Source: www.scotusblog.com
UNITED STATES, February 2010: On February 23 the Supreme Court heard one hour of oral argument in two consolidated cases, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project et al. (08-1498), and Humanitarian Law Project et al. v. Holder (09-89).
For the past twelve years, Americans who are descendants or supporters of the Tamil people, a linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia with two thousand years of history, have been locked in a courthouse battle with the U.S. government. As the case reaches the Supreme Court, it shapes up as the next major test of the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court examines whether Congress acted unconstitutionally in making it a crime to provide a wide range of support to organizations that the government has blacklisted under anti-terrorism laws passed in 1996, 2001, and 2004. The review of the 2001 provisions brings before the Court, for the first time, the USA Patriot Act — the sweeping law passed by Congress six weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
From the beginning, and still, the legal adversaries have proceeded on totally contradictory perceptions: the Tamil descendants insisting that they only want to provide completely benign aid to a humanitarian cause and, indeed, to encourage non-violence; while the government countered that the groups Tamils want to aid are deeply involved in widespread terrorist violence in Europe and Asia.
(A much more thorough analysis exists at the source.)