Helping terrorists

The U.S. Supreme Court this week decided to uphold a federal law that makes it a crime to provide any support, even humanitarian training, to groups the United States has designated as terrorist. (Read the decision here.)
To me, this 6-3 decision makes a lot of sense. The three dissenters said the law was meant to apply only to aiding groups in actually committing terrorism, but any aid, even helping one of these groups perform humanitarian acts to build a cover for their real purposes, causes harm.
Interestingly, one of the chief opponents of this law is former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. This Christian Science Monitor story quotes him as saying the law, “actually threatens our work (at the Carter Center) and the work of many other peacemaking organizations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence.”

That sounds a little naive to me. I agree with Richard Samp, chief counsel at the Washington Legal Foundation. He told the Monitor, “When aid is provided for a terrorist group’s humanitarian activities, that frees up resources that the group can then re-allocate to its terrorist activities.”
Groups such as the Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan (PKK) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), do some humanitarian work. They also launch attacks that, in the past, have harmed Americans. Helping them perform humanitarian acts would be kind of like helping Ted Bundy raise money for a women’s shelter.