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U.S. Federal judge strikes down Bush's
terror designations
29.11.2006
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November
29, 2006
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge struck down
President Bush's authority to designate groups as
terrorists, saying his post-Sept. 11 executive order
was unconstitutional and vague, according to a
ruling released Tuesday.
The Humanitarian Law Project had challenged Bush's
order, which blocked all the assets of groups or
individuals he named as "specially designated global
terrorists" after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"This law gave the president unfettered authority to
create blacklists," said David Cole, a lawyer for
the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Constitutional
Rights that represented the group. "It was
reminiscent of the McCarthy era."
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 (PKK), a political
organization representing the interests of Kurds in
Turkey.
U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins enjoined the
government from blocking the assets of the two
groups. Both groups consider the Nov. 21 ruling a
victory; both had been designated by the United
States as foreign terrorist organizations.
Cole said the judge's ruling does not invalidate the
hundreds of other designated terrorist groups on the
list but "calls them into question."
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Department
of Justice, said, "We are currently reviewing the
decision and we have made no determination what the
government's next step will be." A White House
spokeswoman would not comment.
The judge's 45-page ruling was a reversal of her own
tentative findings last July in which she indicated
she would uphold wide powers asserted by Bush under
an anti-terrorism financing law.
She delayed her ruling then to allow more legal
briefs to be filed.
She also struck down the provision in which Bush had
authorized the secretary of the treasury to
designate anyone who "assists, sponsors or provides
services to" or is "otherwise associated with" a
designated group. However, she let stand sections of
the order that penalize those who provide "services"
to designated terrorist groups.
She said such services would include the
humanitarian aid and rights training proposed by the
plaintiffs. The Humanitarian Law Project planned to
appeal that part of the ruling, Cole said.
"We are pleased the court rejected many of the
constitutional arguments raised by the plaintiffs,
including their challenge to the government's ban on
providing services to terrorist organizations,"
Miller said Tuesday. "However, we believe the court
erred in finding that certain other aspects of the
executive order were unconstitutional."
The ruling was still considered a victory, Cole
said. "Even in fighting terrorism the president
cannot be given a blank check to blacklist anyone he
considers a bad guy or a bad group and you can't
imply guilt by association," Cole said.
AP
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