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Federal Judge Tosses Part of Patriot Act

By Jeralyn, Section Court Decisions
Posted on Mon Jan 26, 2004 at 03:15:12 PM EST
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The good news today keeps on coming as a Federal Judge rules the Patriot Act provision criminalizing the provision of providing material support to terrorist organizations unconstitutional.

A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.

In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

Here is the full text of the opinion (pdf).

Update: We wrote about the lawsuit in August here. The Judge based her decision today on First Amendment free speech grounds:

The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited, and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," Judge Collins wrote in a ruling issued late Friday.

As a result, the law could be construed to include "unequivocally pure speech and advocacy protected by the First Amendment," wrote the judge, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton.

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