http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061129/ap_ ... esignation

A federal judge struck down President Bush's authority to designate groups as terrorists, saying his post-Sept. 11 executive order was unconstitutionally 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, 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 declined to immediately comment. At the time of his order creating the list, Bush declared that the "grave acts of terrorism" and the "continuing and immediate threat of future attacks" constituted a national emergency.

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-terror 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.

so did bush violate the constitution or did one of his bills?


if you guys give lenin shit for poorly worded titles, id suspect youd do the same to your own eh

What's the difference?

well i guess some people would say he violated the constitution by fucking it

but i think the better title should be, bushs bill violates constitution

Again, what's the difference? If his bill violates the Constitution then he violated it by creating and implementing the executive order. He might as well have whipped it out and spooged all over the thing for the fiftieth time.

To be fair, I doubt c_b was the one making such complaints about LeninFlux.

hence why i said, you guys

I misread your post. But c_b isn't one of us. He works for the devil.

Why would one want to defend the Tamil Tigers or the PKK? Is every little ethnic group somehow entitled to a homeland, and that struggle necessitates killing civilians? Yo no comprendo.

Yeah, that's like saying I didn't kill the guy, but the gun did.

little?

Would you rather defend the PKK or Turkey? Is every little country entitled to repress and murder minorities?

If, God forbid, we lose a city to a Terrorist Organization, we will look back at bullshit like this and realize that groups such as "The Humanitarian Law Project" do nothing but undermine our government's efforts to combat Terror.

There's a difference between legitimate resistance and terrorism. Yes, Turkey is fucked, but that doesn't justify all of the PKK's actions, nor does Indonesian repression justify Tamil suicide bombing. What came first, the sepratist movement or the repression? It doesn't really matter as they both feed off of each other, as the excesses of both parties are used to justify those of their opponent. The point is, these groups shouldn't be getting funding from anyone regardless of the merits of their cause and their perceived grievances because of their tactics. Hell, you're more of a pacifist than I, so I don't know why you would suggest that these groups should have unfettered funding.

Well, I don't suggest such a thing. But I do think they are indeed the little guy. I don't buy the importance of the which came first question, as I don't believe a separatist movement is inherently a bad thing. There have been and are completely legitimate, peaceful separatist movements involved in both these countries that have been subject to the same marginalization. And to me, state violence and state terrorism (which both Turkey and Indonesia undoubtedly practice) is a much bigger deal than a perhaps well-funded group of ragtag crazy people.

But I agree, there is a difference between legitimacy and whatever word you want to use for illegitimacy. I wouldn't use terrorism because I think many forms of terrorism are completely legitimate, but if you want to use it that's fine. However, that difference has to be clearly defined, and to argue it has been clearly defined by the United States is a very difficult thing to do.

I definitely agree that there should be a process through which we determine which organizations are not legitimate. I'm not a big fan of arbitrary edicts by the exectuve, or any governmental body for that matter.

At the moment Turkey seems to be something of a liability with Iraq in regards to the idea of a Kurdish state. I understand their concerns about a restive Kurdish population, but I don't see how they can maintain this conflict with the PKK and have any hopes of entering the EU. What is the end game for this? I'm not very up to date on the happenings, but is there any hope of a peace accord, or are the happenings in Iraq merely bolstering the PKK and giving them greater impetus to expand the struggle?

It isn't just the PKK. There have been a few legitimate Kurdish political parties, that is, parties outwardly representing Kurdish interests, disbanded by the national government. Kurds still have essentially no cultural or political rights as Kurds. The language restrictions are not as repressive as they once were, but Kurdish still can't be taught in schools or used in any official capacity.

Basically, it still doesn't look as if Turkey will recognize even a moderate Kurdish political movement. And I'm not talking about moderate separatist parties either. Turkey would throw an absolute hissy fit if Iraqi Kurdistan was set free and given its own state, but what would it do? Honestly, it doesn't have much leverage as it didn't take part at all in the war effort, has nowhere near enough military capability to challenge the US on the point, and has membership in the European Union within its sights. It isn't going to ally itself with Iran or Syria in a regional fight against the US, so I think if the US pushed a three state solution Turkey would eventually be forced to acquiesce to it.

Theoretically, we're NATO allies, so it is an odd situation where we could have Turkey threatening a dependent state of the U.S. (Iraqi Kurdistan). Needless to say, that part of the world is pretty fucked up, no?