Court Upholds Terrorism Law Secrecy

Justice Department officials and a lawyer for the charity described the ruling as a precedent-setting case that upholds some aspects of the USA Patriot Act and other counter-terrorism measures implemented after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"This is a very significant victory for the administration, [and] not just with regard to organizations accused of having terrorist ties," said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University Law School who has defended many cases involving issues of national security.

Specifically, the three-judge panel of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, sided with a lower court in finding that the government had the right to freeze the assets of the Global Relief Foundation in 2001 because of allegations that it was tied to terrorism -- and to do so without presenting its evidence in a public forum.

"The statute is designed to give the president means to control assets that could be used by enemy aliens," the circuit court panel ruled.

Turley said that before the terrorist attacks, defense lawyers in cases involving national security were given either special clearance to review classified information or specially edited versions of such documents.

But "since Sept. 11, the government has said it would share nothing with defense lawyers," he said. "This is a problem that has become evident in a variety of areas -- the freezing of terrorist assets, the [Zacarias] Moussaoui case, the Guantanamo detainee cases. In all of those areas, the administration has balked at sharing information."

Ironically, he noted, the ruling could undermine the government's argument that it needs military tribunals to try terrorism suspects because federal courts insist that defense lawyers be provided with evidence involving national security issues.

Previously, several lower courts had viewed the government's refusal to share such information "with considerable skepticism," Turley said. That makes this ruling extremely significant, he added, especially since the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is a well-respected middle ground between the conservative 4th Circuit in Virginia and the liberal 9th Circuit in California.