibition infringed upon their First Amendment rights.

The majority decision correctly held that any American had a First Amendment right to express support for the aims of an organization no matter how odious.  They ruled that this did not apply to the provision of material, expert training or personnel to the organization.

To put it into layman's terms, it is fine for any American to say that the Taliban represented a golden age for Afghanistan but it is illegal to provide personnel, material or expert advice as support for the Taliban.

The remarkable thing about this ruling is that the 6-3 majority brought the 5 conservative justices together with the dean of the liberal wing, Justice John Paul Stevens.  That justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotomayor would uphold a "right" to supply terrorists with material and personnel as a free speech right is shocking and offensive.

Voices of dissent in times of war are often shouted down with accusations that the dissenters are giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy.  That accusation is often used as an unfair and over the top bullying effort to silence dissent.  How remarkable that 3 justices of the Supreme Court would allow for actual aid and comfort to be supplied to the enemy.

It is rare that I applaud Justice Stevens for being on the right side of a SCOTUS ruling.  His presence on the right side of this ruling makes it something other than the usual left-right split on the Supreme Court.  The 3 dissenting justices are left looking ridiculous.